Finding Joy in the Garden

If the monsoon is generous, as it has been, Tucson is blessed with an abundant second bloom of our summer flowers.  

The hanging basket is sporting an impressive beard. 

The zinnias, after a serious haircut, rewarded me 

and the birds. 

But the show stopper,  grown from a small seed,  smiles at us from every room in the house. 

For scale, that's a 4' wall, on the far side of the far side of the back yard. 

It's special from a distance,  but up close,  it's spectacular

That was two days ago, in the morning. As the sun comes up, light sneaks around the corner of the garage and she turns her face to greet it.

I left my oatmeal to capture her joy.  This afternoon,  just before it rained, she looked a little forlorn. 

Can you see the whorls? I spent a lovely time with them this afternoon,  remembering TBG  and Big Cuter talking about the math of it all, and how it led us to a conversation about the convergence of belief and reality and prove-ability and how did the plants figure that out, anyway?

The seed pods are angled so that each one receives the maximum amount of sun.  Counting them reveals that the individual swirls touch one another using The Golden Ratio and Fibonacci numbers. 

If you're a gardener lucky enough to have one nearby,  it's mesmerizing.  If not, feel free to stare for a while at that smiley face.  I made it the home screen on my phone.