After the Rain

After two days of steady rain the lushness and vibrancy of my backyard (as well as peeks of the blessed sun) called me to walk and SEE - the cheekiness of this salvia,

the saturated color in my first non-Stella de Oro-daylily,

the sudden appearance of dozens of opening buds on my St. John's Wort,

the rain droplets, like silver beads, decorating the leaves on everything, but especially the bay magnolia,

and the "secret garden" aspect of some of the shadier parts of the yard and the appearance of even more blooming hyrangea flowers...I believe that my garden plants, after a nourishing rest, have come out to play and dance in the sunlight.
"...the plant is, to a landscape artist, not only a plant - rare, unusual, ordinary or doomed to disappearance - but it is also a color, a shape, a volume or an arabesque in itself. "

Roberto Burle Marx