Friday, June 29, 2012

Insect Life

We have almost no mosquitoes this year, but the bird baths are full of wasps, landing for drinks. Yesterday, while we were in the pool, this adorable, seuss-like, tiny (1/2 cm?) bug that looked like a miniature grasshopper, landed on the side. I put my finger out, he climbed on and then spent a few minutes drinking the tiny dot of water on my nail bed. I put a puddle of water on the ledge and coaxed him off my finger, and he happily drank from the little puddle. I wish I could have gotten a photo of him, but my camera doesn't come with me in the pool :-)

Here are a couple of bugs I did find in the garden.

This one I hate.


Native bees are always nice.

Bumble bees are some of my favorites.

This is one of our girls, my husband took this picture on a drumstick allium.


Monday, June 25, 2012

Parched

At this point, I think I could water 24/7 and still not quench my garden's thirst. This is crazy weather and I really don't care for it. All I do is drag the sprinkler from one garden to the next, all day, every day.
Phototravels.net

Thursday, June 21, 2012

A Garden Pest

My daughter stumbled on this in our woods a few weeks ago.


Now I keep finding this in the gardens.




This is the first time I've ever had extensive deer damage. I hope that doe finds another place to raise next year's fawn!

Friday, June 15, 2012

June GBBD

I'm cheating a bit --these photos include things that have bloomed throughout the first part of June, and some of them have now finished blooming. Still, I wanted to share the photos.

Last month was all about iris, but one of my favorites didn't bloom until after May 15th. I just love the color of this orange iris, and it makes a wonderful spot of bright color in the garden.



A flower that took me completely by surprise is this climbing rose.
I planted this rose at least 10 years ago, and this is the FIRST time it has ever bloomed. I'm not sure if this is a result of our warm winter and early spring, and I won't be surprised if it never blooms again, but I'll miss it. The individual blooms had a heavenly scent.


A few of my lilies have started blooming. Kiss-Me-Kate always does very well and brightens up the eastern side of the house for a week or so.


My red asian lilies, which are usually the first to bloom and very hearty, didn't do so well. I believe it was probably the several below-freezing nights we had in April, when the buds were forming. It's disappointing, but I'm sure they'll be fine next summer.

Another lily I'm enjoying this June is a pink and white lily, but I don't remember it's name. It was new last year, and has come back well. The starry allium is in the foreground.

Along with that allium, I have three others blooming now, a yellow, pink, and blue. I love the blue, which is another heirloom bulb I planted last fall, and I'm going to order more of them. This is not a great picture (they started out white and became more blue with time), but it does show the blue color. They are called Caeruleum.

Another plant that I bought at the same time as the blue allium is a white martagon lily. This one is disappointing only because it is the tiniest lily I've ever seen. It is only about 8 inches tall, which means it is completely hidden by columbine while blooming. I just never expected it to be so tiny. Perhaps if it multiplies, it will have more of an impact.

I have two peonies that have done really well.


However, I also had a light pink peony with with a single layer of petals and lots of beautiful yellow stamens, and that one barely came back this year and had no buds. The red is right next to it, so I don't know why one would come back strong and the other not. Should I just get rid of the sickly one? Any advice from people with more peony experience would be appreciated.

A pretty tickseed that I don't know the name of, but it's a bright spot of yellow in the back garden.


Another bright spot is the butterfly milkweed.


One of my favorite flowers is spiderwort. I purchased a pink one, and this year it has finally gotten so crowded that it's not doing well. I'll have to dig it up and split it this fall. However, because I haven't been terribly good about clearing the seedheads, I've now got several blue and purple spiderwort coming up around it. It's a very pretty sight in the mornings.

That's a good round-up of early June in my garden. Thanks to Carol for hosting the Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, and I'm looking forward to checking in on other June gardens!



Saturday, June 2, 2012

Emma's Garden

May has been blooming away here. Emma's gardens are doing really well, including the Chihuly Rose,

and the pink dianthus,




and the blue-eyed grass,
 and veronica.


 She's been a good gardener, weeding and watering.