This is one of my favorite garden spots - daisies, mallow, purple coneflower and Raspberry Wine monarda all bloom together. Later purple phlox will join in too. It's a riot of wild bloomers. The monarda is just starting to open - this lakeshore garden used to be full of monarda and looked totally cool when it bloomed. But monarda has a way of taking over a garden, so last fall I took out most of it and, for the time being at least, I'm planning to contain it in a couple spots. We'll see how well that works!
This mallow plant is in one of the porch gardens, and is poking through the railings by the steps. Later a fall blooming anemone will do the same thing on the other side. I love these blooms - and how happily this plant sprawls.
The daisies are opening. I have several groups of daisies spread around various gardens.
All Summer Beauty hydrangea. It needs a little winter protection in Minnesota, and every fall I feel like yanking it out because who needs all this winter protecting work anyway... but then I relent and when it starts blooming, I'm always happy I helped it out. This is one that will bloom either blue or pink - mine is pink, and I'm okay with that.
The hollyhocks are so happy this year! I love this old-fashioned plant. On the right is one of my heirloom tomatoes - the plants are getting very big and new tomatoes are setting every day. I CANNOT wait to have tomatoes from the garden!!
Mark made me a special holder/sling for my kayak. Seems to be working pretty well. Look how clear and calm the water was this morning: you can see footprints in the sand bottom. (The black thing is not a snake - it's the hose for the lake pump. Just in case you were wondering.)I am loving the kayak - feel pretty comfortable with it, but I'm still avoiding super windy conditions and haven't been out when there's a lot of boat traffic yet. I'll get there though!
(Some of these photos will click big)
14 comments:
Kris,
Thank you for visiting me today! I love your life (oh, I mean blog!) between all the gorgeous flowers, the lake and the cayak, you pretty much live in heaven~
Lidy
Ooooooooh, I particularly like the first photo. I avoid winter-protection work as much as possible!!
The Hydrangea is wonderful...how different from mine when seen in pink, I still really like it!
The mallow is loverly.
...and on another note...those dogs! arrgghhhh! I'm sorry for your loss. Heart breaking isn't it? I have a dog named Kitty (a 95lb Rottweiller)and she thinks its her job to stomp out every hosta in the back yard. sigh.
I love that first photo. I tend to fall inlove with "wild bloomers" as well. And that mallow is just gorgeous!
I must get a mallow. How pretty. I love the daisies too but they don't like me. I think I've planted them two or three times and they don't come back. And those hollyhocks are lovely. The single ones are my favorite. Glad you are enjoying your kayak.
Hi Kris,
I have the same combo - mallow/daisies blooming. I, too, have always liked them together. My daisies are very short this year.
You have so many lovely lilies blooming,too. Just beautiful!
I am glad to hear you are enjoying the kayak. It looks pretty scary to me, but I'm not a water lover.
Thanks Lidy - we do think of this as our little slice of heaven! :) Thanks for visiting!
Hi me - I agree about winter protection, but some plants I just HAVE to have, it seems!
Chitweed - the All Summer Beauty is just starting - it gets a lot more pink than that - kind of a lavender pink, if you know what I mean. The blue is really prettier, but sometimes you just have to play the hand you're dealt!
A 95 lb rottweiler named Kitty - I love it! Mine will pretty much destroy anything - hosta is a favorite here too - monsters!
Thanks Colleen! My gardens are very casual and the wild bloomers are naturals. Thanks for visiting!
Meresy_g - you must get mallow - it is so fun. My daisies spread everywhere - aren't plants weird sometimes? The single hollyhocks are such nostalgia plants - I absolutely love them. I used the rudder on the kayak for the first time tonight - wow, going straight is so much easier now! LOL - not sure why I avoided that for a whole week!
Thanks Zoey - this is such a fun time of year for gardens. (I hope you don't really get that frost - yargh!) The daisy and mallow are such a great combo. I'm very lucky that I don't have deer eating my lilies!
The kayak is pretty stable - tonight a couple guys let me pass in front of their boat (instead of swamping me with their wake - I totally appreciated that!) - so we were chatting, and I was showing them how stable the kayak was - and, yes, almost tipped it over. "Do not show off when you are just learning a new skill" - words for me to think about - lol!
When I learned to downhill ski, I managed not to fall down for the first couple of hours, until I tried to show off how I could turn around using a cross-country maneuver.
Splat.
Your pups sure are a handfull! What if you put invisible fencing around the yard? Not right at the fence, but in a few feet, to protect the borders? They dogs are smart enough to figure out fairly quickly where they can and can't go.
The mallow and daisies look so pretty together. I've actually had some luck with daisies, almost too much, they tend to take over my garden. Love the hollyhocks, they are so old-fashioned:)
Love the flower combinations. Beautiful!
Oh, I wish I could grow flowers. Your gardens are so lovely.
Kitt - yeah. I have some great learning to ski stories too - a goodly share of them originating in Colorado - we love it there.
The dogs are really pretty good in the gardens - EXCEPT when there are chipmunks, other dogs, etc involved. (sigh)
Karen, Jean, and Lynne - thank you so much - I love sharing my gardens, and it's nice to get such lovely feedback! :)
Your gardens look so nice. For some reason you haven't been showing up on bloglines. I'm glad you left some comments .
Laurie & Chris - thanks for checking in! I always enjoy hearing from you.
Post a Comment