Evolution of a Garden

All summer long, and earlier, in the spring, this garden has been a great source of delight to me. I call it the Rose Garden because there are 3 rose bushes planted here, but it could just as well be named the Clematis Garden.

Here it is in early June before we decided to enlarge it.

The Jackmanii Clematis, growing tall on the left (this picture was taken before the blooms began to open) is really the star of this little corner, producing a mass of purple blooms from June 21st this year and lasting until about the 2nd week in August. Carnaby, the other clematis that you see in the corner, has its main burst of blooms earlier in the spring and then reblooms on and off all through the summer.

Here's the Jackmanii on July 9th in all its glory.

Here's the Carnaby on June 14th....

....and again on July 30th, growing on the first bent wood trellis that Ross surprised me with on Mother's Day.

You can see in the top picture how it spread around the corner and needed a second trellis to keep it growing up instead of sprawling all over the garden.

There are perennial Sweet Peas beside it which also sprawl all over the place, so......

......my dear husband made a second bent wood trellis to keep them looking tidier. He's always so willing to help out :) It's shaped like a heart and turned out a little higher than he anticipated, but the Sweet Peas have climbed quite high on it at this late stage of the season. I wouldn't be surprised if the Carnaby Clematis heads over that way too eventually.

A few weeks later we decided to bring the garden out a little because we needed a sheltered place for the 2 new Hydrangeas.

The space in between gave me a perfect place to fit in a new Munstead Lavender,

......a Heuchera (Coral Bells) with dark leaves, plus numerous other bits and pieces.

The new Queen Elizabeth (pink) Rose has 3 blooms here......

......and the hydrangeas were providing some pretty pastel colors.

The Hydrangea on the right was more pink.......

.......while the one on the left produced blue flower heads.

The dainty annual Diascia has been one of my absolute favorites this summer.

Growing behind it you can see the marigolds whose seeds were sent all the way from Germany by Anita, one of my dear blog friends. I'm still waiting for the white flowers to open....hoping and praying they'll beat the frost.

And here are the yellow flowered Four O'Clocks that Marion, another dear blog friend in Wales, sent to me last Christmas. I killed the first seedlings of both, started early in spring, by foolishly overwatering the poor things, so I started more.

Marion, these blooms are all the more delightful to me because every time I see them I think of you. But they're blooming on Welsh time I think, because they open at 9:00AM instead of 4:00PM :)

Anita, the Marigolds have lots of buds but they are taking forever to open!! Nevertheless, I'm enjoying the pretty foliage and thinking of you whenever I look at them :) The world of blogging is such fun! I'm absolutely loving that purple Verbena behind the Marigolds.

Here's Fiona playing near the Lavender when the Marigolds were still small.

And here's why I call it the Rose Garden: Mr. Lincoln blooming with the Echinacea (Purple Cone Flower) has had quite a few lovely blooms this season.

My no-name pink has done very nicely this summer, with more blooms than usual.

Queen Elizabeth was planted last Fall and was inspired by Nature Girl, whose blog is where I first saw this beautiful rose.

Petunias and "Sweet Alice" (Alyssum) which of course reminds me of my very dear blog friend, Alice :)

A wider shot to show you all these new flowers together.

Sweet little Gus deserves equal time on the blog with his sister Fiona.

When I trim plants or a piece is broken off I often stick them in a pot to see if they'll grow. More often than not they do....and here are a couple of the results. There's a few fuchsia cuttings and a piece of pretty purple Bacopa in among the Marigolds and purple Alyssum.

The view from the other end with Miss Cleo, and the Obedient Plant in the background (over by the corner of the shed).

I was headed down toward the fence garden to plant a "passalong" lily when I stopped to take this last photo. See how red the vines are on the big elm? The Fall colors are beginning to look very pretty but this week has felt like the middle of summer. The weather has been absolutely wonderful and we've even had a little rain tonight and this afternoon.

I hope your week is bringing you as many blessings as mine is!

What's Blooming Now?

With just 4 days of Summer left we're blessed with glorious sunshine and a high temperature of 75ºF (23ºC) today. Fall is definitely in the air though, with night and morning temperatures feeling decidedly nippy. We've had some cool days too, with chilly winds, and a bit of rain.

The kids are back at school which means I'm back to subbing.

There's still plenty to do in the gardens. I have some passalongs to plant and 2 new roses we bought on sale yesterday. Apple and her sister brought me some plants from their gardens and we brought a few plants home from our son and DIL's garden this past weekend. Also on my to-do list is moving several plants, and there's still plenty of thinning to do. Oh, and I have some tulips bulbs to plant as well.

We still have some bright patches of color here and there. The containers, window boxes, and hanging baskets are still blooming..........some better than others.

This tall, late blooming Black-eyed Susan is Rudbeckia Triloba. It acts like a weed and I need to be ruthless pulling a lot of the seedlings, plus deadheading the plants as soon as they're finished blooming. However, it gives some very pretty late summer color, and looks great with my bright pink Aster.

I cut this Aster back early in the summer so that it wouldn't grow too tall and gangly. They tend to flop over and spread awkwardly if left alone.

It still gets quite tall and flops a little, but is neater than it would otherwise be. I like the silver Artemesia mixed with these 2 plants. That's another one that needs to be treated ruthlessly or it will take over.

I usually let plenty of these Black-eyed Susans grow on the back side of this garden, in between the Lilac bushes.

I'm loving this Sedum 'Neon' Stonecrop, and so are the bees!

I've admired Sedum in other people's gardens but this is the first year I've tried it in mine.

In the dish garden that our youngest daughter and her boyfriend gave me for my birthday there are 7 different Sedums, all short, except for Sedum 'Matrona'..another Stonecrop.

In this close-up you can see how the bees love it.

This tall pink flowered plant is called Physostegia Virginiana, or Obedient Plant.

Here's a closer view.

I love the pinkish purple color, and its late blooming habit, which gives the garden some welcome color this late in the season.

Mallow (Malva or Lavatera) is related to Hollyhocks, but is much shorter. It self sows liberally.

Snapdragons bloom into Fall, and are always a bright spot in the garden. I love these pink and white blooms.

These are dwarf Snapdragons in the pink garden. They bloomed early and then did nothing for a long time. They just recently began blooming again, finally giving us a nice show.

This Hosta flower has a lovely, sweet scent.

The white Rose of Sharon, planted last year, gave us only a few very small blooms that first year, but it's doing much better this year. The flowers are still not very large, but there are quite a few covering the shrub.

I've really enjoyed the long bloom time that this purple Verbena gives us.

With our family of barn cats, we rarely see squirrels, but I was lucky enough to catch this one with my camera when it visited our front porch. The baskets and containers are continuing to give us some nice color out there. We're still seeing a few juvenile hummingbirds, but sad to say, they'll soon be following their parents south to a warmer climate.

I planted these nasturtiums late, to add a bit of color around the side porch after I'd thinned out some perennials.

The Marigolds were planted with blue Ageratum in between, which worked well last year, but unfortunately they overtook the Ageratum this year and we're missing out on most of the pretty blue.

The roses are giving us a last burst of bloom. This tall pink single rose bush has been very pretty this summer, with more blooms than usual.

I've been very pleased with the Hydrangeas I planted in mid-July. They've grown well and born lots of blooms. The petunias are some that self-seeded from a few of last year's containers, which is why they're still looking good. I transplanted the seedlings into this garden.

Tuberous Begonias are always a favorite of mine.

I haven't mentioned everything that's blooming, but this is a good sampling of what we're enjoying in our late summer gardens.

JoAnne of "My Digital Eyes" has very generously given me this "Inspirational and Excellent Photography" award. Thank you so much for your kind words JoAnne! They're much appreciated.

This little lady is the newest addition to our barn kitty family. She's the fattest kitten I've ever seen! Tink, her mommy, is feeding her well.

We greatly enjoyed the visit with our son, DIL and grandsons this past weekend. I wish we lived closer so that we could see them more often, but we're blessed that they live in the same state, within a reasonable driving distance.

We had fun watching our first grader learning soccer skills on Saturday morning. He seems to really enjoy the game, and did well on the field. His little brother found a tree with some very interesting seed pods on the ground underneath it, and we had fun gathering those.

On Friday evening, shortly after we arrived, my husband surprised me with an EF100-300mm zoom lens for my camera! This man is full of surprises :) Just as he did with the camera, he surreptitiously asked our son to buy it for him. So now I have something new to learn. I'll do it in my spare time :)

Meanwhile, I hope you all have a lovely week.