Garden

I'm always torn on whether to pick the sweet peas or not. I really want these pretty colors on the vines, but you have to keep them picked to keep them blooming. Obviously the answer is to plant more sweet peas...

I have three clumps of the Hyperion daylilies, and I've been so happy with their performance this year, especially the ones by the blue spruce. I missed their moment of glory, so I don't have a picture, but this clump is located by a blue spruce underplanted with russian sage, Elijah Blue fescue grass, and a clump of snow-in-summer, and it gets a good deal of shade. The soft yellow daylily flowers shine out of the blue-silver shade like stars. Or maybe a better analogy would be like lightning bugs--the color is almost the same, although the daylilies last a tad longer than the flash of a lightning bug.


Another thing about them that makes me happy this year is a visual rhythm I obtained purely by accident. From two particular vantage points a viewer can see three tall (40") clumps of Hyperion spaced through the yard, leading the eye on--the one by the spruce tree, one by the back door, and one by the garage. I couldn't get a good picture I'm afraid, but it's very effective. I hope I can accomplish something similar in other parts of the yard.

A third thing I like about Hyperion is that when I go to deadhead them, I get just a whiff of sweet scent.

Speaking of scent, there are 9 Casa Blanca lily buds. I expect them to open any day, and can't wait for that beautiful fragrance to come wafting up into the house through the windows.



The container plants were very unhappy with all the rain we got last week--was it Saturday? Sunday? Whichever, we got about an inch and three-quarters, and the container plants were just saturated. I've had to cut back the dichondra since it had gone all limp and turned yellow--I hope it will come back as it dries out. I moved the fuschia into a pot of their own, since they've been sitting there for about six weeks now looking completely pathetic and doing absolutely nothing instead of dripping in pink and purple glory over the edge of the pot, and I also took out a heliotrope which didn't look quite so pathetic but was equally non-flowering. I hope that in their new homes they'll both perk up enough to give me some late-summer flowers. I'm also hoping the various calibrachoas will collect themselves and give me some more bloom. At any rate, between the cut-back dichondra, the non-blooming calibrachoa, and the holes where 3 plants were, the big container is obviously catching its breath. Here's hoping it goes on to better things.