The days of lilies and roses

… are passing quickly. Almost every lily I’ve got in the garden is either out of bloom, in bloom, or starting to bloom (except the speciosum rubrum). And Garden Walk is still over a week away. There are still plenty of buds, however, and I know I’ll have Black Beauty, tigrinum “Flore Pleno,” henryi, and maybe a few oriental hybrids persisting when the walkers come. Still, I can see an emergency trip to the nursery in my future.


I’m not really worried. The Garden Walk visitors are easy to please; they don’t seem nearly as fussy as, say, a group of 70 garden bloggers/writers might be. Good thing I won’t have any of those!


Some flower observations:


-A red climbing rose I remember cutting back nearly to the ground due to winterkill a few years back is slowly crawling to the top of the house, and blooming better than it ever did. The clematis near it seems somewhat troubled; maybe a similar treatment for different reasons next spring would help it. You can see both of them in one of these shots.

-This is the year of the hydrangea. I have dozens more blooms on every bush. Annabelle and ES Blushing Bride are kind of floppy but I’ll take that in exchange for the 4 months of flowers both give. The Alpenglow and Forever Pink are nearly florescent.


-Hostas are early as well. My unnamed purple variety will need to be deadheaded in a week or so.

-Strange anomalies include my rodgersia, which has great foliage but no flowers this year. What gives? And my rudbeckia hirta Herbstsomme is doing nothing. But it may be too early. Actually I am looking forward to the various rudbeckias, which come into their prime when the lilies are done.

And to close this Bloom Day post, I should mention that I am listening to an NPR On Point show right now that indicates the hot summer we’re getting in Buffalo and across the NE and MW this summer may just mean “summer as we now know it.” According to a new study. !!!