A Garden Walk-About in July.

I arrived home today from the lake, completely relaxed and stress-free from my mini-vacation (click here for my post yesterday on this) – and consequently I am not at all ready to get back to the office tomorrow. It’s probably an understatement to say that I’m ready for a real vacation – a total get-away that allows me to unplug and hang with my family away from home and away from responsibilities. I am getting this in less than two weeks (can you say Hawaii?!) and it can’t come soon enough. (Although there is a part of me that doesn’t want it to come too fast because then it will be over already and that will make me sad.)

Did you catch all that? I’m a complicated woman.

Anywho, back to today. After lunch, I immediately headed outside to check on my gardens and get some weeding and harvesting done. Late July provides such a bounty – my raised bed vegetable gardens are starting to overflow and all my perennials are in full, colorful glory.

I harvested my garlic today! I think it looks pretty amazing – I mean, I’ve never grown my own garlic before so I am pretty psyched about this. (And it really wasn’t hard to grow, either!) Now I’ve got it all hanging in my garage to dry so I’ll be able to use it well into the fall.

My cute little “Bobo” hydrangea is doing quite well. I planted it last August in the front of our house and it’s been a great addition to my hydrangea collection – I’ve got 5 different types so far.

The first of my zinnias to bloom this summer – a lovely salmon-pink color.

I rather like this combination of a “Little Lime” hydrangea and a rudbeckia (commonly referred to as “black-eyed Susan”). Here’s my little secret: the rudbeckia self-seeded right next to the hydrangea so it’s not really supposed to be there. I should probably dig the rudbeckia up and transplant it somewhere else, but I kind of like the two of these together.

This “David” phlox is so bright white that it’s actually hard to take decent photos of it. I have this phlox in several places because of it’s stunning color – it’s a showy plant that looks amazing in the evening, especially.

Both Joe and I love sunflowers. His preference is for the mammoth yellow sunflowers (which I did plant this year) but I also like some of the other varieties – like this one, which I think is “Mrs. Mars”. It grows to about 2-3 feet tall so it can fit into smaller spaces, and it has these lovely blooms.

My cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen! We love these in our favorite summer pasta salad – tomatoes, chives and Parmesan cheese with shells and olive oil. Yum!

Oh “Becky” daisy … so many reasons I love this classic flower. I mean, really, who could ever get tired of looking at daisies?

Another hydrangea … this one starts out white and morphs into a lovely pinkish color. I think it’s “pinky winky” but I need to dig up the original tag to be sure. If I was more organized I’d keep a garden journal with all this information. Huh.

This peachy-pink daylily is a very nice departure from all the yellow and deeper red daylily varieties I have.

Yellow beans, anyone? I picked my second harvest today and you really can’t tell from this photo just how many beans I brought in to the house. A LOT of beans. As in, I may have to share some with the neighbors or we will be eating yellow beans at every meal for the next five days. We love yellow beans, but even that might be a bit much. 😉

That’s a small snapshot of what’s happening in my gardens right now. I’d love to hear about your gardens – do you plant perennials, containers, vegetables or a combination of all three?

Watch for a new turkey recipe post on Tuesday, as well!

– Lara –