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Here's a flower on one of the nasturtiums I've got climbing the tall trellace in the back garden. They're responding well to all the rain and are keeping attention distracted from the cardinal flower and morning glory vines twining toward the sky.
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An overcast view of the garden center from last week...the foxglove have by now flopped over in the rain, and the distant blue bellflowers were made soggy enough to encourage dead-heading. The latter should make return appearances through the summer, while the former will dry out and scatter seedlings everywhere!
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A close-up of the giant bellflowers, as seen from the ground, for a look inside the big blue monsters.
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Here's a look at a bit of recycling work I did in the garden last Friday (as thunder rumbled to the north) addressing two problems: 1) this giant bed of oregano gets tall and floppy, and without guidelines will seed itself everywhere, and 2) I had piles of pruned fruit tree branches and grapevine from spring cleaning.
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I used the fruit branches as my upright posts, driving them into the ground around the perimeter of this bed...and then wove long strands of grapevine through them to create an open fence. It was a little tricky working with long strands of grapevine, especially in the curved format...but I have to admit, I think it came out great.
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The resulting basket fence will keep the oregano in line, so it doesn't flop over on top of nearby tomatoes and flowers...and should also give me a place to encourage a few more flowering vines, which I never seem to have enough places to grow.
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These lovely double rose blossoms definitely took a beating in the rain, but I'm happy to say there's plenty buds left to provide more blossoms like this one.
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Nearby, the rain's also brought on a first round of tiny blossoms from the dayflower plants which spring up in almost all of the garden beds. These, by the way, are a distant relative in the spiderwort family of the much-discussed "widows tears" (which by the way are still regularly flowering).
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Meanwhile, in the front garden bed, the first pineapple lily has risen above its neighbors and begun to bloom, offering welcome to whomever appears in our driveway.
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And at the center of the back gardens, this blanket flower has joined the yellow song of the coronation gold yarrow.
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It's a fun time of year, despite the weather; the yard is full to bursting with all kinds of young birds--tiny chickadees with feathers that look like bedhead are coming regularly to our feeders...and juvenile robins, like this one, are learning lessons about scratching and digging for worms, while their watchful parents keep an eye on us all from nearby trees.
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Other youngins abound in the garden, too, like this tiniest little grasshopper, which I spotted yesterday perched on the button of a shasta daisy.
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I've mentioned a few times fighting the battle against the red lily leaf beetles. They have done awful things to many of my lily plants, despite my best efforts...so I was especially pleased to discover this white lily blooming on a plant which seems--so far--free of them.
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1 comment:
The bellflowers close up from the ground look very, very cool. I used to take pictures of our japanese maple while lying on the ground. I thought that they looked cool with the sun shining through. Very, very pretty.
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