Figure 1 – Trumpet vines, Sudbury, MA. July 2019. (c) DE Wolf 2019

The end of each July, I wait for and celebrate the coming of the trumpet vines, Campsis radicans, and their marvelous orange blossoms. I saw them first years ago during a hot summer in Ohio and now have them in my own garden.  Like true trumpeters, these herald the coming of the apex of summer. Those of Figure1, I photographed with my iPhone, intentionally choosing a just after rain moment where they would be covered in water droplets.

Almost simultaneously, I find myself dreading the coming of the Rose of Sharon, which to me, like the prominence of the dog stars, Procyon and Sirius, in the August sky harbinge the end of summer. It is the time when school children itch for one last swim or one last baseball game before they must “creep unwillingly to school.”

For those of us, long past these halcyon days, it is all a matter of associations and memories. And every summer these blossoms never fail to delight.