Would you pull over for this view? I did! Mostly so I could snap this photo for you.
Aren’t these daylilies glorious? Here in the southern Appalachians, they’re popping out everywhere in grassy ditches along country roads. As predictable as the turn of the calendar, this is the apricot marmalade color of June in the mountains. Hemerocallis fulva. Wild beauty at its best.
As I whiz past in my car, those sudden pops of tangerine make my heart sing. I know they’re “invasives,” introduced species that have escaped to the wild, species that don’t belong here. I’ve got to be honest with you: I don’t care. I love them.
Against all odds—DOT mowers, exhaust fumes, litterers tossing beer cans out their window—these untamed lovelies bloom like crazy, thriving in narrow strips of worn-out soil. They’re oblivious to climate change, to habitat destruction, to all the reasons they shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t still be thriving year after year. Wild and free.
Laaaaa! (That’s me, singing an ode to the wild lilies as I drive past.)
Surely one of summer’s signal delights is the abundance of plants that spring up at the side of the road. What do you see where you live? Here it’s the orange ditch lilies, but also the cheerful faces of black-eyed susans and the tiny florets of dandelion and clover.
My favorites, though, are Queen Anne’s lace and elderberry. Both of those roadside belles stand tall and nod at you with their delicate lace-draped heads as you drive past.
Here’s a lone elderberry bush that escaped mowing next to a pasture in the valley where I live.
Can you see the drunken pollinators diving into those frilly white umbrels? Elderberry heaven!
Of course, wildflowers aren’t the only roadside delights you’ll see in summertime. There’s also fauna.
Right next to this elderberry bush, on the other side of the fence, was my neighbor Sam’s handsome herd of Red Devon cattle. These lengthening days of early summer have grown the pasture grass tall. When I walked up to the fence to take a photo, I could hear Sam’s free-range cows munching audibly on the buffet—even those adorable calves.
Then there’s the fauna I’ve discovered recently on my own driveway. Today, when Jim and I came home from a rare visit to the city, a doe leaped right in front of our car as we neared the house. She sprinted across the driveway and dove into the woods on the other side.
Beauty in motion. Grace before our very eyes.
“Ohhhhhh!” I think we both said, in unison. It was one of those moments that locks itself sweetly into your memory banks.
Then there’s the turtle who brought me hope. It happened a couple of days ago, when I was wrestling with the badness of the world and the awful ways human beings treat each other. Again, we were coming home down our rain-slick driveway, the mountains dripping wet all around us.
I saw something on the asphalt ahead of us. Round and dark. We stopped the car. I got out.
“Please take a picture,” I said to Jim.
I will always brake for moments like this. I bet you do, too.
Long live the wild beauties. Including the one named Jeanne.
We need a bumper sticker to warn those tail gaters what we’re doing. 🤣