Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. –Luther Burbank
If you need light for dark days––

Try a little prairie flower power.

Discover a joyous chorus of bee balm….

…and blazing stars that pack a purple punch. Sock it to me!

Drink in a little pink…


…then soak up the colors of July in the tallgrass.

Feel the buzz yet?

Braving the heat and humidity of the prairie in late July is a tall order.

But doing so offers rare surprises.

Slow down; sit for a while. Look around you.

Let the prairie flowers be “food, sunshine, and medicine” today for your soul.

Was Burbank right– Do you feel a little happier?
*******
The opening quote–– is by Luther Burbank (1849-1926), an American botanist who developed more than 800 different kinds of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Said Burbank, “What a joy life is when you have made a close working partnership with Nature, helping her to produce for the benefit of mankind new forms, colors, and perfumes in flowers which were never known before… .”
******
All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): full thunder moon over author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; gray-headed coneflowers (Ratibida pinnata), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; blazing star (Liatris) and rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium) , Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; gaura (Gaura biennis), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; swamp milkweed (Asclepis incarnata), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; sweep of flowers and grasses at Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; false sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; tall bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Kankakee mallow (Iliamna remota), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; log bench, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL: false sunflower at the prairie’s edge (Heliopsis helianthoides), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.
Yes, I feel positively buoyant! Love the photo with the bee and its poignant tattered wings.
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Hope you keep your spirits up, Sondra!
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Between your beautiful spirit and the gloriousness of the prairie, I’m trying to determine which is the greater gift. . . I am grateful for both. Thank you, Cindy! xxoo
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That’s so lovely. Thank you.
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I love how you weave your images and words together into a lovely whole!
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Thank you so much, Melissa!
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