July Birthday and What's Blooming

Here is a pink version of the BotaniCuts flowers and baskets from The Greetery.  I know we're past tulip season but I just love creating these bouquets.  And who doesn't like flowers?

So what's currently blooming in the yard?  Outside the back door the pathway is lined with pots of vinca in shades of pink and in the stones I have again allowed the cleome volunteers to go wild.  Funny how most of them are white this year.

For the first time in a very long time, we had daylilies blooming at the top of the driveway.  I say had because while we were away this past weekend they were eaten.  But they did look pretty.

Outside the kitchen window are more pots of vinca and I asked HWNSNBP to put a flower pot of zinnias there hoping that they would be tall enough to see the hummingbirds that are attracted to them.  However, these zinnias are a full foot shorter than ones that we've had in years past.  He swears that he got the same seed, but even the size of the flowers is smaller.  Oh well.  We'll have to try again next year with that.

And there's another strange looking plant in there.  He found another amaryllis bulb ready to bloom in the basement so we decided to put it outside instead of keeping it in the house.  We hid it among the vinca because we're not sure whether the deer would eat it.

We've lost a couple of maple trees in the last couple of years and this one was the tree that we hung the bird feeders in, so we decided to just have the tree topped and left some of the bigger lower branches on it.  HWNSNBP made some wooden flower pot brackets so we could place pots of flowers around the trunk and elevated enough to keep the deer away.  We had pansies in these in the spring and switched over to vinca.  And now, since there is no shade provided by this tree, we hung several pots of petunias and other flowers from it.  Underneath are some snapdragons and more vinca.

Here is the other container of zinnias.  Last year those flowers were taller than the fence surrounding the planter.  Like I previously said - they're at least a foot shorter.  

Up near the pool is our St. Francis statue surrounded by thyme, lavender, and lambs ears.  There are a couple of pots of vinca in there and some taller snapdragons but they're not blooming too heavily yet.

This is my lemon tree(s) that I almost lost two years ago when one of them had but one leaf.  I planted them all together and kind of braided the "trunks".  They were doing well inside until I moved the planter in the early spring and they started losing leaves again.  We put it outside and it's really thriving with lots of new growth.  Will I ever have lemons?  I doubt it, but it's a nice tree.

A view of the birdbath garden.  The white flowers at 7 o'clock are some white salvia that's supposed to be an annual but that came back again this year.  

On the table are potted begonias.  The two smallest pots are plants that have been over-wintered inside for at least the last two years.  (See all the charming cages in the background protecting the dahlias from the deer?)

Some of the dahlias are starting to bloom but we've found that they seem to prefer cooler weather and it's been pretty hot lately.

Now here you can see the two lavender plants that survived from last year and how pretty compact they are as opposed to...............

The new ones that are much bigger and heavy with flowers and scent.  Truly I think we chose the wrong variety for a fence planting.  There are annuals in between them, but they grew so big the annuals didn't have a chance.

And more volunteer cleome in the cracks.   

Still trying to catch up on weeding but I don't think I ever will.