What you don’t see is a picture of me smiling, but rest assured…I am!

Visit other gardens and their gardeners at Tootsie Time’s Fertilizer Friday.

~~Rhonda

There are large swathes of black eyed Susans in the yard. And they are still producing lots of bloom and color.

There are still quite a few daylilies showing off their final blossoms.

‘Carolicolassal’

‘Lavender Luxury’

This unknown daylily is in full bloom right now. It is taller than I am and is the latest bloomer in our collection of daylilies.

And one of my favorites…we gave this one the garden name of “Paprika” because we don’t know its real name.

The garlic chives are beginning to bloom. A large bunch of these is really pretty, with the stems all bending in the same direction and the buds opening a few at a time until there’s a sea of white.

The ‘Royal Standard’ hostas are blooming. A beautiful bright white, they have a wonderful sweet fragrance. This particular plant lost its sheltering redbud tree last year. We need to move it to a better location. Somewhere it won’t get so much sunburn.

I don’t remember which hosta these purple flowers were on.

The crepe myrtle is a great shrub for color this time of year.

The garden bench under the mulberry tree is a bit overwhelmed by hostas and elderberries.

Aren’t the elderberries pretty?

We had a little sprinkle of rain this afternoon, but it didn’t amount to more than a few drops on the redbud leaves.

We can see this hibiscus from the kitchen windows. The flower is about 12″ across and a beautiful rosy pink color. It’s called ‘Sante Fe.’

We don’t have many annuals or container plants, but I do love this large pot of coleus that sits by the back door.

I hope you enjoyed the garden walk. If you would like to see other gardens with beautiful blooms, click on Bloomin’ Tuesday.

~~Rhonda

We have a bed next to the blue spruce that hasn’t received much attention. It’s out of the way, in a spot we don’t regularly walk by, so it is somewhat neglected. But there is a nice tangle of flowers in it right now.

Oh, my. Just look at all that catnip (Nepeta Cataria) that needs to be ripped out. The stuff spreads with abandon!

Hydrangea ‘Little Lamb’

We planted this compact hydrangea last summer and I’m pleasantly surprised by how well it is blooming this year. The plant is still so small, though, that the flower heads weigh the stems down. Should just get better and better each year.

Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’

Pretty isn’t it?

Nearby, the daylily seed pods are maturing.

The honesty plants (money plant / Lunaria annua) are setting a lot of seeds. As usual.

The front porch in the fading light of the setting sun.

We have company coming late this evening to stay until Sunday afternoon. Lots to do yet, so I’d better sign off. I’ll check in tomorrow. If you want to see what other gardeners are doing today, check out Fertilizer Friday at Tootsie’s place. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!

~~Rhonda

In the fenced garden, the bare spots where DH took out all the over zealous lemon balm need to be filled in with something new. We’ll have to ponder that.

This bee seemed deliriously happy in the hollyhock.

The surprise lilies are popping up all over the yard. Look at all those little ones coming on. There were surprise lilies in the yard when we bought the house, but these, in the fenced garden, are from my grandmother’s yard.

The garden phlox is blooming like crazy. And it makes the garden smell so good.

The tallest daylily in our garden opened for the first time today. We don’t know the name of it. It’s a very late bloomer and extremely tall.

Ack! What’s this?? Red sassafras leaves… You know what this means?? Before we know it, autumn will be here. ::sigh::

And the little wild asters are starting to bloom, too. Another sign of fall.

But I’m going to play Scarlett for now and think about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day…

While I’m not thinking about fall, why don’t you join me as I peruse Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Daydreamer’s blog. Let’s see what everyone else was up to today.

~~Rhonda

The black eyed Susans are a sea of color.

The tiger lilies are near the end of their bloom. A few last blossoms top the long lanky stems.

A helpful flickrite helped me ID this little green bug. I saw several of them on the tiger lilies. They are immature stink bugs. Never would have guessed that!

After counting the new daylilies, we found we bought 14 new ones last weekend. Four or five of those were mini daylilies. Mini doesn’t necessarily mean a small plant. It refers to the size of the blossom. Miniature daylilies have blooms that are under three inches in diameter.

DH planted the mini daylilies in the fenced garden.

Zak watched from the comfort of the birdbath.

Near the edge of the woods, the garden phlox backs the last of the ditch lilies.

I think I’ll get a blanket and watch one of my favorite shows…”Chopped.” I’ll see you in the garden tomorrow. To visit other gardens (where it may be warmer!) click on over to Jean’s place for Bloomin’ Tuesday!

~~Rhonda

Though the daylily season is on the downhill side, the yard is still full of lovely blossoms.

‘Dragon King’

‘Modern Love’

‘Cherry Cheeks’

‘Swelling Anthem’
I love the subtle blending of colors on this bloom. I’d like to collect more of Brother Charles Reckamp‘s daylilies. ‘Little Rainbow’ and ‘Techny Breeze’ are two of my favorites in our garden.

Tiny blue butterfly.

Someone nearby must have bee hives. We see quite a few honeybees in our yard.

I don’t know which hosta this is, but it’s looking very good this year.

This is the most sun ‘Daybreak’ gets all day, yet it maintains its beautiful pale yellow green color and brightens this dark corner.

We’ve neglected our hostas this year and they seem to be thriving on the neglect. Or they are bouncing back from the hard freeze they
experienced two years ago. Anyway, they’re looking good!

‘Paradigm’

Before you go, click on over to Tootsie’s place and visit other gardens to see what’s blooming there.

Now get out there and enjoy the weekend!! ~~Rhonda

It’s cloudy today and only 75*, though humid. Sprinkled this morning, so everything is wet. Here’s a picture of just outside the back door. Most of this is shaded by a very large old oak tree, so we have a lot of hostas here.

DH was home earlier than usual today, so he went out and worked in the garden pulling weeds. Our garden helper Eliot was working in the fenced garden which had become overgrown, so DH worked there, too. He dug lemon balm from the garden, inside and out. That pile in the lower left of the picture is all lemon balm.

And he pulled some miscellaneous weeds and small trees from this nearby garden under a redbud tree.

We hire Eliot to pull weeds in the garden five hours a week. We couldn’t keep up with the chore without his cheerful help!

The fenced garden looks great now. And you can walk through it without forcing the weeds aside. We love this Rubbermaid wheelbarrow. What a work horse! We’ve used it for years and it just keeps going. A plus is that it carries water without leaking. All kinds of useful applications from hauling water to holding plants until they can be placed in the ground.

We went to the front fence to write plant sale times on the sign and I took this picture, looking back toward the house. I still need to do something about those upstairs window treatments. They look so stark. Didn’t show from the road until we took out two big pines last year, so I never noticed what those windows looked like from the yard before then.

The recent rain has done a number on the Russian sage.

This is one of our “unknown” daylilies. If you know the name, give me a shout!

Some of the hostas are still blooming.

Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’ is one of my favorite grasses in the yard. It’s beautiful every season of the year.

We had a plant sale this afternoon. All the monies we raise from plant sales goes into the mission fund at church.

Between customers, DH weeded around the redbud tree. We put two wagon loads of wood chips on the bed after DH finished pulling the weeds. He also dug out the irises and the daylilies that were growing here. They need to be moved to sunnier locations.

The tiger lilies always bloom in July and they are so pretty right now.

If you enjoy being outside, you may like to see what others did outside today. Take a look at Outdoor Wednesday.

And to enjoy perusing what is blooming in others’ gardens, visit July 2009 Bloom Day. Lots to see there!

~~Rhonda

Most of the day, though, was cloudy in the garden.

After all the rain we’ve had, the weeds are tall but very easy to pull. We get tons of redbud volunteers and the rain made pulling them easy, too, as DH shows.

Even though the daylily season is waning, there is still a lot of color in the garden. The purple cone flowers certainly help with that.

The daylily ‘Flasher’ is at its peak right now. You can see this one all the way across the yard! Great color!

Need a place to rest or somewhere to enjoy the view? There’s a bench waiting for you under the dogwood tree.

Aren’t these colors yummy?

Sometimes, daylilies will have four petals and four sepals rather than the usual three each. Blossoms like this are called polytepal. ‘Cosmic Pinwheel’ had two polytepal blossoms. A third blossom had one extra sepal.

In the fenced garden, another bench waits for you. This bench is usually a sunny place to sit, but not today.

The daylily ‘Frans Hals’ is at its peak right now, too. How pretty is that?

The phlox makes a great splash of purple in the background. If you have the space, plant in drifts of color. So pretty!

At the back of the garden, a bed of daylilies separates two entrances into the woods. Which way do you want to go?

Coming out of the woods, you can rest under the mulberry tree…just push that elderberry out of the way. It’s beginning to overshadow the bench. Time to get out the pruners.

In the back yard, near the daylily propagation bed, the pure white of the Southern Magnolia blossom looks so beautiful against the dark glossy green leaves. And the scent as you walk by? Wonderful!

The redbud tree by the wood chip pile was a volunteer. It sits at the end of the parking area and, at one time, was backed over by the car. But it bounced back. I decided to leave it there as a guide to keep the wood chips from being dumped too close to the fenced garden

Coming back from the garden, I’m confronted by the kitties. “Where’s supper??” they want to know. Left to right: Happy, Zak and Zilli. Oreo is nearby. He’s waiting, too.

I hope you enjoyed the garden this evening. If you would like to see other gardens, click on over to Jean’s place for Bloomin’ Tuesday. Enjoy!

~~Rhonda

Another lake in the center of the driveway.

And lots of puddles.

The fragrance from the garden phlox is heavenly.

The ribbon grass adds great texture to the garden. This is so pretty in the fading evening light.

Everything in the garden glistens with rain drops.

The color of the purple cone flowers ties the garden beds together as the daylily color begins to decline. Purple cone flowers reseed themselves with great abandon and have spread across the garden. Not a bad thing, if you have room for them. Otherwise, just pull them out and pass them on to someone else. They are native to the prairie and are great plants that require little care and no watering.

We are asked about this a lot, so I’ll tell you (in case you’ve wondered) that we do not water our garden. We do water plants when first planted, but other than that, they have to fend for themselves. If they can’t survive without watering, they won’t be in our garden. Of course, that’s not an issue this year with all the rain we’ve had! We do put down a lot of mulch and that helps tremendously. The soil condition improves with the mulching and that helps hold moisture. We use wood chips as mulch. A friend has a tree trimming business and he keeps us well supplied. Thanks, Paul!!

I can hear the barn swallows chattering like crazy on the front porch. Sounds like the babies are fledging!

I’ve worked on this post off and on all day. Now it’s after 6:00 and DH is on his way home from work. We’ll have a quick supper, then check on the barn swallows and take another walk around the yard.

~~Rhonda

I took this picture from the front porch yesterday afternoon. The ground was too wet for traipsing through the garden.

The tiger lilies are from DH’s family farm, which is about ten miles north of where we live. We’ve brought a lot of plants from there to our own garden. Tiger lilies, several varieties of daffodils, shrubs, old roses, Bouncing Bet, peonies, irises…

The goldfinches are beginning to check out the purple cone flowers. The seeds are a favorite food for them. From now through autumn, as we turn into our driveway, we will see swarms of these beautiful little yellow and black birds fly up from the cone flowers.

Yesterday, we enjoyed a break in the rain during the early afternoon. DH collected the mail, checked a few daylilies, and then went on a 27 mile bike ride. Next weekend, he will take his bicycle across Indiana, 160 miles, in one long day.

The rain has certainly given the gardens a lush full look! So lush that it hides the garden bench in front of the phlox in the fenced garden. At least from this view point.

The garden phlox was a gift from a local gardening friend, who found it too invasive for his garden. We have so much room in our yard that plants that spread are quite welcome. There is always a good place for them.

~~Rhonda