Summer Flower garden Update- May/June 2020

It has taken me thirty days and thirty nights to upload all these pictures. Okay. I may exagaerate a tad, but it did take For-Eh-Ver. So I am going to just be brief with my descriptions and let the flowers talk for themselves. Maybe. I might interrupt them some...Anyhoo, above is the veiw from the driveway. I literally beam everytime I drive up! 

 

The front of the house isn't a picture I take very often. Not because I don't love it, it's just that I usually take shots of individual plantings. Here I am loving how the circle bed is filling in so well after every single thing being ripped out and divided. And before this it was filled with daffodils, then iris.

I absolutely adore clematis vines. I have 9 or 10 of them. This one is a variant of the sweet autumn clematis that scrambled over over things here and can eat small buildings. This is called Sweet Summer Love. I have wanted a vine that would actually try to cover the porch, and this one is only three years old. Above is looking at it from on the porch. It looks like a mass of butterflies!

Tiny little starbursts of color...

Two more clematis on the front of the house, Dr Ruppel on the left, The President on the right.

Here is an old picture of the fish pool from February to show the mat of lotus and iris that I had to cut out with a butcher knife and then drag out piece by piece. And you see that tons of the rocks that I edged with had fallen into the water. Such a mess!

Here is after the cleaning and restoring the stones. You can see how the things I planted have filled in.

Here is my lady with her newly planted rose, already blooming.

 It's called Kiss Me Kate, and it's supposed to only get 6 feet tall. The plan is to bend it over the arch and peg it. I love when the petals reflex enough that you can see the yellow stamen inside.

 This is looking down the back of the fish pool to the arbor.

And this is it a month later.

And you know something extra special? When I dug all the roots out of the pond, I found a tiny root with one leaflet of a waterlily that had been my Grandma Tommy's. I thought they had all been choked out. I potted it, and with no competition, she has grown magnificently. Grandma had pale pink and yellow. I had no idea what this would be till it bloomed. When it opened, it felt like a gift.

And here's something else EXCITING! Did I show you the frog egg sacks in my last garden update? Well, they have hatched and I have 948 tadpoles, give-or-take a dozen ;). They make me so very happy! I'd rather have frogs than fish in my pool any day!

Now for the area long the fence, where the gate goes into the field. May started with tons of roses and iris.

My climbing Zephrine Drouhin that I am so proud of.

My very favorite rose- David Austin's Perdita, named after a character in Shakespeare's play, A Winter's Tale.

 Rose de Reicht, it's perfume is so intense you can smell it from afar.

Bachelor's buttons raising their heads to cover the roses bare feet.

A magenta peony intertwined with Mary Rose.

Another clematis on the lattice, Clematis Viticella 'Venosa Violacea", and in front is a tuft of bachelor's buttons from seed that my Grandma Tommy gave me, and a Pink Fairy polyantha rose that she grew for me from a rooting. Grandma is everywhere in my garden...

 Above is February, below is the end of April.

And then May. Filled in nicely. Bella cat approves. Well, as much as felines approve of anything...

 A perennial hollyhock. Unlike others, it comes back every year, and I love the pale yellow. The pink Achillea (yarrow) below it has only paused for a week in blooming since April!

 Here is the vista from the rose arbor down to the shady bed at the beginning of May. I showed this in the spring update and you could clearly see the turquoise bench at the end. Now it is a speck.

 Same scene now at the end of June. The bench is completely concealed by the sprawling blob that it great-granny hydrangea at the far end. And the array of flowers has changed. Now the day lilies and asters are out.

To give you perspective, the fish pool I showed you earlier is to the right, and the bed extends to the arbor.

Look at the willow support in each picture.

The lilies are filling it and things are coming up.

The roses are beginning and larkspur are making ferny mounds.

Things are fattening up.

And suddenly, roses unfurl everywhere! Look to the distance. So much beauty and fragrance. Oh my heart!

 I have a very hard time picking roses to bring inside for bouquets. I would rather the flowerbed be the bouquet, and then get to see them shatter and add their petals to the composition.

 What is that above? Could it be some of my Papaver somniferum, commonly known as the opium poppy or breadseed poppy, peeping up?!

 These are so difficult for me to grow. I have to nurture and tend to them like babies to get a small stand. Here are Hungarian Blue poppies, and I never even thought of the color combination when I planted them. But look at the new climbing rose that I also planted behind it. And the purple clematis Etoile de Violette on the arbor. It was a match made in heaven!

This is Quick Silver. I have never had a lavender rose before, and I was uncertain about it when I saw how it blotched after blooming. But this rose holds on so well! The roses lasted forever. They did not have a strong scent, but I forgive it that if it will climb and bloom well.

And just today one of my pink "Hens and Chicks" poppies opened, below.

 A gratuitous rose picture simply because I love it....

Above was taken two weeks ago. And below is today. Grandma's larkspur has gained full height and burst into blue and purple clouds. It is one of my very, very favorite flowers. I think I am going to do a post just showing you the color variations and the flowers close up. They are truly exquisite! And looked how plump and filled in the bed is. *happy sigh*

Here is the shady bed. I showed you this in the spring and it was a heaven of blowsy blue Sweet William Phlox, Polemonium (Jacob's ladder), and wild geranium. Now it has cycled to the pinks of tiarella, foxglove, and campanula Cherry Bells.

I love the variations in leave color, texture, and venation.

When I was young, I only wanted things that would bloom flamboyantly. Now I realize that plants that look amazing out of flower carry the garden through all the seasons.

And here are two of the giant snowball hydrangeas that came from my great-granny's original bush. I love them. And can you see my two sitting areas now? The table and chairs is just barley visible and the bench is hidden away. I love so much how the garden changed day by day, week by week. And after years of whining to you about how sad and disheartened I was about the state of my gardens....now you get completely overwhelmed with pictures! I feel so happy and so blessed that the gardens could be saved. I can only imagine how well they will do next year.

And here is one last photo. I strung lights in my tree and put up my lanterns for the first time in years. I was so excited to have garden parties once again. Well, corona virus has seen to the parties. 

 But I go out and sit in the swing and enjoy them and all my frogs singing in the evening. How I wish, Dear Reader, to invite you to a party in my garden. I hope that this little tour showed you a bit of how it feels. And thank you for going along with me through the years of travail as I fought with it. Your encouragement has been a part of what has made it so beautiful!