that 50s retro look

[OT from cottage renovations]

five days into the new optics and the adjustment is still a bit rough, but on the way in this morning I did feel up to a bit of roadside image gathering. 

 
I can't help it, but there's something about these tiger lilies that evokes the look and feel of those aspects of the 1950's for which there exists a retro movement.  having been born late in the Truman administration I am clearly a child of that decade, but given the chance I would only go back for some of it, mostly for what has been lost: night trains, the Grove's auditorium, landscapes predating suburban sprawl and a chance to see the rust belt as a functioning industrial heartland rather than a scattering of sites relevant to industrial archaeology.  but I might find the Cold War, the Red Menace, Joe McCarthy and Jim Crow hard to take in a decade still waiting for a treaty to end atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and for the beginnings of civil rights, environmental awareness and the concept of smoke-free public or even private places.  and I've never been able to stand Elvis. 

but whatever else it may have been, the 1950s was certainly a decade of style and colour, and of bold efforts to take them in new, modern directions.  no matter if it went through the progression of being dated, stale, campy and then ultimately rediscovered as retro chic (none of which stages need be taken seriously); it had and in some ways still has an attraction that doesn't quite let go. 

one glance at this Tiger Lilly, blooming on Grove Road in the nascent hedgerow behind Ann and Elly's, is enough to bring it all back.  here it is: the motif that went into all those hats, dresses, drapes, scarves, lamp shades and heavens only knows what else. 
I remember all of it. 

(click through this thumbnail for higher resolution image)

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Grove Road

tiger lilly

straying over the border

[OT from cottage renovations]

[edit: went back the following day to reshoot the white chickory and for another image of the crown vetch -- many thanks for the helpful comments]

I don't often look beyond the Grove for floral distraction.  today was an exception, and at any rate neither site is far away. 

(click through these thumbnails for higher resolution images)

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Oakmont Avenue

chickory is an herb that is classified as a common roadside weed, but it is quite bit more charming than most.  there's a good sized patch of it across the tracks down past Hershey's, seen here in morning light. 

common Chickory

I have only come across it with blue flowers though it also blooms in lavender.  I hadn't seen it in white before; this one can be found at the corner of the Oakmonts, across from the former hotel. 

white chickory

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Crabbs Branch Way

I  don't  didn't know what this stuff was [it turned out to be crown vetch, another pretty invasive], but found it growing in weedy profusion along Crabbs Branch Way just N of Shady Grove Road.  its blossoms catch the afternoon light in a completely beguiling way. 

crown vetch