We begin with a sign of life in February. Daffodils. First emerging as green fingerlings and followed by the most magnificent yellow blooms. I usually think, “Oh thank God. They’re back.” A bit of hope for the promise of spring. Some scattered like confetti (Like how I throw my zinnias in the yard… thoughtfully sporadic.) Some seas of yellow. Layers. Collections. Years of multiplication. Often you can trace where the hands of a gardener carefully planted the first bulb years past. And how the species then began forging its own path from the origin. “Daughters” they call them.
As spring unfurls and temperatures creep, us Mississippians and southerners alike are met with a new kind of yellow in April. Coreopsis. “Early coreopsis.” Tickseed. Our state wildflower. These beauties spread and form colonies. Via “runners” they say. I like to think about nature that way. Eager to expand the ground with beauty. Sprinting. Mother Nature knows we need it. They’re beautiful while here. But one day as 70 degrees pushes 80, they slowly dwindle. “Get burnt up” as we used to say at the farm.
And then suddenly on a random June day, each one of us walks outside and declares the most hated sentence of the year, “Well, it FEELS like summer.” (Very different sentiment than “It’s finally summer!”) Summer bestows us freedom, tans, travel, but not while also scorching every living thing under the sound of God’s voice. It’s that humid, plastering heat. Lucky for us, rudbeckia begins its life cycle and it thrives. Black-eyed Susans. Brown-eyed Susans. Self seeders, the daisy family. Asteraceae. One of the first flowers you know as a kid growing up in Mississippi. Rudbeckia carries us through the summer until the dreaded sound of the school bell. Resilient is what I like to call our dear Susan.
Right when you might consider no thing could possibly grow in these conditions, the roadsides are graced with Solidago gigantea or “Giant goldenrod” as summer closes. The misunderstood scapegoat and “reason I can’t stop sneezing!” (It’s actually ragweed.) Goldenrod is an upright, glabrous perennial that ushers in the most championed season of all in the South- fall. It has dawned on me that most of the attention falls to college football and the changing of leaves, and we miss the glory of goldenrod. Dancing in the pockets of the forests and along the country roads until around October. She is our last bit of roadside happy before the winter months. Winter… our sabbatical from yellow until the life cycle returns us to daffodils.
Since the day I pieced together this puzzle of roadside yellow, I have wondered why someone like me and my neighbors are graced in such a magnificent way. One of the loveliest colors carries us through the year during our morning commutes, weekend plans, tiresome treks home, and all the in between. And it took almost three decades for me to notice. And why yellow? There are many other blooms that grow along the roadsides - Queen Anne’s Lace, Pink Primrose varieties, Vetch, Partridge Pea, Brazilian Verbena. But there is something deeply extraordinary about the steadiness of yellow.
My hope for this insight is that it might aid you in your own art of noticing. I will ask for your forgiveness in the event that your future drives are a less thoughtless - I find myself scanning tirelessly when I drive now. It’s arguably the best type of treasure hunt.
Happy hunting.
Maddie
