Blooming today

I have beautiful orange daylilies which have a triple flower. I've seen doubles before, but not triples. I also have a white lily, which may be a type of crinum. I know I have red crinum, but I did not realize I have white ones. I have a few nice yellow canna, which I need to move since a gardenia is blocking the view of them. The purple flower is a rose of sharon. I also have white ones blooming.

New grass?

Well, we will try again. We raked up the entire grass areas today and planted bermudagrass seed. The planting season should be until mid July. We covered it all with wheat straw and dampened it. The we had almost 2 inches of rain. Maybe this will survive! It is a good grass for this area, although it will go dormant in cold weather.

I planted five crocosmia plants a couple of years ago. The had not bloomed, and I had actually forgotten what they were. They are blooming now, and are quite nice. They grow from corms and will spread. I have a nice picture of them.

The heat abates, some

The heat wave destroyed the grass we planted this spring. It was a beautiful green in the back yard. Now it is brown. I need to rethink the lawn areas for the rest of the summer.

Everything else seems to be doing pretty well. I've done maintenance this week. Lots of weeding. I've fertilized all the potted plants and sprayed roundup where all the weeds are growing in my patio and driveway. As soon as the gardenia stops blooming, they will need another round of pesticide.

I moved one of the Shepard's hooks to the front yard, and put a hummingbird feeder out there.

Some pictures of what is doing well are below. Purple coneflowers, a cantaloupe plant in front of a St. John's wort bush; black eyed susans and sedum and zinnias, which have just started to bloom today. I also have my first bloom on my four o'clocks.

THE HEAT

Wow, what a heat wave we have had. I've talked with fellow gardeners, and we are all seeing our plants suffer. If we dig down a couple of inches, the ground is still moist, but everything that has shallow roots has been hurt by five straight days of temperatures at 100. Even my daylilies have yellow leaves.

The water level in our fish pond has dropped about 4" in a week. Oh, the water hyacinths have indeed multiplied. Have they ever! I'll probably be advertising them for sale on craigslist very soon.

My butterfly bushes are now blooming. The seem to like the heat, as do my cosmos. Zinnias are close to blooming, and my sunflowers are healthy. Blackeyed Susans, coneflowers and salvia are also beginning to bloom. Obedient plants and four o'clocks seem to be doing well, but neither are blooming yet. Two of my rose of sharon bushes are now blooming.

Someone's reading!

I'm delighted to get a comment here; and a positive one at that.

Black eyed susans are now blooming. My gardenia bushes are loaded; weighted down with flowers. Also blooming are St. John's Wort bushes, cosmos, which reseeded this year, a yucca. The rose of sharon bushes have buds.

I haven't mentioned vegetables much, but I have a tomato plant, a squash, cucumber and cantaloupe. Three small tomatoes right now. I really prefer flowers, but it is fun to have a few veggies.

Zinnias are coming up nicely. I am now trying to note areas in my beds where I need to add plants, so that I can plant perennials in the fall. Here are pictures of the gardenia and St. John's Wort.

The first of June

Hot weather has arrived! 90 yesterday, and 86 and humid at eleven o'clock this morning.

My gardenias are blooming, which seems very early to me. Also blooming are day lilies, hydrangia bushes, easter lilies, rose campion. My black eyed susans and coneflowers have buds. Spiderwort is also still blooming. Here are pictures from this morning.