Bits of Monday

Well, I have teased you for far too long with long distance shots of the newly-blooming sweet William, so I thought I'd lead off with a good shot today. There were so many varieties at the old place, I wasn't sure beforehand which one I had selected to make the move. Now it's clear I choose the two-tone version. Some of the flowers are white with purple detailing, while the others are this hot magenta color.

And that rose bush around which I built the rest of the garden has now begun to bloom out front. Their scent is a nice deep rosey tone to match their color. What a bogus description, huh? Scents are so difficult to translate to words. I'll try a little harder as more of them blossom.

I'd like to offer my thanks to all of you who've been so kind to keep my Granny in your thoughts and prayers. While we are still sorting out the details of exactly what happened, it seems she is doing relatively well.

She's got a few broken bones, but all reports suggest she's of pretty sound mind after the ordeal, which is good, though of course she's a bit shaken up. Hopefully she'll recover from this nicely and have learned a lesson about not trying to play Frogger across a busy highway.

I haven't had the chance to speak to her yet--she was doing physical therapy the first time I rang, and the second and third times the line was busy, which in itself I take as a pretty good sign. I hear she got the message that I called and I'm sure we'll chat sometime tomorrow.

In the borders on the edges of the property, the white spirea has now faded, but has been replaced by those little white roses as the companion/ complimentary color to the red weigela, which continues to bloom nicely.

Here's one of those weeds that's sort of hard to hate: bindweed. It must be related to the morning glory, as they are similar in a number of ways. However, bindweed, as its name suggests, is rather more aggressive.

Visually, you can see the flower is sort of squared off into a pentagonal shape, instead of round at the edges like the morning glory, and the leaves aren't as curvy either, looking a bit more shovel/spade shaped than heart-shaped.

But still, there's much to love about the flowers. While I'm glad it's not actually in the garden beds, per se, I kind of enjoy that there is some around...and trust me, there's plenty.

In the garden beds, lots of little seedlings are appearing all over the place. I think these are Everlastings.

I'll need to thin them out a little once they've grown just a little more--apparently I was dropping seed two by two. With luck, I'll be able to transplant those removed to other locations.

And look, the verbena bonariensis has begun to put out its delightful tiny purple flowers, friend to butterflies everywhere.


There are several stalks of foxglove rising from this particular plant and the flowers are "inflating" nicely as the stalks rise. I just love those polka dot interiors.

Tonight there is a small tragedy to report, in the washing of the remainder of my packet of Pole Beans.



Hopefully, those recently planted will sprout well, as I'd have to buy a fresh pack if any need replacing.

You'd think after suffering this nearly every spring, I would learn to be more cautious about checking my pockets before doing laundry.

You'd be wrong, obviously.

At work, this red rose bush is the latest to join the glorious floral chorus that is June, and since there's the possibility of a thunderstorm coming our way shortly, that's what I'll leave you with for the evening.

Dog Day

When people speak of the Dog Days of Summer, they are generally referring to those hot days of mid-August, not early June. It's true, our temperatures have been fairly high this week, but there were other reasons to apply the Dog Days moniker to today.

This delicate little flower is Sophie. She lives directly across the street from us with her Dad.

Most mornings, when they emerge from the house, she makes her away across the road to say good morning to one of us. Usually it's Owen she sees, but he was still getting ready for work when I was out watering, so I had the pleasure this morning.

I was also greeted this morning, but a massive resprouting of witch grass in the most recently dug out portion of the garden bed. I've managed to carefully tug out a few of these, but most remain for some morning when I can sit down and tease them out, without damaging the newest flower seedlings which are already beginning to emerge.

That red in the background here is the scotch broom. Through that you can see one of the sunflowers...and in front of the broom, to the left, is that peony plant I thought was dying a few weeks back. It seems to be slowly recovering, thanks to its replanting here.

However, it doesn't appear that any of the peonies--generally looking pretty healthy, will be blooming this year. This is a little disappointing, as they have been so fantastic previously. But if they've survived the move at all, I should be grateful, and will have to accept a year without those fragrant flower bombs.

I still haven't had the time to do a Sniff Test on the dianthus, though I'm hoping to explore that aspect of these eager little plants tomorrow. Still, no reason not to show you this one in fire engine red.

Continuing the dog theme, I have learned that the pup who befriended me one morning last week is called Bosun. She's about six months old, and seems to be mostly taking to her training very well--we watched this morning as she walked at her Mom's side without a leash for the first time...well, for her Mom, anyway. She did the same trick with me last week when we first met.

She was apparently left alone outside again this morning, which bothers me a little. I was sitting in the car, choosing a CD for the car ride to work when I was suddenly being slurped once more by this gangly cutie.

Since I was ready to leave, I opened up the passenger door and she hopped right in...and I drove her down to her house.

No one was home, and I wasn't going to put her back into the backyard pen she'd escaped from...especially because it's pretty sunny in their back yard. (*While we never reached the 90 degree mark predicted for today, it was still a hot morning) There is a line in the front yard, which is pretty shady, so I hooked her up to that and found a bowl to fill with water from their outdoor tap.

It was really all I could do before leaving for work, well, except to get a photo of her. I really hope they don't continue leaving this sweet dog outside on her own. She seems to be seeking me out when she's lonely...which is heart-warming and cute, but still...

Behind the restaurant today, I spotted this lady bug larva, which is so very different looking from the insect it will become. Here's another photo I took of one of these last year.

And today a morning look at that fantastic purple iris. It's not as dark as I recalled. However, I saw one down the street this evening which did indeed appear to be nearly black. I'll try to get a photo of that tomorrow.



I spotted the Nibblers grazing across the street this evening and disturbed this one a little as I wandered over for a closer photo.

Clearly they weren't that disturbed, though.