If you are very quiet in a garden and stand quite still, you can hear the flowers talking to one another.

Listen in to the conversation overheard in the August Dreams Garden border on a still, early morning.

“Good morning, flower friends.  Hey Solidago, what’s going on over there?”

“Glad you asked, Rudbeckia.  Please call us Goldenrod. Did you see how Carol trimmed us back the other day?  We went from nearly two foot tall back to one foot tall. We are really going to have to work hard to get back up to full height by August.”

“I did see it. I’m glad she didn’t trim us back. We Black-eyed Susans don’t get as tall as you goldenrods.”

“Oh, yeah, tell that to the Rudbeckia on the other side of me. She’s probably going to be five foot tall again this year.”

“Oh, we forgot about her. We can’t even remember her name, though we are related.  Hey, Joe Pye-Weeds, where have you been? We almost thought we’d lost you in the winter.”

“Yes, wasn’t that a cold winter? We like to froze to death, but we didn’t. We were just taking our time this spring.  It’s going to take a lot more than one of the coldest winters ever to knock back us Joe Pyes! Speaking of winter, are all the asters accounted for?”

“Here we are.  Over here. We look good, don’t we. We asters think this is the best we’ve looked since we were planted here three years ago. Look how full and lush we are.  And tidy, too.”

“Tidy? That’s a joke. Between you and that prairie dropseed grass, there are seedlings all over this garden.  If we aren’t careful, we’ll look like that Plopper’s Field on the other side of the garden. What a mess that is!”

“Yeah, tell us about it, Boltonia, though you’ve scattered your fair share of seedlings around here so don’t get after us and the prairie dropseed.”

“All of you stop the bickering.  We Liatris are trying to put a little color in this garden with our blooms and this noise is distracting us and keeping the bees away. We need those bees.”

“Show offs, just wait until we goldenrods start blooming. No one will remember Liatris when we bloom!”

“Speaking of which, you goldenrods are really taking over.  Can you watch where you’re spreading to?  We dropseeds are feeling a little overcrowded here.”

“Hey, it’s not all us, look at some of the others. They are spreading, too. All except those tall metal looking things. Hey, metal looking thing, what are you all about?”

“Goldenrods, be quiet.  That’s a sculpture, everyone knows sculptures don’t talk. How silly to try to talk to a sculpture. Next thing we know, you’ll be talking to  the mulch.  Which reminds me, we need some more mulch over here.”  

“Hush. Here comes the gardener.  Don’t let her overhear us. She’ll question her sanity if she hears us talk and then they might take her away and then who will care for us? Maybe she’s coming over to get rid those thistles lurking over there on the edge of the garden.  Oops, sorry everyone. False alarm. It was just a garden fairy.”