Why garden? Here's a good reason...troutlily ballet

Erythronium umbilicatum

 Of course, growing wonderful plants like trout lilies is an excellent reason to garden--but the point I'd REALLY like to make is that every plant we grow is not an inert thing--like an idealized painting on a wall. It's something that morphs and changes constantly. These four pictures were taken over the course of a day or two--notice how utterly different the same plant is in different lights, and how it changes!

Still..Erythronium umbilicatum

I hasten to acknowledge Tim Alderton--the amazing horticulturist at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum at North Carolina state: he sent me the bulbs of this species I'm growing (and white forms too, which did not come back, sadly)...(hint, hint Tim...). This picture is a tad out of focus..sorry. But then sometimes we're all a bit out of focus.

Erythronium umbilicatum in sleepy early morming mode

 This is the way they look when visitors come late in the day or in cloudy weather.

Erythronium umbilicatum

 And here, a bit bleached out by our searing steppe sun. It never ceases to amaze me that a wildflower native to the milder Southeastern United states is adapting and clumping up in Colorado, while our native glacier lily (which it resembles) is fussy and hard to grow.

Nature is inconsistent, infinitely variable and doesn't care about performing to our expectations or demands. And we better like it!

I do wish that after a week of summery weather, the early fruit trees in perfect bloom (apricots, almonds, some cherries and plums and Callery pears--which are planted everywhere in Denver and I've never seen a seedling crop up anywhere, incidentally), I dread  next week (starting tonight) with nights dipping into the mid teens and day temperatures not above freezing on some days.

I better go pluck some hyacinths and daffodils for bouquets.