Summer is yellow.
The succession of yellow flowers in summer is an affirmation of nature, beckoning a visit and a celebration of the moment. Here are yellow flowers directly seen and enjoyed this summer!
The earliest yellow flower to appear is the daffodil, emerging as soon as spring shakes off some of its cold and the sun beckons. Once planted as bulbs, how long will they continue to rise spontaneously in future years? Daffodils appearing in waning snow is a triumphant image! The daffodil was originally called narcissus, associated with the Greek myth that indirectly imputes a vanity to the flower’s will to attractiveness. How else to explain the connection between the ancient story of the young man gazing admiringly gazing at himself in the reflection of a pond and getting his name assigned to a flower! Narcissus (the person) must have been a bother to get along with. Truly, the flower is innocent of human vanities. Alas, the daffodil does not last long. It expends all its effort through a few weeks and just a little more before withering and dying. This sudden decline can be startling.
A rapid successor to daffodil is coltsfoot. When winter snow melts into mud, the tiny coltsfoot appears. Cultivated, coltsfoot grows a little larger, but wild it adapts to limiting circumstances and retains its modesty, a contrast to daffodil. Coltsfoot definitively announces the end of winter and the coming of spring, but does so almost imperceptively to the careless eye.
As coltsfoot wanes, dandelion emerges. Why do householders resent dandelion? The month of May in certain places is designated “No mow May” because those who nurture vast and insipid spaces of mono-cultured grass resent the appearance of dandelions and must be urged to patience. Dandelions are to be celebrated for their assertiveness, especially against the contrivance of those insipid lawns. The robust yellow flower is attractive and spreads vigorously. Matured, the florets turn into wispy white seedheads ready to blow away to discover new grounds, spreading to assure perennial success in the cycle of being.
The next yellow successor is the buttercup, which combines bright yellow petals in cup-shape to attract tiny bees. Or, at least, that seems their purpose. The very name of buttercup has been abused by chauvanistic insult. Bad enough, but the name (and color) is further associated with an animal product as well. The lowly yellow flower is treated with presumptuousness. Perhaps the notorious Narcissus originated the abusive use of the word “buttercup.”
Another yellow flower is the pansy. Pansies appear early in summer. They represent a stereotypical yellow flower, their regularity being a staple of colorful gardens and their hardiness a mark of constancy. Pansies may be too conventional for some exotic tastes but why should nature not be regular and dispense with the exotic? Pansies are quiet, confident, and reassuring.
A series of yellow-buttoned flowers, including the common daisy, switches the emphasis of yellowness from petals to centers or buttons. The expected obverse are flowers that display a dark button or center with brilliant yellow petals, such as Rudbeckia or black-eyed Susan. This year, because of warmer temps, the black-eyed Susan has already appeared, about a month earlier than in the past.
Another brilliant yellow flower is calendula, part of the aster family and further identified as a marigold. Calendula did not reappear this year. Admittedly, calendula can grow large, and orange calendula can look pompous and out of place in a modest garden. Similarly, too, sunflowers can take over the garden’s attention, except the more retiring perennial, which is smaller, simpler, and less colorful than, say, Van Gogh’s magnificent field sunflowers. Smallersunflowers can lack the spontaneity of the wilder, bigger counterparts. The smaller sunflowers is pale and seems to emerge simply out of courage.
A favorite yellow flower is the hardy arnica, with its historical association with health and healing, which lends the flower a certain panache. Arnica are bright, hardy, not too big, and a harbinger of good feeling, ever welcome in garden and beyond.
Finaly, then: mullien, the exotic of all the yellows. Mullien is considered a source of healthful benefit, but most people who use (for example) mullien oil may never have seen a mullien plant. The mullien’s appearance is certainly odd: a dense set of large thick green leaves at its base, called a rosette, from which ascends a branchless vertical pillar or stem of pale green, reaching a height of two meters or six feet! And keeps growing! Then, from atop the stem emerges a crowning spike adorned by small yellow flowers. This strange plant appears only biennially (every second year). Curiously, mullien appeared on the east side of the lot two years ago, and now on the south side. Another trick of mobility (if not birds or bees)! The sudden appearance of mullien, especially growing so quickly, is startling, intimidating, to be begrudged, perhaps, not hailed, given its odd appearance. Even its flowers, growing suddenly from miniaturized to not very full, are startling and not endearing. If nature has its quirks, then mullien is certainly one of them.
Two later-blooming yellow flowers are St. John’s Wort (or Hypericum), and goldenrod. Hypericum have the high honor of being a potent relaxant, but is often only to be seen by the industrious hiker in the depths of pine forests, not in home gardens, although its appearane would make an attractive garden addition. Why be confined to the forest, anyway? Nowadays some authorities want to decry St. John’s Wort as invasive, which only means that in the absence of another plant, this plant accommodates itself in the new space. Invasiveness has an ugly political sense; when nature provides a dwelling place, why exclude it?
Lastly is goldenrod, traditionally maligned as a ragweed or allergent. This is completely in error, and those perpetuating the myth should probably not be listened to as a source on aesthetics, either. Goldenrod appears in very late summer or in the first days of autumn, but as the planet warms, goldenrod makes its appearance far earlier. Slender stalks of six feet high or so emerge without fanfare, then yellow flowers attracting bees and insects follow. Besides their brilliant yellow, their attraction of pollinators is itself a commendation. Goldenrod fills empty spaces with a splendid presence.
Such, then, is yellow summer in one disparate flower garden. All of this flowering illuminated by, of course, the yellow of sunlight, which gives life to all.
Happy yellow summer!