The Garden

I think it's time to get back to the 'Seasons in the Valley', starting with our garden.  Guess what happens when you're away for the month of June!?  It's a jungle out there, both plants and weeds grown to full summer size, and desperately needing attention.

The Foxtail Lilies were standing out like beacons when Ifirst looked out the window, 5 or 6 feet tall and bright orange.

But the white Valerian had invaded most of the back part of the garden.  A wonderful plant, it's so fragrant you can smell it as soon as you step out the door.  And it attracts insects of all kinds like honey.  But it spreads very easily by seed and generates a lot of seed, so it is now far from its original location, and spreading rapidly.  There's going to be some serious trimming done soon!

Two of our favourite Clematis are in bloom, this deep purple one climbing up the fence.

And this smaller more delicate flower, on a nearby trelis.

I let a few Milkweed come up for the butterflies and bees, but I didn't realize that I'd caught a bee in mid-air when I photographed this.

Daisies are another wildflower that we allow in the garden.  They look messy after blooming, so they get trimmed out, but they're quite beautiful in full bloom.

And the first few of our Day Lilies are in bloom.  They provide the biggest contribution to colour in our garden, mostly over the next 6 weeks.  I still can't quite believe that all of these flowers just bloom for a day.  We have 20 or 30 varieties.

Finally, the very first Hosta was blooming.  I caught this after a rain.  Hostas are the foundation of our garden, and by far the most numerous plants if you wanted to count them.  We grow them for their multi-hued green leaves, but over the next 2 months they will all flower as well.  Unfortunately a significant number were eaten down to the stems by deer in the time we were away.  We always lose a few, but this time we lost 40 or 50.  But the roots will bring the plants back next year.