Monthly Garden with a Bi-Weekly Update

Oh well, you probably knew it wouldn't last.  There's no way I could resist the temptation to show the way our gardens have changed in the last two weeks.  This is that time of year when the perennials are still blooming and the annuals are coming into their own.  It's why I can't imagine having a garden without both to carry one on a wave of blooms from May until September.  The older photos were taken on July 15th and the new ones on July 31st.

This first one of the front yard looks as though it hasn't changed, but everything is simply fuller, more lush than two weeks ago.  I notice it the most in the hostas.

Here is the front porch and the fernery below as it was two weeks ago.  It looks good, and it was well on its way.

July 15th

Now look at the difference just two weeks makes.  Compare the porch railing planter with the photo above.  Then look at the two hydrangeas on either side of the tallest fern (in the center of the fernery).

  

July 31st

Here's the way the white garden looked in the middle of the month.  Keep your eyes on the lilies on the left of the photograph.

July 15th

See the 'Casa Blanca' lilies now and the white gay feather (liatrus) in the middle of the garden?

These lilies are usually very fragrant, but I think the cooler air and the breezier weather is keeping their aroma down.  They're the fullest they've ever been though.

You haven't seen any pictures of the daylily border before today because there simply wasn't anything to see.  The first one is the lower end of that border, and you may notice some of D's largest bonsai-in-training among the daylilies.  I haven't been out dead heading as we were away this weekend so the bed looks a bit scruffy.

I may have shown this shot of the upper end of the border before; I didn't go back to check.  I do know I mentioned that the birds have gifted us with all these wonderful Turk's turbans.  No, we didn't plant any of them.  Unfortunately, I will have to take most of them out as they are obscuring the view of the daylilies, and more than likely, they're also crowding them too much.

The following photographs were all taken on July 31st, and you'll either have to scroll back to the June 15th view to see the huge leap since then or just take my word that there has been such a leap.  Below is the "hot" portion of the garden in which I deliberately planted reds, oranges, and yellows exclusively.  We have an almost straight on view of this part of the garden from our back windows.

From the "hot" section above, the garden stretches across the backyard.  The Alberta spruce that looked so awful after the winter is coming back.  That spruce forms a rest space between the eye-popping hot section to a more varied and larger section, but they are all part of one garden (even though I tend to speak of them as separate and distinct).

If you look carefully at the birdcage you can see a few nasturtium blooms in it on the right hand side.

I am quite pleased both with the large black pot and with its contents this year.  And the black-eyed Susans are back!  Where they have been these last few years, I don't know, but here they are.  And the cone flower, too.  The white "false dragon head" are taller this year, and the bloom seems more sparse, but they are just starting.

There is another view of the farthest left side of the garden, but it doesn't want to be uploaded (quirky blog issues, I think).  It, too, shows evidence of great growth, But I suppose you'll just have to take my word for it!