Flowers for CCD Teachers 2013

Last Sunday was the last CCD session for P. I made small bouquets for teachers again. All flowers were purchased at grocery store this time, only some hosta leaves were from my garden. Looks nice, does not it?

Wild Rose

On my way to work this morning I spied this beautiful blooming wild rose.

Blooms Everywhere!

It's irises time and peonies time, and roses time in Arlington.

My peach irises in side yard

Irises near one of the schools

 Closeup!

White irises in my backyard

...and blue irises in the background

Variegated iris blooming blue, white peony and catmint in my backyard

 Beautiful climbing rose that I've adored for years (the brick fence is at least 6 feet tall)

Pretty knock-out roses growing in street median

I, sadly, decided to dig out my two roses: the knockout rose neat garage was taken over by overgrown bush, and the climbing rose in the side yard was diseased and I did not care to spray it with necessary chemicals. Oh well, there's plenty to enjoy around.

More views of my flowers...

Oh yea, by the way, this Sunday (19th) I planted some scarlet runner beans. I read an article in The Washington Post about runner beans and had to have them.

Garden in Early July

Early July is green beans time! One day I picked about two pounds of green beens. I've been sharing them with my neighbors. I've also picked some cucumbers and pulled small beets.

 Front yard flowers

 Lords and Ladies in sideyard

 Backyard veggie/flower garden

 Cucumbers

 Parsley gone to seed

 Garlic is ready to be dug up amongst eggplant

 A little bit of everything

 PIcked my first tomato today, July 9

 ...and it was added to salad.

Bumblebees

Late May Bouquet

Fewer few, butterfly weed, rose champion, astilbe, love-in-the-mist seed pods.

Morning after Rain

Clematis is blooming

 Idyllic view on side yard

 Rain drops on a bush

Boltonia

A recent addition to my front yard: boltonia 'Pink Beauty'. It's a native plant, so should do great.

Small September Harvests

Even this "bad" year, I've been able to pick this and that from the garden...

Summer...

Such long time between the posts! The summer has been very hot and my garden is not doing as well as I wish it would. I missed the peak of green bean harvest because I was on a trip for two weeks. Squirrels are picking my tomatoes. Beets did not grow much. Seedlings from the tomatoes that I started from seed grew very lush, but did not bear a single fruit. Even hot peppers are not producing as much as last year. I've done a lot of weeding, though. And a few other things have been doing well. Like my parsley... it's abundant.

There have been small harvests...

 and some native flowers are doing great even in this heat...

 as well as this surprise appearance... not sure what this flower is and when had I purchased it.

 I get a few cucumbers every week...

and three beans from a single pod that survived rabbit plague last year (and that were seeded in a special pot and kept in front of the house) produced 85 beans that I will plant next spring.

Paddle Cactus

The cactus we inherited with our house is blooming now.

Each bloom lasts only one day. What a show!

Spring Bouquet

Peonies have spread a lot this past year in my garden and this spring there are many blooms. It's such a lush flower.

Last Sunday I made three bouquets with peonies, climbing rose, clematis, dianthus, lavender, catmint, bachelor's buttons, Siberian iris and lamb's ear: one for us and two for my son's Sunday school teachers.

Mini-oasis

Irises around a utility pole near my neighbors' house are in full bloom.

There are quite a few mini-gardens like this one around here. I wonder if they were created because of practical reasons (who wants to mow and weedwack that narrow strip between a sidewalk and street and around utility poles?) or because a gardener just had to have one more patch of soil where to put in even more plants. It's probably a little bit of both.