GBBD - Come have a seat in the blooms

Self-seeding impatiens.

It's the 15th of the month and time for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.   A walk through my garden with the camera this afternoon was more rewarding than I expected.  At this time of year it seems that everything is worn and frayed and many of the blooms are spent.  But there are a few plants that are at their peak now.  

Drifts of lantana in the front bed have always been a magnet for butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.  The butterflies have been few this year, but while taking this photo a hummingbird flew all around me as if he was asking me to move.  If only I'd been able to capture him in the photo!

August is also bloom time for liriope, sometimes called "monkey grass" or "lilyturf"  It can be invasive, spreading by runners, but I love it all the same - and it's very pretty when it blooms.

bordering the sidewalk to the side porch

In front of Homestead Purple Verbena, also a reliable August bloomer

Some of the beauties from early in the summer are still hanging in there, displaying a bloom or two.

This is the lone bloom on the Luna Blush hibiscus.

The Meadow Beauty, a native wildflower, isn't blooming as profusely as it was, but there are still plenty of delicate blooms around the birdbath.

Several varieties of coreopsis have been faithful all summer.

There are a few newcomers to the garden that have proven reliable through the August heat.

Kerria Japonica

Multiblue Clematis

If you stroll around my garden you'll see these and other blooms - zinnias, knock-out roses, hot lips salvia, blue speedwell, May Nights salvia, Becky Towe Phlox, red yarrow, dianthus, and more.  But if you want to be surrounded by blooms, you'll want to have a seat in one of those Adirondack chairs.
Click on over to May Dreams Gardens and see what's bloom in other gardens around the world.

A glow from within

The theme of Gardening Gone Wild's April "Picture This" contest is "Let's Talk About Light" and the challenge is to match the subject with the light.  Rob Cardillo, the judge, offers wonderful advise and some samples of his work in the post about the contest here.  In reading it I realized something about my own attempts to match the light to the subject:  I've been nearly ignoring the subject and trying to capture the light.  The light is what mesmerizes me, especially in the Fall and Spring, but all year long in the early morning and late afternoon.  
It's impossible, of course, to capture the light.  And in reality its the mood that the light evokes that I want to freeze in time and save.

Early morning on my beloved Lake Norman

The color of the Japanese Maple as it comes to life

The unfolding of the clematis bloom

The dogwoods at their peak

There are countless images stored on my computer of these scenes - the lake, the maple and dogwood, and the clematis.  But I won't be entering any of them in the contest.  Instead I'll be entering this photo of an iris.  I can't tell you the name of the iris,  just that I dug it and several more like it from my mother-in-law's garden after she died five years ago.  They were the first bulbs I planted in my new garden.  They bloomed nicely the first and second years, but not at all the third.  Last year I had one bloom.  And so I dug them up (they had multiplied several times over) and moved them - giving them more room and more sun.  This week they began blooming - all of them - tall and happy and reaching for the sky.  I go out every morning to admire them and remember my mother-in-law.  They seem a little shy, as she was, but when the morning sun shines on them just right they glow from within, just like she did.

Dog days

According to Wikipedia, "Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies" according to Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813. [1]"
It has felt hot enough for the seas to boil and wine certainly would have turned sour had we left it out in the heat.  I have been languid, but I have avoided hysterics.

Last week, while out in the early evening to mow while I weeded and watered,  my husband spotted a dog day cicada nymph.  These are not pretty, but they are amazing.

 Fortunately, there are still plenty of pretty blooms in the garden, despite the record high temperatures.

And each morning when my husband and I go out for our early morning walk, we're reminded that the days are getting shorter and summer will soon be waning.

The first blooms on the moonflower vine opened this week.

I started this from seed in a large container (with a trellis) on my porch, but it became obvious that it needed more room to grow, so I put it in the ground by the birdhouse.  Now it can grow up the birdhouse post.

The Sienna Sunset Coreopsis and the Fireworks Clematis are both blooming again, though this second round of Clematis blooms are smaller than the first.

The Summerlong Basil, the Pentas, and the Tricolor Sedum are all doing well in the summer heat.  

We enjoyed some of the basil in a pasta sauce for dinner tonight.

I'm looking forward to an evening cool enough to sit outside and smell the fragrance of those moonflower blooms!

All curves. . .then still more curves

Gardens... should be like lovely, well-shaped girls:  all curves, secret corners, unexpected deviations, seductive surprises and then still more curves.  ~H.E. Bates, A Love of Flowers

I don't think the curves that H.E. Bates refers to should be just in the shape of the garden as a whole, but in the individual plants as well.   I love the sense of motion in plants.  On my drive home from work each day I pass a home whose lawn is bordered in manicured shrubs.  Those shrubs have been pruned into precise geometric shapes - entirely unnatural and stiff, with no sense of motion.  I prefer that my flowers and plants look at least a little wild,  looking as if they might decide to start dancing.  (Maybe that's because I love to dance.)  Or as if they need a little hair gel. (Maybe because I have unruly hair.)  And I really love the  graceful flowers, tall and slim.  Those I'm jealous of!

Pretty in Pink

It was a hot and exhausting weekend working outside, but it was wonderful.  Now if we have rain tomorrow as the forecast promises,  all will be well.
The climbing rose is just beginning to bloom.  It's a simple, pale pink rose that blooms profusely for a couple of weeks in May. And it has lots of pink company!

Coming Soon - I hope!

Thanks to Tootsie Time for hosting "Fertilizer Friday", an invitation to garden bloggers to "flaunt their blooms."  Head on over to Tootsie Time for more information on Fertilizer Friday and where it gets its name.
Most of my blooms today are on azaleas and dogwoods, pictures of which I have recently posted.  So I'm sharing with you pictures of blooms that I hope to see on my plants soon.  These pictures are from previous seasons but all of these plants are loaded with buds at the moment and I'm hoping for a big show soon!