Mid-July Scenes

An unidentified (but beautiful) pink rose in the Paradise Garden.

Greetings from the peak of summer! We finally got a bit rain last night after nearly a month without any at all -- which is strange, because other parts of Iowa have had so much rain that they have suffered serious floods. The forecast calls for a few more rainy days next week, so I hope we're getting back to normal amounts of precipitation and not heading into a drought.

It's been a couple of weeks since I have been able to post, mostly because I bought a new computer last weekend (the old one was making ominous grinding noises that I don't think were merely coming from a clogged fan). It's taken nearly a week to get my files transferred and software installed -- and I still haven't been able to successfully install Photoshop, which I used to edit my photos, despite a number of tries and much time wasted chatting with Adobe help.

But apparently Microsoft's photo editor can do basic editing (and is quite easy and quick to use as well), so that's what I've used for this post. I hope the photos will look OK.

Anyway, I wanted to share a few pictures of what's been looking nice around here, especially an update of what's been happening in my new Paradise Garden:

The Paradise Garden at dusk, when this garden is most beautiful and inviting.

The plants are starting to fill in a bit, especially the annuals and dahlias.

Vibrant colors of Wave petunias, marigolds and dahlias.

I've been impressed by the growth rate and rapid bloom of this bush-type dahlia 'Jaipur'. 

The Persian carpet colors of the annuals were a big part of my design for this exotic garden.

Exotic fruits are another key feature of this garden. I'm so excited that there are figs on my new fig tree! (Chicago Hardy)

Orien-pet lilies and pink flowering tobacco, each one vying with the other to release the most intoxicating scents in the evenings. These are planted against the front porch/sunroom, on the edge of the Paradise Garden.

Yellow orien-pet lilies in my front border, on the outside of the fence. I moved these here in May, which I worried wasn't a good time to do so, but they don't seem to have minded in the least, except for being a bit shorter than last year.

Around the corner on yet another side of the fence is this Rose of Sharon
that I planted about six years ago. It's never looked as good as it does this year.

One of my favorite self-seeding annuals, snapdragons -- I'm never sorry to see these popping up anywhere
in my gardens!

Every year, I usually experience a period of blahs during July, probably due to the days starting to become shorter -- I know I'm not the only gardener to feel this. Also, most of my planned garden projects are usually wrapped up by this time, and often it's too hot and muggy outside to do much of anything anyway (and weeds tend to take over during such periods, which is discouraging too).

But we're predicted to have a few cooler days this coming week, and I still have some small projects that I want to get done this year, so maybe I'll be able to work on a few this week.

And I feel pretty good about the improvements that I've made to my gardens this year, so this July seems like it's OK. Hard to believe back-to-school is just around the corner already, but that happens every summer (and undoubtedly feels much worse for kids!).

Hope you are enjoying a few cool days during the height of summer, and that your own gardens are filled with beautiful flowers and foliage. Thanks for reading! -Beth