Feeling a little Sad

           pink lupines, white lilies, purple delphiniums, red maltese cross

           Sadly the last family of swallows left on Sunday. I checked the nest the next day and it was empty. I'm happy that they all managed to fledge successfully, though! This family of 5 tree swallow babies was quite late in comparison to all the others. It is a sad feeling when I go past the birdhouses outside and  they are all empty now.  The birds are still around here in this area some place and I do see and hear them occasionally, but I miss waking up to the trill of the house wren and the call of the gold finches and swallows as they greet the morning and they show off for potential mates.  I'm happy though that they have been successful in raising their families, but the 'bird raising season' seems to go by too quickly.

Garden:
The blue monkshood ( aconitum) have all started to blossom and my little pink monkshood looks like it won't be far behind. (photo soon!)

pink blossoms on Morden Centennial rose (left) and Lavatara (right)

The Lavatara have grown taller than last year and looking gorgeous with an abundance of flowers. As far as my roses go, the winner is..... Morden Centennial! It is full of numerous medium pink blossoms, quite similar in color to the lavatara blossoms and looking quite amazingly beautiful.

The winner of the gazanias (annual) is definitely the Tiger Eye! It blooms almost nonstop and I think I will try to get only Tiger Eyes next year.

My hollyhocks have started popping open their pink blooms now and they are superb, tall and stately as usual. The pretty pink blossoms are a nice contrast to the dark blue and purple of the clematis vines along the same wall of the house.

And my sweet peas are blooming now, too! Must have opened last weekend when we had some hot weather again (for a change). Guess I was too busy to notice! I tied some strings along the deck railing for them to grow on. Hmmm! I tied the strings horizontally along the spindles... I wonder if vertical strings would be better?

Another idea I read about is to take any branch cutting from shrubs, etc and put them upright in the ground for the sweet peas to cling to and climb up as they grow. Too bad I put them all in the compost already. Maybe next year I'll try that.

sempervivum (ruby Hen and Chicks)

My red 'Hen and Chicks, (sempervivum) is blooming and looking superb! I'm amazed by that because I dug it up from the wild flower bed out by the road where I had planted it 2 years ago.  It had grown quite large there, in a sunny but very dry location. I took one little 'rosette' from there a few weeks ago and planted it in my long perennial flower bed in the yard. It seems to love its new locations and started blooming in appreciation. This Hen and Chicks is amazingly beautiful!  My other regular green sempervivum  is growing so slowly, it almost seems to be standing still!

My white lilies have started blooming profusely and they are looking very lovely!  They remind me of Easter lilies. Speaking of which... I recently planted a healthy Easter lily bulb outside in my wild flower bed. It was a remnant of a lily I had bought at Easter. It stayed green for a long time in the house after the flowers were done and only just started dying back. I was going to put it in the compost, but decided to give it a chance to grow again, although I have not had much success with regrowing Easter lilies before this.  (I read some place that they are sprayed with something so they won't be able to grow a second time....)

white lilies pink lupines, red maltese cross


All in all, my garden is almost at its peak now! Some of the oriental lilies still have to open and then it will be at its utmost best!  Although vacations are great, I am so sad that I'm going on vacation next week and going to miss much of the spectacular show of my lilies. My flower beds will look so completely different in 3 weeks when I return!  I hope that Mother Nature won't be too hard on them in the meantime. :)