A Carpet of Flowers for Pink Saturday...

This Pink Saturday posts definitely has lots of that lovely color, pink, as well as quite a few other colors. Have you ever heard of the Grote Markt or Grand Place? The Grand Place is the central market square of Brussels and it is one of the world's most beautiful squares. Every two years it is made even more beautiful in the most amazing fashion. Feast your eyes on the following pics...click on them to enlarge.

Every two years, the Belgians cover the square with a carpet of flowers. Over 300 square meters are covered with close to 1 million begonias! Think about that for a moment...1 MILLION begonias! WOW! The pattern this year (2008) was based on a medieval carpet design. The first Carpet of Flowers was created in 1971 as a way to promote begonias.

The blooms have to be kept fresh for four days in the scorching August heat. This is helped by the fountains that are designed within the pattern of the carpet. The caption for this pic reads, "Craftsman arrange the carpet by hand directly onto the square cobblestones without any soil. Grass and tree bark were also used to provide color."

The beautiful carpet forms a stunning centerpiece to the square. It often includes scenes from Belgian folklore and myth mixed into its intricate designs. For a bird's eye view, one can pay a small fee to take a look from the first floor of the town hall. Isn't this simply amazing?! :-)
Please visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for the links to lots more wonderful Pink Saturday posts.

PLAYING IN THE GARDEN...

How about a little garden tour as the long, hot summer days are winding down. The iris spill into the path...it's their sneaky way of saying, "hey, what's the rush, come play a while in the garden." Ok, they talked me into it...

I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
I too am a rare pattern.
As I wander down the garden paths. Amy Lowell, Patterns

Gardening is a kind of disease. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed. ~Lewis Gannit

2003 Perennial Plant of the Year: Leucanthemum 'Becky', Shasta Daisy It is utterly forbidden to be half-hearted about gardening. You have got to love your garden whether you like it or not. ~W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, Garden Rubbish, 1936

Phlox paniculata 'Common Purple'

"Green fingers are the extension of a verdant heart." ~Russell Page

Achillea Oertel's Rose : Yarrow, & Hemerocallis 'Stella de Oro' Daylily

Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. ~Lou Erickson

Annual Planter with Geranium, Petunias & Ivy When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant. ~Author Unknown

Spiderwort (Tradescantia) Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart. ~Karel Čapek, The Gardener's Year, translated by M. and R. Weatherall, 1931

Spanish Lavender, sometimes called French Lavender because it grows wild in France. The Japanese Maple is 'Waterfall'.

What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. ~Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden, 1871

Rose Campion

Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse, too. - William Cowper (I think Tootsie would agree!)

A garden pretty :-)

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest. ~Douglas William Jerrold, about Australia, A Land of Plenty

Dianthus, 'Bath's Pink' named after Jane Bath who lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful. ~Abram L. Urban

Magnolia grandiflora, commonly known as the Southern Magnolia

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. - Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) often called "Tully" for short

Gerbera Daisy

"No two gardens are the same. No two days are the same in one garden." ~Hugh Johnson

Puple phlox and 'Becky' daisys down front, with tall yellow Rudbeckia 'Herbstsonne' in back

I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large Garden. ~Abraham Cowley, The Garden, 1666

Remember these...from the porch?

Here's the source. This gardenia bush grows right beside the entrance to the garage, so I get to enjoy the wonderful fragrance each day during the long blooming period. :-)

Gardens... should be like lovely, well-shaped girls: all curves, secret corners, unexpected deviations, seductive surprises and then still more curves. ~H.E. Bates, A Love of Flowers

One of the last blooms of the spring foxgloves...

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made by singing: -"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade.~Rudyard Kipling, "The Glory of the Garden"

More 'Stella de Oro'

'Black Eyed Stella' Daylily with a replica of the "Bird Girl" shown on the cover of the book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

The kiss of the sun for pardon, The song of the birds for mirth, One is nearer God's heart in a garden, than anywhere else on earth.~Dorothy Frances Gurney, "Garden Thoughts