Summer Views From the Patio

Fallen rose petals lie at the feet of an old rusty rabbit near the patio. Summer is here. Today the official heat index was 98 and felt hotter than that. I don't like summer. Voles have been snacking in my garden again. Today I lost two mature Nandina 'Firepower' shrubs to them. Mildew has found my dogwoods and crepe myrtles. Every year I try to persuade myself to love summer, but the best I can do is to tolerate it. 

Despite my perennial complaints, the garden doesn't look bad. We have had enough rain, and the plants are lush. The landscape is layered with deep greens and jewel tones. Even in the mornings it is too steamy to venture outside for long, but here is a report of what is happening on and near the patio:

Okay, I love summer, after all. Look at my red banana plant!

Above: Pink 'Anthony Waterer' spirea, blue flowering 'Lady in Red' hydrangeas, and common day lilies, which have grown here for over a half century, provide some nice color in the garden adjacent to the patio.

Hydrangeas are blooming now. 'Endless Summer' has striking blue color, proof of our acid soil! The variegated plant in the pot is daphne.

Some more hydrangeas — 'Waterfall' is an unusual one growing at the base of a dogwood tree:Annuals on the patio will provide color through the season, as long as I remember to water and fertilize them.The Talavera lizard above is a nod to the real anole lizards who inhabit the patio every summer. I took the first photo of the lantern below before I realized there was a lizard lookout perched atop the pole. Lou tells me he is there every day.

Something of an oddity, a white poinsettia, left over from the Christmas season, is spending the summer on the patio. It still has its bracts and is now putting on new growth:

One more thing from the patio: I have a little iron bowl ornament, and I have had a hard time finding the perfect place for it. Then one day recently I set it on my penny table, and now it has a home. It looks great with the pennies, and it allows plenty of room for a book and a very cold drink when I am sitting in the adjacent lounge chair.

 Be cool!

Sloss Furnaces: A Blast From the Past

During the 19 century, the earth birthed the city Birmingham, Alabama. Jones Valley was rich in iron ore, coal, and limestone, the elements for making iron, and Birmingham became the major industrial center in the southern US. Its population grew so rapidly from 1881 to 1920, that it became known as the Magic City.

Sloss Furnaces, consisting of two 2400 ton blast furnaces and a collection of 40 other buildings, is silent now, echoing with specters of the past. Birmingham is no longer noted for its industry but for its world class medical facilities. However, when I was a child, Sloss was still a working furnace, and I remember looking down into it from a highway overpass. One could see the fires and lava-like streams. I always thought it looked like the entrance to Hell, an opinion that may have been shared by the men who sweated and slaved in the furnace.

Old Sloss is now a national landmark, and its facilities are used for festivals, concerts, metal workshops and art exhibitions. It is open throughout the year to tourists, and self guided tours are free. Earlier this year my family walked through the behemoth. I wasn't interested in the process of making iron; I was prepared to be bored. However, the sculptural qualities of the buildings amazed me. The workmanship is both age-old and futuristic. You may wonder why I am posting this on my garden blog, but Sloss is the epitome of man's harness of nature, so there is a connection!

Here are a few of the photos I took. I hope you see some of the fascinating details I marveled over in person.

Sloss was a dangerous place to work, and men died here. There are tales that it is haunted. By this guy?No, that is my husband!

By this guy?Definitely! At Halloween, it doesn't take much to turn Sloss into Birmingham's best haunted house.

Look below and you will find some garden tools, though I doubt they were used for planting marigolds!Sometimes it's hard to tell what is original to Sloss and what is more recently added sculpture:

The same day we visited Sloss we also visited Vulcan, the world's largest cast iron statue. Vulcan is the Roman god of fire and the forge, and the statue was Birmingham's entry in 1904's world's fair in St. Louis. Today Vulcan overlooks Birmingham from his perch high on Red Mountain, so named because of its iron ore. Using a telephoto setting, I took this post's first photo of Sloss from an observation deck located just below Vulcan's feet.

Vulcan stands with his hammer and anvil and holds a spearpoint. While an apron covers his front, his backside is sometimes the butt of jokes, especially by those who live in the genteel community directly behind him. Ahem!

And that, I think, is a good end to this post!

You may also want to read my post about a wonderful cottage garden planted on the premises of Sloss Furnaces: Grandmother's Garden at Sloss Furnaces