Garden Bloggers Bloom Day July 2017 Edition

Welcome to Garden Bloggers Bloom Day hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.  I have so much blooming right now I do not know where to start.  But I do know that I am not going to sit here and label every photo.  I will be happy to identify them in comments if anyone so desires.  Trying to take and edit pictures was daunting enough.  Especially since with the wild grasses blooming I am paranoid about another episode of hives.  Ick.  So, here we go starting with various daylilies:

Arriba

Oriental Ruby

Chicago Rosy  

Sing Holly

Chicago Regal

Jolyene Nichole

Frosted Vintage Ruffles

Red Cherry and Royal Flair

 Siloam Amazing Grace

Creepy Crawler

Green Flutter

Mary Todd

Sunset Sonata

Then we have some hostas:

 Christmas Tree

On Stage

Ventricosa

Blue Umbrellas

Dream Queen

Various ground covers.  My goal is to one day not have to buy anymore mulch with ground cover filling in.

 

Northern Sea Oats which is coming up all over.  This year I will have to cut all these seed heads.

Ripening berries on viburnums.  The birds are already attacking them.

Lots of daisies blooming that haven't yet been eaten by rabbits, but these Broadway Lights in the late afternoon sun are making my day even when it rains.

Astilbe 'Visions' below

Hydrangea - a plant that has been moved around and finally started blooming last year

Quickfire hydrangea:

A garden visitor on the Quickfire:

A border of yarrow.  Another plant that loves to take over.

A quiet place with ferns:

My peaceful paradise (when no one is shooting off fireworks):

Thanks for joining me.  If you want to see what other have blooming in their gardens, head on over to May Dreams Gardens.  And thanks to Carol for hosting.

Two Minutes in the Life of a Butterfly

One Bloomin' Season - Where is the Rain?

A week ago they warned of heavy rain and damaging winds.  Well, it never happened in my garden. Saturday they again said we were to get rain.  Well, not enough to do much good.  And last night's thunderstorms never arrived.  With temps headed into the 80's it looks like I need to get out and set the hoses.

Not much happening in the garden this week, likely due to temps in the 50's overnight, cool days and no rain.  Here are this week's pics.  Welcome to my garden...entering from the south side pathway.

Green.  Lots of green right now.  Below is a picture of my Sweet Gum tree.  I am at the northern fringe for growing this tree and after two tough winters I was a little worried this spring when it took so long to leaf out.  Fortunately, it made it.  I am standing under the tree for the photo.  The tree has a variegated leaf which accounts for the shades of green.

And those cool temps are already causing the leaves to change color as seen on this double-file viburnum shrub

And this Katsura tree:

The only new flowers to begin blooming this week are the fall blooming sedums.  Here is Sedum Spectabile, just starting to show color.

The highlight right now is the Monarch butterfly enjoying the flowers:

On Joe Pye Weed above and on heliopsis below.

So, heading into the long holiday week-end, I leave you with a picture of the moon on Friday night.  I had wanted to do a comparison of the size of the moon between Friday and Saturday night, since on Saturday it was supposed to be 30% larger in size due to its closeness to the earth.  And then Saturday came and it was all cloud cover.  Oh, well.

Have a great week.

Camera Ready

I really need to walk around the garden with my camera on my hip. Then you would have photos of the hawk being chased by the blue jays.  And the dragonflies swarming in the garden, but never landing.  The hummingbird sucking nectar from the tubular flowers of the hosta. 

Alas, the best I could do was run in and grab it to take a photo of the swallowtail butterfly feeding on what is left of the pansies.