Catching up with the Gardening

We've had some beautiful weather the past few days, just right for catching up with the gardening before we're hit with the 95+ degree heatwave promised for tomorrow and later this week.

So, in bursts of work interspersed with spells of sitting around on the porch, I weeded out around the angel statue and planted pretty red and green elephant ears around it.

I cleared out part of the shady side of the circle garden and planted more ferns and astilbes. Although this fern was described as "red," I loved the chocolate and silver colors of it.

Then I tackled the side garden, planting cheerful yellow and orange marigolds, zinnias, and coreopis.

When Ben came home he joined me and together we worked to give the rose bush a fighting chance. He cut down an overhanging tree branch that was blocking the light, we pruned many of the big bushes around it, and weeded all the volunteer plants under it. It looks so much better now. It probably feels better, too, and may thank us by flourishing this year. It's a climbing rose, and the idea was that it would climb along the fence.

Here's the rose itself, looking so pretty. Isn't it amazing how different a flower can look when you move in close and focus just on it?


Yesterday and today we've seen deer in the yard again, and they aren't in much of a hurry to move along when we appear. I haven't seen any signs that they are munching on the decorative plants, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Just to be sure we'll have some flowers no matter how hungry the deer are, I planted zinnia and cosmos seeds, and dahlia and lily bulbs out in the fenced garden. The basil and tomatoes we put out last month are growing nicely, which is encouraging.

I do love it when the gardens look all nice and orderly.