Posts

Showing posts from April, 2011

Southern Comfort

Image
I have struggled over the years to grow wisteria. Several attempts have failed and other times we have moved on before we could enjoy the lush blossom of this climbing vine as they take up to seven years to produce their first blooms. This year we have been in the "Deep South" of the US for several weeks and have delighted in so many southern comforts of which wisteria is but one. Time and again we were confronted on the journey by strands of trees that had been colonised by climbing wisteria. In some cases the vines reached up over thirty or forty feet. The cascades of deep violet blossoms seemed to hang like curtains in the treetops draping the sprouting new green leaves in soft pendulous swags.  There is such beauty in the South. The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and the soft hills of the Piedmont North Carolina that stretched out before us when we woke up one morning gladdened the heart.  Bird life abounds from the ubiquitous black vultures to the majestic soaring of