Monday, August 03, 2009

Cluster's Last Stand

Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Dancer, Do

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON


This huge bush of yellow daisies is a great colour spot in the winter garden at Casa Authorblog. When little else flowers as the frost and ice thwart us, these daisies bloom as if their life depends on it.

Now, with only four weeks to go until spring arrives, the daisies have finally started to look a bit the worse for wear. As the newly-pruned rose bushes start to show new, tentative growth, these yellow beauties are in turn starting to show their age.

In a couple of weeks, we'll prune them back, savagely, as we always do. And next autumn they will sprout defiantly, reminding us that they will be back in all their golden glory when the nights get so much shorter and so much colder.


Visit Luiz Santilli Jr for the home of Today's Flowers.

35 comments:

SandyCarlson said...

The nature of your seasons intrigues me, David. These are gorgeous. Just the light to have here in Connecticut on a quiet, rainy Sunday.

Ebie said...

Lovely colors! Can I say the rise and fall of the daisies?

Tammie Lee said...

So wonderful how they return and return. So full of life. Oh, 4 weeks till your spring, 4 till our fall.

Spirithelpers

Misty DawnS said...

My dad used to always bring me flowers when he'd come for a visit in the Winter. He'd usually stop at a store and find an inexpensive, small potted flower that I could put on my kitchen windowsill. He said that it was good for the emotional health to have something alive and blooming to look at in the middle of Winter.

Eleonora Baldwin said...

Something about dasies makes me feel like a small child again. Lovely "reality" in that first image.

Ciao
Lola xx

Saz said...

Aw, thank you, you have brought back a lovely memory of my NANA with that song..

Nessa said...

Daisies are such a happy, sunny flower. They always make me smile.

DeniseinVA said...

Your yellow daisies are still beautiful even in decline.

Rune Eide said...

Golden glory indeed - I'm green with envy...

LadyFi said...

Wow... I never realized that those lovely yellow things were daisies!

Deanna Bland Hiott PhD, MSN, RN said...

I love flowers. Don't you love how they all kind of have little personalities....

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

David: The beauty of the Daisy can truly be seen.

secret agent woman said...

Very cheery. I have a shrub with little pibnk flowers that gets cut literally to the ground every winter, and grows back each year to well above my head.

Kathy W said...

Daisies always makes me smile. Very cheery. =)

imac said...

Ah, we have a Percy Thrower from Australia.lol.

Maggie May said...

Beautiful flowers and a song that was going in my Mum or possibly grandma's day. Will have to find out!

Daryl said...

Actually, its:

''Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do; I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It wont be a stylish marriage, I cant afford a carriage but you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.''


its about a proposal not a dance ..silly...

Pseudo said...

Absolutly love the last daisy shot. It is screaming to me to et outside and go for a walk already.

Digital Flower Pictures said...

I love Daisies for their simplicity and classic beauty. Sometimes a little pain (hard pruning) is just what the doctor ordered.

Sylvia K said...

Beautiful daisies! I love that warm yellow! What a bright spot they would create anywhere.

i beati said...

Happiness abides with daisies I do believe

Mia N said...

Lovely Daisys, yellow is a good color.

Pat - Arkansas said...

How lovely to have had a spot of cheery yellow to brighten the garden during the transition from winter to spring.

Shelley Munro said...

I liked the photos. Personally, I can't wait for some sunshine. It's been way too cold in Auckland this year, and I'm enjoying the hint of spring in the air.

Rosaria Williams said...

Daisies in winter? I'm speechless.

Janie said...

They're beautiful, and strong to keep blooming through the winter.

Kathleen said...

Savagely? Defiantly? I don't believe I've heard such terms used in gardening before. I must be terribly naive! But it certainly sounds fun!

Deb said...

Interesting that your daisies bloom through your winter while ours bloom all summer, sometimes into fall. I love their simplicity. When I was little, we would sit and pull their petals off, one at a time...'he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me...' nice memories stirred by this photo.

Mariana Soffer said...

Beautifull flowers you have there, my comment is kind of ockward, it is due to the fact that the post is called Cluster's Last Stand, and I am happening to do a program that clusterizes flowers, in my case I started with the iris kind, but the intersting things of this clusterization is that it is not done normally with regular sets and regular distances like the euclidean one, it is done with fuzzy sets and distances luke minkowsky which is not the one we are used to now. For more details about the flowers I am working with check:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_flower_data_set

Linda Pendleton said...

Beautiful flowers, my favorite along with roses.

Shadow said...

like you i'm counting the days to spring. and keeping my beady little eye open for any early sign thereof.... nice spot of yellow there!

Reader Wil said...

These flowers are also found in my country. I've always liked all sorts of daisies. I like gerberas best of all.

mimi said...

love the yellow flowers.

Joanna Jenkins said...

A yard filled with these would be amazing!
Lovely, just lovely.

Arija said...

Baisy bushes always give a great splash of colour.