A second spring

The light was nice yesterday afternoon so I took these flower pictures. When the September rain starts, gardeners in the Northwest enjoy what they call a "second spring."   This summer wasn't just dry, it was a record-breaking drought, and not a great year for flowers in our yard. 

Everything is making up for lost time.  The roses have a final bloom and the dahlias are at their peak.  The biggest one is over six feet tall. Oh boy, I can hardly wait until that flops over in October and has to be dragged off.  But right now, spectacular.

The grass that looked so totally, utterly dead a month ago is green as can be. The weeds are growing too.   Ditto the bamboo roots.  It's my job to snip off the culms as soon as they appear, so I go on bamboo patrol with my clippers every couple of days.  They are sneaky and fast. The roots invaded most of the back yard, but now they've been "disconnected" from their monster nourishing mother plant.  According to Bruce (the bamboo expert) the roots will eventually give up and die if the new growth is thwarted again and again.  So you see, this a battle of wills.

There's also a saying that "autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower." Our society is all about youth and beauty, but how do we embrace the autumn of our lives and and find inner beauty with age and experience?