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July Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day
Jul. 14th, 2011 11:29 pmNow that it's officially summer and nearly all the spring wildflowers are gone, I had expected my Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day posts to get significantly shorter. But it turns out that there are still plenty of summer flowers to show. I do think the front yard has slowed down noticeably, but the back yard seems to be even more covered with flowers than before. I'm sure this is due to some combination of the back yard being naturally wetter (too wet, really, for most of the spring wildflowers' tastes) and the back yard being the only one I water in the summer. I'm not really watering the whole back yard, but I'm refilling the ditch every few days to keep the water-loving plants in it happy, and I'm spot-watering under a few water-loving plants outside the ditch: the red-twig dogwood, the buttonbush, the scarlet monkeyflower, and occasionally the California polypody fern.
Anyway, the plants seem pretty happy. As you can see from the picture, July is turning out to be primarily the month of white yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and yellow Hooker's evening-primrose (Oenothera elata ssp. hookeri). There are also some yellow prairie coneflowers (Ratibida columnifera) at the lower right and some yellowish rosillas (Helenium puberulum) in the upper right - you can hardly see the flowers from here, but you can see the stems poking up in the upper left. You can also see little green tomato fruits in the ditch, front and center.
Frankly, some parts of the back yard are becoming rather frighteningly overgrown. It's hard to believe that this has happened only a couple of years after I despaired of ever being able to keep anything alive in the back yard at all. Of course, I still yearn to cover all that exposed dirt in the foreground of the picture. But the area just out of sight to the left of this picture is fast becoming an impassable jungle of yarrow, asters, rosilla, and evening-primroses. I'd trim it back, but how can I bring myself to do that when it's all either blooming or due to start blooming soon?
( More pictures! )
Anyway, the plants seem pretty happy. As you can see from the picture, July is turning out to be primarily the month of white yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and yellow Hooker's evening-primrose (Oenothera elata ssp. hookeri). There are also some yellow prairie coneflowers (Ratibida columnifera) at the lower right and some yellowish rosillas (Helenium puberulum) in the upper right - you can hardly see the flowers from here, but you can see the stems poking up in the upper left. You can also see little green tomato fruits in the ditch, front and center.
Frankly, some parts of the back yard are becoming rather frighteningly overgrown. It's hard to believe that this has happened only a couple of years after I despaired of ever being able to keep anything alive in the back yard at all. Of course, I still yearn to cover all that exposed dirt in the foreground of the picture. But the area just out of sight to the left of this picture is fast becoming an impassable jungle of yarrow, asters, rosilla, and evening-primroses. I'd trim it back, but how can I bring myself to do that when it's all either blooming or due to start blooming soon?
( More pictures! )
