Lily Of The Valley @ MindSay 
May's flower is the lily of the valley, a beautiful and tiny flowered perennial ground cover with a heavenly perfume. Sadly it's a later spring flower that's all but forgotten come the heat of summer! Still their short, sweet visit is well worth saving a shady corner of the garden to plant them in! Ours greet us at the front door and when they're in full bloom around the middle to the end of May, we enjoy their beauty and fragrance while they last.
Lily of the valley grows along the walkway leading to our front door, greeting visitors and family with a pretty sight and a heavenly perfume!
This is a lovely macro shot of a young flower stem, the green tones
in the shot seem soft and cool, creating a gentle mood.
My grandmother was born in May and always grew them in her gardens. My daughter was also born in May and since she was about 6 years old I've been growing them to carry on the tradition, transplanting them to wherever we were living at the time until finally planting them at her very own house years later!
We featured them in my daughter's wedding as well - they made beautiful bouquets.
White Roses and Lily of the Valley made a gorgeous bouquet!
(While it was raining and still too cool to work in the garden I used the time to scan some of the photographs from Sue's wedding day, 5 years ago. This is a very close view so the resolution isn't perfect but the soft edges give the image a nice touch! A great project for me on rainy days!)
The bridesmaids bouquets were simple and sweet.
(the little flower girl is Sue's best friend's daughter, Nya)
Lily-of-the-valley, or, botanically speaking;
Genus Convallaria, Family Liliaceae
A fully hardy rhizomatous perennial. Great as a ground cover with the most exquisite fragrance when flowering. Usually comes to bloom by mid-May here in southern Ontario.
There's a lot of good reasons to plant these sweet little flowers in a garden. In our family that is especially true. My Grandmother and my daughter were both born in May - Lily of the valley is considered the flower for May. A good friend of mine tells me that when he lived in France as a boy they celebrated Mayday...and often lily of the valley is featured in their celebrations. The picture shows the bed of the lilies surrounded by another pretty and fragrant plant called alyssum. We planted the bed right beside the front entryway to our house. When blooming the fragrance of these flowers is a beautiful "Welcome" when walking to and from our front door.
Temperature 23C (about 74F) Humidity 53%
Barometer 102.6 and falling, Winds Easterly at 17km/h
I'm begining to notice the shortening of the days in our garden. The sun waited until nearly 7 this morning to kiss the tops of the birch trees in the front yard! Some trees are begining to show changes in colour in the countryside near where I live, though it is only a "hint" of what is yet to come. I think we'll have a good fall provided none of the predicted hurricanes make it up this far! They don't usually - but that's not saying much anymore!
Beans and pickling cucumbers are being picked daily now and there's finally a blush of deep purple on my concord grapes! They are impressive plants - grapevines - and I have enjoyed learning about growing them...If you're lucky I might even share my grape jam recipe with you - but it is so far - a guarded secret!
I'd like to share a liitle something I wrote up just after I'd returned from a week of camping at the beach...Being so very relaxed I found myself very open to inspiration;
Holding Your Mirror
Excuse me, oh, dear... can I hold that for you? Would it be helpful if I held it here or would you like me to raise it this way? However way you wish it, just let me know.
And the person replied - oh why bother? I won't or can't see myself anyway...
Well let me tell you why...because you don't even believe in what you see. Do you know you are beautiful? No, there's nothing wrong with me and, no, I'm not sight impaired in any way. I am simply stating a very real fact. And the fact that you wish to not believe me is the reason I wish to hold that mirror...because I know beyond a doubt that you are an incredible human being - even if you can't quite recognize it.
Remember the song "everything is beautiful"? Though simple and almost childlike in it's philosophy the message is a very important one that too often falls on deaf ears. Often, in these "modern" days, adults ascribe the types of feelings expressed in the song to children only and don't allow themselves the same respect and admiration... Why is that? Why must a human adult be an ugly thing in comparrison to a human baby?
What happened to that person as they grew to adulthood? What did they lose that made their charm seem to disappear? Nothing, not a thing at all!
Human adults often simply no longer choose to believe it, and they assume they are correct because they are now so wise. And dear wise adult - why is it difficult to see the true beauty in your next door neighbour, your boss, your government representative?
Well before you start bellowing out the obvious - about how horrid the world is around us, about how disgusting the actions of some adults can be, about how ugly death and destruction and war and turmoil and obesity or starvation are...before you spend great effort attempting to convince me otherwise - I will tell you that I understand your impressions and comprehend why you might think the world appears so ugly. I will not argue that these things do not exist...But I will argue that things may not be as obvious as the impression of ugliness seems to make it appear.
First, remember the saying; "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder." It is important to remember this information and to understand what it really means; beauty is relative to the one observing. Beauty is a judgment. Judgment is an action that isolates and supposedly "defines" some "thing". Judgments are based on what a person BELIEVES to be true about the world around him or her. Judgment is very personal and uniquely individual. All of that in a nutshell is the essence of the saying!
Perhaps the problem boils down just to the word judgment itself...For truly a child is judged as well in this instance...a child is judged to be "innocent" and "beautiful" almost automatically - for obvious reasons but still it is a judgment - a prejudice if you can follow me...Just as often people will view "little old ladies" as "cute" and "innocent"...Yet for the balance of that person's life, in between infancy and infirm, they are subjected to fierce judgments, many self imposed, on a daily basis.
There are judgments placed upon you all around...and the least productive of all are the ones we either aim at ourselves, believing for some reason we are less than worthy somehow, or we bring upon ourselves by fearing what "other people might think". Some live for this approval, like well trained puppy dogs!
Please let me hold that mirror for you just a moment longer, because perhaps now you can see something else, ever so slight, a slipping off the rim there - a fleeting understanding that, maybe, it's worthwhile to be kinder to yourself!
Life is our dance. Live simply, live well and laugh a lot!:D
Cheryl ;)