On the Road Again

At first I wanted to call this new post "Lost and Found."  I'd received an email from my St. Louis friend Dianne O'Connell that summed up the second part of that concept.

"I thought you would find something," she wrote, "...one usually does when you look for it."

Yes, she's right. We're on our way back to Montana, to start refurbishing the bungalow that we "found" on an earlier trip. We purchased it just last week!

But we haven't really "lost" anything yet, certainly not St. Louis. Not yet. We're keeping the big old duplex that we spent years converting to a lovely single-family home and garden there. We will be to-ing and fro-ing this fall, winter and next spring. I want to make sure that my St. Louis garden gets properly put to bed for cold weather. And I need to plant the bags of great bulbs that I ordered from my favorite not-for-profit group, Brightside St. Louis (brightsidestl.org). I also must be in STL in spring, when the  perennial beds surrounding my backyard patio and lawn look their best -- all manicured, mulched, with foliage in a sweet spring green. Family and friends also need to be seen, of course, and their trips to visit us in the mountainous West scheduled and planned!!

For now, however -- today, on highways that are decidedly westward in direction -- I am obsessed with fall and its color and the wild "gardens" that we see along highways. 

First, there is color starting to show in northern Missouri.

An egg-yolk-yellow Compass Plant catches my attention at a rest stop.

Longer view of Compass, following the sun.

Native purple asters shine among grasses at the side of the road.

A hickory tree explodes with color against a clear fall sky.

Fall color of another sort, yellow cables, make good time on the Interstate.

So do ones of a bright pumpkin orange.

Salvia 'West Texas Form'

And as we're rolling along, I get an email from a favorite St. Louis area garden center, Cottage Garden in Piasa, Ill. (www.cottgardens.com). "We have some special autumn blooming plants," writes owner Chris Kelley, "chief among them Salvia 'West Texas Form' offering its lovely cobalt and sky blue flowers on wispy three foot stems throughout fall." Yet another stunning hue to add to my fall palette.

But our stop for the night -- Mitchell, S.D. -- brings with it an astonishing interpretation of the colors found in the fall staple that is Indian corn. A local farmer grows and hybridizes various types especially for Mitchell's famous Corn Palace (www.cornpalace.org). We had to take a look.

Workers nail newly harvested ears of corn (cut in half lengthwise) in patterns drawn by a S.D. artist.

All feature sports themes -- tennis, soccer, hockey, basketball.

But the closer you get to the tennis girl, the more stunning are the yellows, reds, rusts and black colors of fall!