Saturday, August 31, 2013

Saturday's Shot........


One lone coneflower ventured out with a new bloom the past week.  It was very hot and it still bloomed.  The rest of the coneflowers look like the one on the left.  The old concrete swan needs to be patched but not this year.  It looks like a thing of antiquity.  I will never know where the bird originated as my mom inherited it from some neighbor I am assuming and my mom is gone.  I couldn't throw the guy in the landfill when I was clearing things from the house.  I can still use him as a part of my statuary display in my yard.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Moving Things Around.......



While mowing the yard on Thursday I decided to get the bench moved.  It sat at a nice angle but I couldn't walk through along the garden area without hitting my face with a burning bush branch. 

Thursday, August 29, 2013

White Flowers in the Heat.......


The sun shines light through the petals of the hollyhock in the late afternoon.  It is very hot and the plant still puts out a few blooms.  I shared another shot of this on my Larry's Creative Zone today.  As I said in that blog I am desperate to find anything out there that is blooming or putting out fruit.  We are in a ten day cycle of heat on top of the drought that we have been in for the past two months.  Blooms come and go quickly, if they ever bloom, and so I miss shots of some things in a passing of a day.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Dianthus........


These are larger than life flowers that I caught the other day.  The few set of dianthus plants that I did purchase I placed in with the hardy geranium planters.  So they have done pretty well as they get watered along with the rest of the plants in the pot.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Hollyhocks Again.......


I have a lot of dead plants that I could photograph but I will keep the living color plants coming your way.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Seeing Red........


It is so hot and dry.  I don't know where the cardinals have been all summer but I had one visiting the honeysuckle bushes a couple of days ago.  I guess the berries are ripe now and there is moisture in them too.  The berries on the viburnum are all dried up and the other bushes may never form berries.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Choke Cherry..........


The aronia berry bush puts out great fall leaf color and this is the first one on the bush.  I was out picking the fruit for the neighbor lady and I had to return to take a picture of this colorful leaf.  Research on the net tells me that the aronia berry is actually of the choke cherry family.  My neighbor is part Lakota Indian so she likes to follow that tradition of her tribe. She made syrup from her harvest along with my harvest of the berries.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

The Aging.........


The tornado that hit the town also did damage to this small windmill.  It never was the same and parts of it continue to fall off of it. The large flat piece of metal that made the whole thing turn into the wind has now fallen off of it. It sits there still as a statue with a reminder of the history of windmills in this country.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Knockout Roses........


They grow out of the dry cracked ground without hesitation.  This bush has many buds on it to make the fall garden look a little better.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

River Birch...........


The leaves makes it look cooler outside than it really is.  The birch continues to give me beautiful color and textures.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Weathered..........


This deep red color is one of my favorite hardy geraniums.  All of the geraniums are doing well as our hot temperatures don't hurt them when we get such cool nights.  We are in a heat wave right now as this it the first three days of school starting today.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

A Visit........the Visitor........


Popping up from the ground like a visitor from another planet, this mushroom makes itself at home among the worse part of my yard.

Monday, August 19, 2013

They Are Almost Gone........


The surprise lilies are at their end of their summer blooming season.  They did well for it being as dry as it is.  I keep watering the dinner plate hibiscus but there are not any buds.  I picked up fallen apples for my friends horses last night and the apples are very small.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

A Single Sunday Shot.......






Another shot of my new pastel pink hardy geranium. I don't dare give you an enlarged view of it as you will think it to be a different flower than what it is.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Accross the Street.....



This is the field of corn that was planted early in the spring.  It is one of the tallest fields of corn I see around here.  Most of the other corn has started to tassel but it is all short.  It is a strange sight to see it that short these days but that is weather caused.  Also we don't grow many beans in our area but this year it was too late for corn to be planted so many fields are planted in soybeans.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Phlox for Friday.......


A light rain of less than an inch brought out some better blooms from my phlox plants. They are still pretty weathered. 

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

I Need Daddy........


I had not edited this photo earlier as it is a tad blurry but the expression of both AJ my grandson and just the eye of my proud son makes it a great photo.

Monday, August 12, 2013

The Landing Pad.......


While trying to take this photo a viceroy butterfly landed on the leaf for about one second and left.  It was a beautiful yellow and black butterfly and flew up the the street not planning apparently to return.  If I had planted zinnias this year the butterfly would have landed and stayed there for awhile.  I have not seen any other large butterflies this year.  Maybe the monarch will fly through in September.  It has been a bad year for plants and butterflies.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Sunday's Sun..........


The old concrete swan watches on while the angel boy rests and contemplates the day.  The swan is a very old garden planter from my parents.  I didn't get a plant put in it this year.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Surprise Lilies..........


They shot up their stems with buds formed on the end of them.  I missed the first day that they bloomed but now two days later they are looking good.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Dropping from the tree..........


While I was walking down my alley I noticed this one lone walnut.  The stray walnut tree that came up volunteer in the neighbor's yard now is dropping it's walnuts everywhere.  I am sure that the squirrels are all glad that the neighbor didn't stop it from growing when they planted it there.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Wednesday......


Apples that have fallen from one of my trees.  I plan on trimming back a lot of major branches of the tree to bring back its production abilities.  There were not many apples on that tree this year and when I cut the trees back they do put on more apples.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Squeezed......


The hosta in the past few year grew so large that I had to move its neighbor.  The neighbor  was the hosta pictured in the bottom of the photo.  I moved it over and divided it into three so it was worth the moving of it.  I can see the drought has slowed this plant but it is being tough to hang on during this dry season.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Monday.........


The plastic container was a buck and I now see a new flower coming from one of the three plants.  It reminds me of a petunia but it is a different size and foliage than a regular petunia.  The geranium and verbena leaves look great with the flower.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

The Swan Story........


I planted the poinsettia in the plastic swan container a couple of  years ago. I had brought it home from my parents home.  Being too busy to take it out of the plastic pot, it sits among some ditch lily growth.  As you can see the poinsettia is doing well and I can just bring it back inside again this fall. It is a strange looking planting but it almost reminds me of a deliberate statement of bad art.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Revived.......


A summer flower that reminds me of the wild sunflowers that grow out in the natural.  Our roadside wild flowers have taken a  hit again this year as there are very few blooms of any kind.  No coneflowers for two years in a row.  The Queen Anne's Lace is the only tough wild bloom that I do see along our highways near here.

Friday, August 2, 2013


This small rose just put out a new cluster of blooms.  I have a lot of dead blooms that I could share but I think I will stick with sharing the blooms that look good.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Large Specimen........August 1st, wow


I ventured out to see if there was anything new to take photos of in the backyard.  This one coneflower stood out as a lone single bloom that was huge.  Most of my flowers of this kind are weathered from the heat and are small.  This bloom is above average in size.

Blurry Blue Cup Day.....

 It is Monday and I am a little blurry eyed today. It is fitting then my blue cup is blurred a little because it is in low light. I was too ...