Mid July to Early August Gardens

This summer has been flying by quickly…. We began with a very wet Spring, followed by no rain and high heat in July, to mist, drizzle or downpours many days so far in August. The flowers have been blooming through it all.

This pale pink Phlox was one of my many pleasant surprises this year. This is a seedling I moved from the Front Door garden to the top of the rock wall by the deck. I think this is my favorite of the Phlox Seedlings. Probably a cross of the white and one of the pink varieties. When new seedlings pop up, I never know just what colors of flowers I will end up with…. So much fun to find new colors!

One evening when I was walking through the gardens, it started to get dark and  my camera decided I needed a flash. I usually will turn the flash off, but decided to see what I would get by taking photos with the flash. Many of the photos made me feel like I was looking at photos of fireworks.  Here are a few of my “floral fireworks” photos.

This is not a flower, but Schwartz was hanging out in the Lilac Garden and even though I couldn’t see her enough to be sure the focus was right, the flash gave me a good photo of her. It seems I always have at least one cat following me around the  gardens.

One of the Gladiolas that wintered over from last year. I found that just about every bulb I planted last year lived over the winter. Even the ones I didn’t find while weeding and buried with hay poked their way out.

One of the first Peachy Pink flowers.

The Glad flower stem above drooped then grew up again, giving it an interesting curved stem.  This year I found some perfect scrap lumber in Ken’s workshop to use for stakes, and tied them with strips of pantyhose to keep them from toppling over. Last year I didn’t stake them so I ended up cutting the flowers as they opened and fell over so I could enjoy them more. This year I could leave the flowers in the garden with the stakes holding most of them upright.

Here is a photo of the Front Door garden that I took from my kitchen window as the first Phlox were beginning to bloom.

Here are a couple of the Morning Glory flowers that have been blooming. More of my free flowers that came up from seed in the planters on my deck. I also have some pretty purple ones, too!

When the dog yard was fenced in, the Catalpa tree was taken down and most of it was piled near the Walnut trees in the back yard. I wasn’t able to mow around the mess, so I ended up piling most of it between the trees so I could mow the grass. I burned a lot of the small branches while cleaning up and found that Catalpa branches send out lots of sparkler-like embers…. Not a good thing for campfires with the grandkids, so what was left had to be hauled to a brush pile for burning.

By the time I got to cleaning up the Catalpa remains, we had a storm come through that caused a bunch of Walnut branches to fall, so I had a Very Full wagon load. I have gotten a lot of use out of the lawn tractor and “little red wagon” for hauling hay and other things around.  You can see where the pile of branches was on the lawn… much of the grass died out. Thankfully, with the recent rains it didn’t take too long for it to start growing again.

One of the “Flying Flowers” I caught with the camera on the Echinacea.

Another fun find!  An Echinacea seedling that I planted in the Maple Tree garden that bloomed with a really interesting flower with green petals. As they opened further, there were more tiny “flowers” forming around the center.

The squash finally started growing and a petunia popped up  in the middle of the patch. It looks like a version of the Tidal Wave varieties I used to have growing near the Arborvitae.

I planted some Lupine seeds a few weeks ago, and this is what they looked like a week after planting. One little baby has it’s first true leaf. The rain we have been getting really helped these little guys to sprout.  If I am lucky, I might get a flower or two before frost, but should have a nice bunch of flowers next Spring.

The Wave Petunias that I purchased and planted late June to early July are finally beginning to fill out and show more color every day. The Purple Wave  variety coordinates pretty well with the Summer Wine Monarda.  “Poor Harry” can be seen mid photo… the red leaved  Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick that has been munched on too much. It does keep putting out new shoots…. He’s not giving up…

Here is a little Sparrow nest I found in the lawn after a storm. You can see the colored plastic from hay bale netting woven in and it looks like Schwartz Cat’s fur lining it. There have been a lot of Chipping Sparrows nesting in various bushes in the gardens.

A nasty storm the day before my birthday seemed to want to wash away the Mound garden again…. The water did stay in the gullies formed earlier in the year. The grasses were really whipped by the wind.

The rain was pouring off the deck roof and  the water from the driveway was flowing through the Mound garden, across the lawn and into the Shade garden at the edge of the woods. This was the first big storm since June, so I finally got to see just where I needed to dig a ditch to get most  of the water to go straight to the woods where there are no gardens.

After the storm I ended up cutting myself a big bouquet of Glads…. The wind and rain knocked many flowers over even when tied to stakes. I had a pretty birthday bouquet.

The sun came out bright after the storm and I got this photo of the still dripping white Phlox flowers.

The day of my birthday, the Double Cutie Hemerocallis opened  it’s last flower for the year.  A pretty gift!