Last week — on one of the final days of our three-month heatwave — I took a morning trip to Oakland Cemetery to snap a few new photos. I out-maneuvered the heat for about two hours by mostly slinking around in the shade, and ended up with a nice collection of images of some of the many plants that are still blooming this late in the gardening season. The photos I posted on Wordless Wednesday: Four Small Signs of Early Fall were from that same trip.
With more fall-like weather finally making it into Atlanta, I’ll be heading back for more photoshoots in the coming months, as fall is one of the best seasons to spend time at this beautiful Victorian garden cemetery — 48 acres of greenery, flowers, tombstones, mausoleums, and architecture surrounded by an 8- to 10-foot brick wall that immerses you in silence, despite being located at the intersections of some traffic-heavy neighborhood streets.
I didn’t see any markers near the flowers featured in these galleries to help me identify them, but did figure out that the last nine photos in the second gallery are Spider Lilies — a hardy, early-fall-blooming lily of rich red color and a complex flower structure. And a likely addition to my garden — but for next year, as 2019 gardening will be wrapping up pretty soon.
Thanks for taking a look!
The cemetery article is so interesting! And great photos, as always. Love that crazy red flower!
Thanks! I liked that article also, especially since it included Oakland. I learned a lot about the cemetery’s history while using it as a research subject for several papers for Empire State College, and I think I’ll rewrite some of that and post it here over the next few months … with new photos, of course!
The red spider lily was a surprise, had never seen it before and there were so many of them … probably were planted last fall and are just coming up now. They’re really cool… and now I want some!
Beautiful photos! But, oh my! A three-month heatwave. Must have been hard to bear.
Thank you! We broke numerous heat records this summer: 90-plus days with 90-plus temperatures … and usually it would hit 90 by late morning! But the weather people now say it’s over for the year, and I hope they’re right!
Holy cats! Can’t “like” this.