A Whirligig.......

A artist of whirligigs creates and sells these moving sculpture.  I am always fascinated when seeing them at the Des Moines Iowa Arts Festival each June.  He has most every part hooked up so it will move on bearings for every part.  It can be swinging in circles while the parts will also be spinning.  It was very windy today so they put on a great show.   $3,500 will get you one of the smaller ones and you do need to bring your truck as he doesn't ship. 

First Lily.......

I mowed today after work and actually pulled a few strands of grass so that the flowers could be seen more easily.  This Asiatic lily is the first of its kind for this year.   I assume that most of them will continue to bloom as the conditions of spring has been helpful for growth.

White........

I am sharing another photo of my hydrangea out by my front door. It has enjoyed the moisture in the ground and there are many blooms. The afternoon sun can be a difficult time to take shots but this one has the shadow of a pine tree and some bushes.  I really like the beauty of the plant and how hardy that it is.  I may moves some of it over to the other side of the porch as the dogwood I planted there seems wimpy.

Stella..........o Dora

They are beat up from the rain and the wind.  I  also think the insects are taking a bite out of them here and there.  They are so reliable as a flowering plant and do rebloom throughout the summer.

The Vine..........

The hardy geranium that I brought out a few weeks ago from inside the house has really stretched out.  It has sent out long and low shoots making it look more like a vine than a normal geranium.  The plant is enjoying the heat and heavy humidity with intermittent rains. Blooms will be posted later.

Looking through........

The entrance to my gate has the slatted roof and this is what one can see if you look just right.  The clematis is set to put out a large set of blooms on top of my roof.  I will have to get a step ladder to takes shots of them as they are way up there.

Hard Working Tool.........

To shock my Photo a Day followers,  I won't post a flower bud of any kind today.  I am working on a desk and I took a picture of the only sander that I have that works.  My better sander broke and this little guy was my last resort.  He worked well and I changed the sandpaper often to get that finish off of the top of it.

I learned my sanding procedures from watching a man sand down a basketball court.  He used one sanding piece the whole length of the gym, flipped it over and returned on a new path.  Then he threw that sanding pad away and got a new one.  I wonder how many years I spent sanding down furniture that could have been done faster if I had changed the sandpaper more often.

A Fresh Start.........

It is cloudy and warm today.  Early morning sprinkles will not make the day any cooler but it is summer in Iowa.  This bud is of a rose that opens up into a redish peach color and then turns to a light pink.

Hollyhocks...........

We haven't had a summer like this for a long time.  It was hot today and plans to stay  hot for some time.  The rains though have the hollyhocks growing like gangbusters.  This is a hollyhock which will have red blooms. I had collected its seed from up the alley at a neighbors home and the seed did grow.

Envasive Creeping Bluebell....

It is an old fashion foundation plant here in central Iowa. Top notch gardeners shake their fingers and frown with the see it in a garden.  Mine north bed of this plant is getting pretty large. The rainy season is perfect for this plant to bud and bloom with great color.  The plants on the south of the house are all in bloom and the patch on the north is still showing mostly stems and buds.  Flowering comes in the next few weeks.

Late Thursday......

Spiderwort......

Here is another shot of this plant.  My red pink color version of this plant seems to be trampled down by the Border Collie wonder dog.  I have the plant but it just doesn't seem to survive out there.  It is time to move that one.

Iowa's State Flower.........

They are a lot weathered but still they look good.  I have seen this wild rose in Minnesota and I have seen it on the shores of the Atlantic ocean in Maine.  They love the sea water as they grow to be very large among the sandy and rocky soil. I am sure it is a common wild flower throughout the United States.

It is not red......but it is a beauty.

Out by the alley are some peonies. They  were crowded out for the past many years by overgrown shrubs and weeds.  Now that it has all cleared the peonies came up and put out some beautiful blooms.  I planted these plants along the alley probably 20 years ago and now they are blooming like the are new plants. I like wild violets and I mow them like grass.  Their pattern is so  neat behind the peony bloom.

Animal Post for a Big Change....

Tom Tom is enjoying being on the bench as the ground is still wet from the rains of the night before.  My wood trash pile makes an interesting background and the section of the potter's wheel in the background makes for a slum look.  I will tell you about the potter's wheel some day. 

Clematis....

The clematis that grows over the arbor of the blue gate and is going to produce a lot of blooms.  The vines for it were slow to start but once it started the vine is on top of the arbor with buds pointing to the sky.   My purple clematis is not doing so well but it is shaded more from a porch for half of the day.

Flag Iris

They didn't last very long this year but one planting of my flag iris put out three blooms.  They are wonderful in color and the pattern on the falls is dramatic with its different shapes of color.

Yellow Rose.......

A rose that I pulled from the garbage while working for a grocery nursery four years ago has liked my planting it into the ground.  They are simple roses but they can remind me of a camellia.  I like the potentillia shrub in the background.

A Perfect Peony.......

They are an amazing flower with their layers of petals.  This old fashion one is such a pretty one with the pink and light yellow petals that surround that multicolored center of white, pink and red.  This one was able to escape from the rain and wind.

Spring Beauty........

This may be a second shot of this iris but it is a wonderful flower.  I have a source at school to pick up another old fashioned iris that has pale lavender falls and the uprights are very lightly tinted lavender.

William Baffin Rose.......

I bought this rose in Grand Marais, Minnesota.  The garden shop was called the Blue Moose.  It sat at the top of the hill before you descended down into the town along the shore of Superior.   It is a tough rose that has taken many turns in its growing.  Too wet for a couple of years and it almost died.  Too dry last year and maybe there were three or four blooms last year.  This year the blooms are everywhere. It is big with lots of blooms and looks like I just planted in last fall.  The wet conditions though look like they are going to take out the leaves with a blight.

Sun and Shade.......

The lighting really does affect all that we do with the camera.  The foreground iris is on the same plant as the background blooms.  The sun illuminates the front one and makes it to appear a different color.   I still have so much grass and weeds to be pulled around my entire property.  Of course a visitor was out touring some of the flowers and it has an open meadow view rather than a managed flower garden.

Old fashioned kind........

Another old traditional plant.......

This is another of one of my cemetery iris collection. It is one of my favorites.  I  moved it to a new location and I was surprised to see the bloom of the plant for the first in a number of years.

A Lucky Shot

As I saw this through the view finder all I could see was the glare of white. I didn't expect anything from the shot but it downloaded looking like this.  It is light reflecting off of the dark blue flower but it still made a great visual.

It is a beauty..........and it was free.

I really like this new set of blooms.  It was one of the group of iris that had to take three years to get established before it would bloom. Because of it's reddish cast my camera is not picking up the rich deeper color.  The camera lightens it but the photo is a good one anyway.

Oldie......

This iris is a transferred plant from my neighbors next door to my yard.  It  happened many years ago when an older couple lived next door.  They had been in Woodward for many years and the plants in their yard were traditional, and older established plants for the early 1900's.  I have had a hard time to get this one to bloom but I kept moving it around on the property until it would bloom for me. It is one of those medium sized plants that puts out smaller blooms in comparison to the hybrid ones with long stems.  The wind has knocked it down so I may move a section of it after blooms to a quieter location.

Superstition.......

The iris reminds me of the black iris that can be seen in catalogs. This is my artsy photo of it. This was named superstition when I bought it.  It actually is black in color but fades to a dark blue in time.

The camera picks up the bluish cast in the iris and makes it look more blue in color that it really is.  I will of course shoot other photos as it fades to show its other color.  This hybrid iris is a sturdy thing and has survived a lot of different weather.  Other iris die out but this one is robust and gets bigger every year.

Bumble Bees.......

I once saw this variety was  called "Bumble Bee" by the internet source. It does have the colors of a bumble bee and they do look like a swarm of them when you see the photo.  I was gone yesterday so I am putting out two blog postings today. The gray in the background is man made as I was trying to burn up the last of my tree branches before the burn ban goes back into effect on June 1st.

First Rose........

The William Baffin rose is back.  Great flower but I can see I have a leaf problem already. I don't know if this is too much rain or if i need to treat as something else. The majority of all the big leaves seem healthy but the smaller ones seen to have a blight.