Day Lilies as August Begins

 Summer is passing far faster than it should, and our Day Lily season will soon be winding down, so let me share some of these beautiful flowers at the peak of the season.  Can't beat them for colour!

Hope you enjoyed these!

More About Town

Many of my rides downtown end at McGinty's, a coffee shop downtown where one of my favourite two baristas makes my favourite coffee for me.  It's the taste that counts, maple syrup instead of sugar.

I've no idea how they get the design on top.

I often stop and watch the small boats of the sailing school.  It's amazing how much these young sailors learn in a week!

Riding past the back of the Long Term Care Home I pass these glorious puffy Hydrangeas.

But along the other side of the home there are more weeds than anything.

I also pass a little library; we have one right on our own street too.

What a vibrant colour combination!

As I leave the walkway around the back of the Long Term Care Home I always notice the nice entrance.  This home has only been open two years, and I got a tour inside one day when I was passing.  It seemed very nice; certainly very new!  Since I expect I'll end up here eventually, at least for a short time, I keep an eye on the place!

About Town

As you know, I enjoy riding around town, though I don't go far.  But the other day I saw something interesting, and I thought I should get some photos for you other than those of our own garden, so here they are.

Right around the corner is a home with a thick band of Daisies in front.  I've never seen so many Daisies in one place!

And in many locations around town I see these gorgeous hanging baskets.  They are one thing the town does well.  This one was outside the arena.

And then I found a Yucca plant in full flower.  It was gorgeous.

I don't see these very often, so I took the chance to get a couple of close-ups.

I've always liked this mixture of yellow and pink blooms, Day Lilies and Echinacea, that I see outside one house.  I talked to the owner one day and learned that his wife had died, and the garden was her doing, but he was proiund of them and was trying to maintain them.

The yellow Day Lilies were striking themselves.

The View From The Window

 Sorry, the gap between posts is getting too long, but my computer has been acting up.  Every morning after breakfast, I mosy on over to our living room window where I sit and read the news, and can't resist taking a few pictures of the brigh Day Lilies straight in front of me.  The view is increasingly blocked by the Echinacea, but they're beautiful nonetheless.  Here they are.

Our view, to provide some context!

Hope you enjoyed those!

Colour in the Garden

 The other night Mrs. F.G. borrowed my camera to get some pictures in the garden, and was pleased with what she captured.  It's the most colourful time of year in the garden, and though the colour is scattered everywhere, it adds up to a lot of bright highlights.  These photos are all taken by the Head Gardener herself!

The orange flower behind the giant dragonfly is Butterfly Weed.

Hope you enjoyed these!

Back to the Garden

 I shared a number of the Day Lilies now in bloom, but there are numerous other flowers adding their colour to the garden.  Indeed, this is about the most colourful time in the garden all summer long.

Mrs. F.G. usually picks something new to grow every year, and this year she decided to grow Geraniums from seed.  The effort was a great success and after planting the seeds very early, like January, the flowers were ready to plant out in spring.  Since then the Geraniums have added lots of colour, especially at the front door.

The white daisies are now blooming.

We've still got some nice bright colour from the Maltese Cross.

Our red rose is blooming madly and our light pink one is also now in flower.

We have a few Cosmos blooming, with those tiny thin stems that serve as 'leaves'.  These flowers will last through into the fall.

And now the first of the Echinacea are flowering.  These pink ones are the most common variety, and spread through the garden easily, but we have them in several other colours.  These dominate our garden through into the fall.

Today I'm looking out the window at very thick yellowy clouds and the house is very dark.  It's smoke from the wildfires in north-western Ontario, taking our usually good air quality down to the worst in the world today.

Summer Wildflowers

Mid-July is the season for summer wildflowers, those usually beautiful flowers that some call 'weeds'.  They deserve a lot of credit though, since they grow all on their own, unlike the heavily pampered flowers we grow in our gardens.

Buttercups are one of the first here, and one of my favourites.  The town left these growing in a nearby ditch for a few days til they were mowed down.

Bright yellow Bird's-foot Trefoil spread all the way up the Collingwood Street hill.  Here I was literally only a few hours before the mowers!

This is one of those nasty invasive plants that is spreading widely here, Wild Chervil.  You can see it in ditches and along field edges all around here.

And this is Dames-rocket, easily confused with Phlox.  But this one has four petals, Phlox has five.

This is the remarkable seed-head of the Goat's-beard, like a giant dandelion seed.

This scraggly looking plant is Sow Thistle, taken in front of the brick wall of the new Long Term Care Home.

This pretty purple bloom is Knapweed, a plant with tough wiry stems that spreads too easily, but with a very pretty flower.

My favourite among all these is the Chicory, such a gentle blue.