Friday, July 15, 2011

Diary July 2011 - Daylilies and other summer beauties


What a hot, dry sizzling summer this is turning out to be!! Great if it's beach weather but boy oh boy!! The garden is dry as a bone. :- (
I was worried about what I would feature for this month but as it turns out - there's still quite a bit blooming out there!! (Good Old Mother Nature - she rarely lets us down....completely!)
The stars of the show right now are my daylilies. I wish I still had all their names written down - and I do - somewhere! Maybe some day when I get organized, I'll edit this post and add the names. In the meantime, enjoy these pretty things.








I still have several yucca plants scattered throughout the garden. I stopped liking them a number of years ago but I must admit, when they bloom, I start changing my mind about ending their existence.



I'm not usually a fan of the striped picotee petunias but I planted a small one because it mixed into a box of pink wave petunias and I didn't want to pitch it. And now, it's oh so cute!



My ever-faithful Fairy Rose is in bloom now with its first set of blooms (believe it or not - it blooms all over again in late September and October). It's gorgeous with shasta daisies, Artemesia Silver King and Harebell, a purple wildflower (weed actually).





Helenium looks like a  yellow daisy and also comes back year after year, drought or flood.



Even though I divided my hostas a few years ago and they seemed slow to get big again, they have come full circle now. They are huge, lush and gorgeous.





The front yard is also holding its own. The small urns by the front door hold white tuberous begonias and rex begonias this year (along with some ajuga from  the garden).



The large urn in the centre of the front garden holds several coleus including Kong coleus and some smaller annuals for colour.



The Oakleaf Hydrangea by the front door is humongous and at one point almost prevented us from getting up the stairs to the door!






The miscanthus is getting very big despite the lack of rain.



And even though they are "vewy oh-dinawee" (as Madeline Khan said in Blazing Saddles!), annual geraniums never let you down.