Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

With so much tan adobe and brown gravel all around us, it looks blah here in winter if the sun is not out. A blue sky day in winter is glorious even when it is cold, but when the clouds come, it gets really grim. Today was a cloudy one with weak light, so I had to go into the archives for some yellow sunshine. 

I found some exuberant yellow, like the Spanish broom in full stinky flower last May.

Then there is delicate, soft yellow of the finest hue, like 'Bartzella" The Peony, all tidiness and symmetry.

Sometimes yellow comes in cute pom poms, like the sulfur buckwheat 'Kannah Creek' that beamed all summer.

But sometimes sunny yellow is stingy when the daisy flowers of Perky Sue sent up only two tiny efforts that lasted a week. Perky Sue sounds so, well. . .  perky. But it didn't do much.

On the other hand I can barely control the lush 'Swallowtail' columbines that have taken over the dining room window garden. They are a happy bunch in spring. Their sunshine comes in clearest yellow.

In late summer tall sunflowers are a golden yellow, gathering the last of fall's rich sunshine to hold and save for a winter day when I need to see sun.

There are more yellow flower photos from last summer -- a 'Tiny Dancer' helenium and some benighted blackeyed Susans, hairy goldenaster weeds, the profuse rabbitbrush in fall, and more sunny things. 

But these photos I pulled up from my archives are just enough to brighten a gray day, so I'm good. I can carry on now.

😎