In Bloom

71 this morning, rain and storms off and on all day. Very humid, but cooler this evening.

I took my camera for a walk through the flower gardens this evening. There is so much color right now. In winter, it will be hard to believe that these colors were real.

I wish I was one of those people who keep track of the names of the varieties they plant. All I know about this rose is that it's beautiful, fading pink to yellow/orange in the center.

Fuzzy pic of feverfew, which is about finished now, but hopefully self-seeding again for next year.

I do enjoy the simple modesty of begonias. They seem to thrive so easily in pots, and I put them in my gardens like that sometimes to fill empty spaces.

Bee balm, gazing at itself in the gazing ball. Also a self-seeder.

Old-fashioned tall phlox and double orange daylilies come up here every year.

Mandevilla, which I think is supposed to be a vining plant. I nip off any bits that want to vine and it seems happy enough. Such bright flowers.

Ye olde standby for planters, petunias/ These have been exceptionally pretty this year.

I believe this hydrangea is Hydrangea macrophylla serrata.I am so in love with it. After years of trying, I finally have a good plant. Now to keep the deer away. This bush is covered with bloom this year.

I call this stevia--I believe it is a variety of stevia anyway, but not, I think, the one that makes sweetener. I like this plant for its hardiness, it's wide range of colors, and for its constant bloom clear up to and sometimes after frost. 

A climbing red rose that was a marked-down buy several years ago. I believe I'm getting my 5.00 worth.

Drift roses planted last year. They've grown fast.

These lilies are 5 feet tall. I don't know the variety. They seem pretty happy to hobnob with the coneflowers.

Sweet little lemon lilies have a hard time here. I think this flowerbed is too dry for them. But they solider on regardless.

Here they co-exist with coreopsis and coneflower.

A new rose this year--and did I keep the tag? No, daggone it. the deer have been mowing this one off until last week when Larry put a piece of chicken wire over it. Not the best solution but it will do for now. The grateful plant immediately sent up a flower in thanks.

I am not sure how this little vine got into this pot. Maybe a leftover from last year? I don't know, but I like it.

Autumn sedum getting ready to bloom--if the deer don't get it first, as they do almost every year.

Coneflowers are so dependable in my dry ridgetop gardens. They seed themselves and I leave them to it.

Mingling with tall salvia leucophylla that has self-seeded here every year for the past 30 years, ever since I brought some seeds home from some plantings at work.

Self-seeded calendula mixes it up with the potato onions in the overgrown herb garden.

Can there be any leaves prettier than this coleus?

Color everywhere, even my golden yellow dog.

Come winter, I will look back at these photos and not believe that things were truly this green, this colorful.

Ad lastly, my long-awaited white phlox. About 40 years ago, I was working as a substitute mail carrier on a rural route. At one home, a patch of white phlox grew in deep green shade, and every time I delivered mail there, I would stop for a few minutes and just take in the cool beauty of it. I wanted some for my gardens so bad, but until 3 years ago never bought a plant. This year I have my first blooms, and I am so very grateful for them. They take me right back to those young days when I was so hungry for beauty, and my place was still so rough and raw. It took a long time to get them to where they are now and they're far from perfect, but they make me happy, and I can feel myself relax whenever I am in them. It's been worth the wait and the work.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.