Garden Beauties

Yellow begonias , white & blue lobelia, German ivy and orange diascia

Yellow tuberous begonias started from  over-wintered tubers in March

I can hardly believe it is already the middle of July!  Things are looking so beautiful in my garden beds right now. (I don't want to brag about it too much and risk antagonizing the 'hail gods', though :)

Tall yellow day lilies are popping open like mad in my lower rock garden bed, more and more every day!  They look spectacular with the red Maltese Cross and the white daisies blooming right behind.

My clematises were growing taller and taller and the buds were getting big and more numerous by the day.  They are leaning over now, since they have gone over the top of the trellis already and have nothing to hang on to. Their blossoms started popping open last week (finally) and they are quite beautiful.

My first hollyhock opened it's pink ad white flowers today. The first one is always a thrill! Oops, no photo yet...

Other plants are shutting down their flower production now. My big pink and white peony flowers by the pond are pretty much finished now, but they still smell wonderfully even if they don't look good anymore.
I clipped off many of my campanula cluster bell flowers today in the bed at the side of the house. More than half of them are done blooming and I definitely don't want them to go to seed. They are invasive enough by their roots alone.

Campanula bellflowers- noninvasive type

I also deadheaded many of my white daisies which are starting to go to seed now. They LOVE to try and take over their flower bed, given half a chance.  Still have a lot more daisies left to clip off. My blue sage has pretty much finished blooming too. it began in late May so I am pleased with it's long bloom time. If I clip just the flower stems off, and not too many leaves, they will have a second bloom in late August, although not as profusely. The daisies will do the same.

I am thrilled to see that my pond lily has 2 buds on it!  They are such beautiful flowers, but only bloom when the conditions are perfect; enough sunshine and when the pond water is a warm enough temperature. We did a major water change in our pond last Friday, pumped out much of the algae water and added fresh water from the well.  I hope that didn't set back the grow or blooming of my pond lily. They are pretty finicky and also very susceptible to frost in late summer.

Blue delphiniums

Just for the record, now that all my delphiniums are blooming, I see that they are NOT all purple, there are 2 that are blue delphiniums, one a light blue and one a medium blue with white centres.

Purple Delphiniums, red Maltese Cross, columbines (pink and yellow), pink Mallow flowers on right

7 foot Delphiniums in centre

In centre: 7 foot delphiniums,  helianthus perennial sunflower and red Maltese Cross.

Blue cluster bellflowers on left, Raspberry Parfait dianthus and gazanias along edge. 

The gallardias are not blooming yet and neither are the Ozark Snowdrops but it shouldn't be too much longer.  

The Portulaca is just starting to bloom now. Wasn't sure it would amount to anything because so much of it rotted off at soil level in the greenhouse pots before I even planted it out. They were given too much water.

Morning glory vine with one open purple blossom, white daisies in front, Morden Blush rose to left, white potentilla behind

It was a hot and sunny +28C day on Monday; Too hot to be outside for long unless you were in the shade. I spent most of the morning watering all the flower beds. My thoughtful husband had put the sprinkler on the veggie garden this morning at 8 am to start off the watering.  Of course we had a thunderstorm a while ago, with a huge downpour of rain!  The weather forecast did say there was a 60% chance of thunderstorm over night...

Murphy's Law... If you don't water, it won't rain... if you DO water, it likely WILL rain.  That's exactly what did happen.