Let’s Look At Pretty Things…

For a change.  I’m tired of whacked knee pictures. I would much rather look at pretty pictures of anything rather than old bunged up knees.

I took a bit of a walk around last night because I was getting cabin fever.  So I grabbed up the camera and gimped out the door.

 A baby gourd.

It’s bigger sibling. This is so exciting. We have tried to grow gourds before and for some reason have had no luck.  Carol started this gourd plant from seed and then put the plant in one of her barrels. Might have something to do with good soil, do you think?

A bright canna caught my eye and when I walked over closer…

I found this… the birth of a canna bloom.  I really liked how the sun, coming from behind the plant, looked trying to almost come through the leaves.

Our pink hibiscus. Like me, a late bloomer.

A butterfly visiting the zinnias.

Some more zinnias.

Blanket flowers. I love these flowers.  The new buds, the flowers and the seed heads are all interesting.  I’m hoping this plant triples for next year. 

Too much fun.  Can you imagine what I could do if I had a camera that I could take macro shots of some of this stuff?  I’ll have to start planning for that goal.

And I caught this downy through the front window last week. Working on the sunflower seedhead. 

Sunflowers… the flowers that keep on giving.

 

How wonderful is this world we live in… Keeps me going, for sure.

All Together Now…

Let’s tip toe through the

zinnias,

through the zinnias

with me…through the

black-eyed Susans

and the petunias,

bushy coreopsis,

and a hidden petunia

and, yes, I made the stepping stone.

 Bee at work

A beautiful little lantana…

Hens and chicks.

And my favorite hibiscus.  All white except for a hint of yellow on it’s pestles.  I’ve got more hibiscus that I’ll do a post on when I get photos of them all.  We don’t have anyplace to overwinter the tropicals yet so all I grow are the natives.

I hope to turn the goat shed into a greenhouse this fall and winter, but it’s too dang hot and I’ve got too much to do without biting off another chunk right now.

So I hope you enjoy the stroll.  Hetty, I don’t do near as good as you with the proper names.  Some of the plants were gifted so I’ll never know them except for their common name.  The hibiscus… I’ve got it’s name somewhere. The zinnias and the petunias being annuals are just zinnias and petunias.  But it’s all fun and like a merry-go-round of color to greet me in the morning.

What could be better?

Tiny Visitors…

And a flower show.  Bees and butterflies and an occasional frog have all been almost as busy as me.  I decided that today is a good day to show you a few photos. 

In this picture of a cone flower there are two different types of bees and a butterfly.

I think I’ll call this one butterfly on coneflower with branches…

This is a native clematis. I’d not seen one like this so I ordered it last fall and it has done well.  The tiny bell-shaped flowers are about the size of my thumb.

Two butterflies and a bee.  My sunflowers have brought a myriad of callers.

How could anyone look at this ruffledy pink daylily and not smile.

This is new to the garden this year.  It’s a hibiscus called “Texas Star".  It’s not a blooming marijuana despite the look of the leaves.

Another worker.

Bro called me out on the back porch a couple of nights ago.  This little guy was hanging out on the handle of the swiffer sweeper under the porch light.

Heap good hunting ground. The light brought in the moths and bugs and he had his own private buffet.

Ahhhh, morning glories. 

That’s all the eye candy for today.  We had a storm front blow through last evening, clear up for a couple of hours, then built up and rained for several hours.  Which means I don’t have to water today which is good because I’m hurting from the barometric changes.  The front broke the triple digit heat we’ve had  and we are only going to be in the low 90’s for the next week or so.  More like normal temperatures.  Well worth any pain I’m dealing with today.

I hope you all have a great weekend.  I’ll be posting the corn report at some point but for today I’m just going to go out and smell the rain fresh air and watch some of the British Open and I might even take a nap.