At this point in the Summer, the garden is in more shade than it should be. Before next year, I'll need to trim the mulberry tree that sits in the southeast corner of my lawn to bring in more sunlight. But I’m still collecting a zinnia and jalapeño or two every few days. There are some tomatoes set on and I’m hoping to harvest them before the 2020 garden season closes out.
The summer’s heat has begun to take a toll on my hosta plants, an August development that I am accustomed to. But there is still beauty to be seen in the vivid colors of these leaves.
Even as they begin to fade, they make me happy.
Things are a tad overgrown here in the frontward flowerbed, the outcome of a hot July, plenty of rain., and less time for gardening than I would like.
If I’m being honest, I have a fondness for the jewelweed’s yellow flowers and when I do clean out this flowerbed later this month, I’ll let them stay around. Summer green in abundance is a daily gift in this world gone mad and I am grateful for that blessing.
My first zinnia of the Summer season is a deep purple.
I don’t recall having planted such a deep shade of purple before and I think it’s lovely. This is the only bloom for now but enough for a bouquet are on their way. That’s happy!
There is a splendid hydrangea bush next to the gate in my backyard and I enjoy watching the leaves emerge each Spring. Most years, I don’t get flowers. I’ve read about pruning and fertilization until I am nearly blind and I remain rather confused about what it means to trim the old growth (or even whether my hydrangea is the sort that expects its old growth to be trimmed in order to bloom.) Thus it is that blooms are rare on this hydrangea.
But when they do emerge, they are unfailingly splendid.
A gardening friend reports to me that it’s a good year for hydrangeas and perhaps that explains my blooms. That’s better explanation than my confused pruning efforts and offers hope for lovely blooms come next Summer.
I really need to get to weeding but otherwise there is promise everywhere I look in this garden. There are at least a half dozen jalapeno peppers set on vines.
There’s a patch of heat coming our way and after I mow the grass today, I will set out the sprinkler. Within a few weeks, I’ll be harvesting tomatoes from the many green ones currently at work ripening.
Soon enough, I'll be picking zinnia bouquets for my Mason jars.
That’s happy!
What a difference two weeks makes; especially two weeks of warm weather. There are tomato blooms aplenty and on a few plants, actual tomatoes!
It was hard to make a picture but there are jalapeños just set on. The basil is starting to look happy, and the zinnia seedlings are strong.
An afternoon of weeding is clearly in order but things are looking most splendid here in my garden.
That’s happy!
