The Summer Garden

In the first hour of official summer, which started yesterday evening at 7:09 pm EDT, I was watering thirsty tomato plants in our garden. The days have now begun the long, slow decline toward Autumn but here on my ancestral soil things are just now getting started.

I’ll have much more to say about this garden of mine in the coming weeks. Right now it looks picturesque only to my eyes – everyone else will see only dirt and some spindly plants waiting patiently for a soaking rain.

Hollyhocks and Poppies – The Hermitage (John Ottis Adams, 1901)

Today I’ll share a couple of far more inspiring images from Indiana painter John Ottis Adams (1851 – 1927). Adams was a specialist in painting gardens, but he gravitated toward gardens far less pedestrian than mine. Though trained in Europe, he spent most of his life in the Hoosier State and trained artists in such exotic places as Muncie and Indianapolis.

Poppy Garden (John Ottis Adams, 1914)