Nellie's Garden is Green and White and Gold

Euphorbia marginata, Snow-on-the-Mountain

Nellie lived in our house before us. She was 95 when she died, and she spent all of her life here, except for early childhood. She watched trees planted and felled. In her last years, she told her also elderly nephew (a sweet, sweet man, but afraid of heights) that if he wouldn't climb the pear tree to harvest the hard winter pears, she would do it herself. She washed her clothes on a washboard till the end, because the plug-in wringer washer a relative gifted her decades ago was too newfangled. She told our neighbor, thirty-something like us, that she didn't mind the parties one bit, but the nude barbecuing had to stop.

Argemone mexicana, Mexican prickly poppy, a vigorous volunteer

I never met Nellie, but I fancy that sometimes she sits with me. We rock on the back porch glider, considering our garden.

Unidentified white shrub rose

The plants in Nellie's garden are not ones I would have chosen. I do not choose white things. Or gold things. Or that fuchsia that is the color so many garden species seem to boil down to over time.

Hibiscus

But I do like unusual things, and some of hers are. Like the strange lantern-budded self seeder pictured below, which unfurls perfect cream-and-burgundy blooms each morning. I believe they are open from approximately 6:22 am to 6:29 am. I'll try to arrange my schedule around capturing a photo of one, one of these days. Here are the ones I'll miss while prepping for the farmer's market tomorrow.

This plant is a mystery to me. If anyone knows, do tell.