First Day of Summer!

I am posting some photos of some of the lovely flowers blooming in my yard right now. I was careful to crop out the weeds! It is just too hot to deal with weeds right now. It is very dry in the yard and we hope for rain every day. The last two summers were classified as a drought here and the rain seems to be avoiding us this year as well. I tend to plant drought-resistant plants which helps a lot.
My grass needs cutting in the worst way. Of course, something always seems to go wrong with the lawnmower when we are cutting grass. Most recent disaster - one of the wheels fell off of the riding mower while cutting! Well, a man came by and put it back on today. Now to get Joy back out to finish it up. She is busy getting ready for her trip to Hawaii next week. She is leaving Monday for TWO WEEKS!

I hope you can get out and enjoy the day today. I am going to go for a swim later today to cool off. Have a great one!

Julie

Red Hot Pokers and Other Flowers

Here are some photos of my flowers. They are so pretty right now. The amaryllis was a forced bulb that someone gave me for Christmas in 2006. The bloom was very scraggly at Christmas but I planted the bulb. It is more than making up for its poor showing during the holidays. The white snapdragons came back from last year. As you can see, I have quite a bit of weeding to do in this flower bed. I am just about ready to move to container planting only here and give up on this bed. The weeds are so obnoxious and when it gets really hot in the middle of the summer I tend to let them go.
This clematis just doesn't want to move on up the trellis. I am hoping it will twine around the confederate jasmine vine that has climbed all the way to the top and bloom along with it. The confederate jasmine gives the yard a fantastic smell this time of year. You can see some of the jasmine blooms in the background.
I just LOVE my red hot pokers! They are right by the road, as you can see on my blog title. I planted them around the mailbox and they sometimes stop traffic! There are red hot pokers all through my neighborhood because neighbors will stop by and ask for a plant. I always give them one - it only makes the neighborhood prettier! We plan to divide them this fall and plant them on a problem bank in my yard. Someone planted some nasty English ivy there before and I have been battling it since I moved here about six years ago. I hate invasive vines and we have plenty of them here in the South.
I don't plan to do any gardening or quilting today because I got very little sleep last night due to a persistant nosebleed!!! Of course I fired up the laptop to keep me company and Amanda just happened to comment on my blog at that time. It was nice to feel connected to someone when I was so miserable. Thanks, Amanda.
Julie