Dianthus

Look at my beautiful Dianthus.  I planted them last year as very small plants.  Click on this picture to see them up close.  So pretty!

The Lupines are Blooming Like Crazy!

Delphinium is reaching for the sky

The Delphinium this week is seemingly reaching for the sky.  The blue plant is going to open to bloom this week as you can see the top spike here on the right.  Just a spectular plant this year.  Seems to have not been bothered by the storm last week.  You can see the strength of the flower stems in these photos.

Gaillardia Bloom

This plant was a pleasant surprise to me this year.  It came back from last year.  I've planted this variety for 5 seasons now, it always died over the winter.  This is from the larger of the two plants I have and it is loaded with blooms right now.

Scabiosa Bloom

Click on this photo so you can see how the bottom cluster of flowers looks like little cat tongues. 

Geum is looking good this week

The Geum is looking to be in full bloom now.  I have two different plants of this variety in the garden.  You can see the Dan Sweeney yellow rose bush to the right of the Geum in this photo.  The white Rose is kinda weather beaten from the recent rain storms we had.  Hopefully it will recover.  I can see the Scabiosa I planted this year is just starting to bloom.  The very small Gaillardia (Blanket Flower) which came back in this spot from last year is just starting to bloom.  A lot going on in this photo. The Candytuff is now finished blooming and I will give this plant a couple of weeks before cutting it back for the season.  I have a small variety of Echinacea just coming into bloom to take it's place.

Roses

Long View of Dianes garden on June 5, 2011

The Daylilies are getting big and bushy and she has added all the annual flowers for color this year.  She added petunias, celosia, marigolds and is growing out cosmos that reseeded from last year.  Of course she has the very beautiful varieties of Dianthus which come back each year.  She pulled up the Bee Balm this year, was too invasive for the area.  She also has a catnip plant growing.  So far, no skunks have discovered the plant.  Yes, skunks like catnip too!

First Scapes are getting bigger

The first Scapes of the 2011 garden year are growing!  This will be the Daylily called which will be blooming first.  The first Daylily flowers of the garden season are always eagerly looked forward to.

Strawberries in a neighbor's community garden

These are photos of the gardner's garden next to Diane.  This guy has a green thumb, but he fails to come and pick his produce he grows.  These are from plants he planted last year, the kind that come 3 to a box from Lowes.  He had the strawberries, some raspberry bushes and some onion sets.  All are HUGE this year.

Sad day, neighbors cut down a HUGE tree

I don't know why they cut it down except maybe it had gotten too big for the neighborhood.  Amazing, this tree was cut down in a matter of about 3 hours.  They started at the bottom cutting off branches, then cut off huge pieces of just the trunk as they came down the tree.  You can see how our backyards are full of trees and shade.  A little piece of quiet from the hot streets.  The last picture is of my neighbors yeard.  The cable hanging came down in the storm we had just a few days ago.  Cable needs to come out and tie them back up.  You can see how this tree towered over all the houses in the background.  Click on either of the photos and you can actually see the tree surgeon while he was in the process of cutting the tree down :(

This is Groucho

This is one of the feral cats we feed.  We call him Groucho.  He is sure of himself and does not scare easily.  He won't come close to us to be patted, but he also does not run away in terror either.  From time to time I am able to get pictures of our cats from the feral colony.