Rain, Finally!

Froggie's rain gauge reads over an inch of rain this weekend!

New signs of life around the garden bed after the rain:

Snapdragons that were deadheaded are re-blooming.

The new hydrangea bloom has renewed life.

That makes two blooms this season...

The Fairy Wings Guara are flying.

But the Sneezeweed Helenium blooming is a sign of late summer.

And the patch of dry grass next to the grass shaded by the house

(in the background upper right)

shows the damage done by 

what the meteorologists call a 'moderate' drought.

Garden-sitting During a Double Heat Wave

Watering, watering, watering! And now a request to conserve water due to dry wells. I've been spot watering on the sly for myself and my neighbor who has been gone almost two weeks.

Just want to prove that the plants are okay so far. She'll be home Saturday and can make her own decisions about water conservation.

The Stargazer Lily has bloomed during this heat!

So fragrant too.

The Globe Thistle is just starting to bloom.

The bees were busy in the Liatris

which doesn't seem to mind the heat.

The coneflower, newly bloomed, has a deep color.

Its color will fade in the next week,

but the goldfinches will love the seeds.

The yellow day lilies are almost through blooming,

but their fragrance is still delightful.

I'm on duty until Saturday.

Then the garden owner will have to

decide what to do about the call to conserve.

Until then, I'm a stealth water-er!

Hot, Hot, Hot!

But this Balloon Flower looks cool in its summer whites!

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail didn't mind the heat either.

In the fairy garden, not much happening but the water looks refreshing.

Surprise!

Just heard from Sara that they found a Black Swallowtail butterfly drying its wings on their deck!

Hurray!  They have now seen the process from caterpillar to butterfly!

Follow Up on the Swallowtail Caterpillars

Sara sent me these photos of her caterpillars leaving the parsley in her herb planter and finding a place to create their chrysalises.

It crawls over the deck and up the wall.

Then follows the door frame upward higher.

A spider spied it.

Sara had to swipe the spider away!

Enemy alert!

She lost track of this one-- and another one== that crawled up the house too.

But one caterpillar crawled under the bench and stuck itself to the underside

and made a chyrsalis.

The chrysalis was empty today.

These two Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies were flitting around us on the deck today.

NOT Black Swallowtails!

Where did they go?

July Garden To-Do List

The July garden is mostly to enjoy--but there are a few chores new gardeners should know about:

• Keep the bird bath full.  Clean it out with a stream of water or scrub it with a brush (used only on the bird bath!) if it gets scummy.
• Remove infected leaves and discard in sealed trash.
• Keep fertilizing your annual flower containers every two weeks with Peter's Bloom Booster.
• Daily keep weeds from going to seed.
• Deadhead annuals so they don't expend energy producing seed.
• Cut back perennials that are done or will bloom a second time (daisies, Salvias, catmint)
• Fertilize your roses each month.
• Do your final pinching of asters, mums, etc by mid-July.
• Water, water, water the first year, but deeper and longer in between as plants settle into the garden.
• Enjoy the color and fragrance and wildlife!

A list compiled from many web sites, but especially from Natureworks.

The yellow border:

Yellow tickseed, first year transplanted.

Yellow-peach daylily 'Mini Pearl'

Helenium starting to bloom yellow-orange-brown

Orange-yellow perennial sunflower Helianthus

The last three are 8 year veterans!

Another bloom on the "Endless Summer' Hydrangea!
Hurrah!
Don't give up on the slow starters damaged by winter.

A busy bee in the annual containers near the bench.

And he's there also! Unidentified flying wasp-like insect!
For safety, know your wildlife!

The shades of purple behind the bench:

Buddleia, Cleome, Gaura.
I thought the butterfly bush was a goner after winter
and look at its magenta color now.
I did feed it heavily in the spring.

And the daylilies fill the middle border

but need constant deadheading.

July is the best month in the garden!

Alice in Wonderland Moment

At Sara's garden today, I was amazed when she showed me her parsley plant.

Huge green and black caterpillars are all over it! 

They will become Black Swallowtail butterflies. MAGICAL!

First Bouquet of the Summer

My favorite vase is full of flowers from the garden today!  We're just back from a quick trip to Nantucket. After deadheading the week's old blooms, there were still plenty to be cut to bring inside.

Cone flower, butterfly bush, perennial sunflower, daisies, day lily, balloon flower, false indigo seed pods, and fairy wings (Gaura).

High Summer in the Garden Bed

Coneflowers 

Daisies

Lily and insect friend or foe?

Frilly Lily

Perennial Sunflower

All fill the flower bed with color and fragrance and wildlife.

Fourth of July(s) Garden Moments

Some differences in this year's garden compared to previous July 4th posts:

*******

2015

The 'Limelight' Hydrangea (foreground) bush

has been moved to a neighbor's border.

Lily likes the fairy garden clear for sitting and playing

with the fairies and their things.

2016

Now Lily and Violet have clear access to the fairy garden.

Violet found it for the first time this weekend.

She will crawl in the new pebbles

which are round and smooth.

Lily likes them better on her toes, too!

Fairy garden 2016

*******

This is the 'Endless Summer' Hydrangea last year, 2015.

2015

2016

And here it is this year--one (1) bloom.
It's like an "I Spy" game to find it.

Tough winter for Hydrangeas!

2014

It's hard to tell from the 2016 photo above, but the Knock Out rose tree (2014 photo)

is now a bush rose perhaps growing from its graft

and surrounded by the 'Endless Summer' hydrangea and daisies.

The rose blooms are almost gone now --until the second bloom in the fall?

Hard to tell what this rose is going to do now...

*******

2016

Tough year for Buddliea Butterfly Bush also.

The snapdragons are almost bigger than the hollyhocks.

2012

Same shot as above but what a difference in the butterfly bush and hollyhocks.

This is a July 4th shot also!

*******

2013

2016

Here's proof of the old saying about perennials:

First year, sleep.  Second year, creep.

Third year, leap!

That's the miracle of gardens--they change with the weather and time and whim.  

You can tend them all you want, but you can never totally control them.