Wednesday Wandering

Orienpet or Tree Lilies

They are a cross between Oriental and Trumpet Lilies

Oh, they are tall and fragrant!

After I sprayed everything the deer were eating with Bobbex I had new growth and now have lilies and roses.  After the initial spray with Bobbex it needs to dry for 6 hours and then it won't be water soluable - the rain won't wash it away. When there is new growth the new growth needs to be sprayed. 

Love Lies Bleeding

An annual I started from seeds. 

Daylilies

Daylily

White Oriental Lily, Magenta Roses, Orange Daylilies

The bind weed is trying to strangle the roses.

Orienpet Lily

Orienpet Lily

Oriental Lily tthat looks like the Orienpet Lily

Daylily

Rose and flowering bind weed. 

Balloon flower with a bite out of it.

Another patch of Orienpet Lilies. I have 5 different varities but deer ate some of them down to nothing before I got around to spraying. 

Joe Pye Weed

It grew there by itself. That is a shady area and it grows nicely there so I let it be; however, it can get invasive but is easy to pull out. Butterflies, especially Tiger Swallowtails, love it. 

American Bellflower

This is another wild flower that appears here and there in the gardens. I let it be but it can also get invasive but is easy to pull out. 

Zinnias are starting to bloom. I grow a Zinnia border every year from seeds saved from the previous year. 

I started my Coneflowers from seeds. I forget what the white ones are called. I need to put a label near them. I'm trying to collect quite a variety of Coneflowers. 

Blackberry Lily

I think it's named Lily but is actually an Iris. The dental assistant gave me seeds a long time ago. My patch got so big so I separated it about three years ago and planted bits here and there but none of those patches are doing as well as my original..so far... 

Queen Anne's Lace grows wild here and there too. Again, I let it grow until it gets invasive. 

Golden Glow Rudbeckia is a native wildflower I started from seed. 

Bee Balm and Wild Phlox

An area of my native wildflower area with Fleabane, Helianthis and American Bellflower.

Spotted Bee Balm (or Dotted Horsemint) is a new perennial this year that I started from seed. 

I cut some Gladioli to bring in the house. Wish I hadn't because they were full of earwigs. Ick! But the reason I grow them is so I have cut flowers for the house. I have to dig up the bulbs (or are they corms?) every year and store them in a cool area. I started a few years ago with a little bag of mixed colors of bulbs and my stock has now multiplied.   That's our ancestor wall in the background. Hubby bought me the antique bowl and pitcher a long time ago. I try to keep the pitcher full of flowers but the last few years it has held only dried flowers and been up on top of the pie safe. I just never got around to cutting any flowers. I tell myself that each year will be different and I will have cut flowers in all my vases. I even started a cutting garden a few years ago. Maybe one of these years I have time to stop and cut flowers to fill my vases. I have quite a collection of vases. A lot of them I picked up at thrift stores over the years. 

And one of these days I might even find time to change the buffet topper. That's still the Christmas runner with poinsettias!  And there's a couple of Celtic Crosses I inherited from Dad's collection when he passed away that I'e been meaning to hang on the ancestor wall. There might even be a little dust on display on the buffet. And so it goes...

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CELEBRATE! (my word of the year)

July 14 - Nature's light show- rolling thunder and non stop lightning for over an hour in the middle of the night. The thunder woke me up.  It was kind of hypnotizing to watch the constant lightning flashes. The storm eventually resulted in  cooler temps and over an inch of rain that my garden needed. 

July 15 - Cursive writing. I keep a spiral notebook by my computer and by my sewing machine. I write all kinds of notes in those notebooks and usually write in cursive. I suppose no one in the future will be able to read my notes in my notebooks that are kind of like a diary. I recently labeled a couple of quilts I gave to my great niece who is expecting a girl in August. I wrote a couple of quotes on the labels in cursive and she couldn't read what I wrote. I was kind of surprised but was told by folks at the baby shower that a lot of people no longer can read or write cursive because they had keyboarding classes in school instead. Makes me wonder how much history and knowledge will be lost when future generations no longer can read or write cursive.      I remember that I could not wait to learn cursive. I went to a small school that had one teacher for two grades. While one grade was getting a lecture the other grade might be given an assignment to practice cursive writing. We had fountain pens then with cartridges of ink that sometimes leaked all over the place. I don't remember ever using a ballpoint pen in grade school but do remember using Bic pens later on.   

July 16 - I saved $2.52 per gallon of gas with my fuel saver card from Hy-Vee grocery. I try to always grocery shop on a Monday because a purchse over $45 earns extra fuel saver rewards. Doesn't take many groceries to make a $45 purchase these days!  I took the gas can in for the riding mower and filled that up too.