Blooms, Bounty, and Butterflies - June GBBD

Forever and Ever Hydrangea

I just returned from a bit of a respite. Time was spent finishing garden tasks and taking some time off. The weather this week is surprisingly pleasant. After weeks of hot and muggy days, this is a nice surprise.

It is Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day over at May Dreams Gardens, and the garden is filling out with blooms and foliage. This is the time when the lillies open up and share their beauty, the echinacea decorates the garden with lovely color, and the vegetables are starting their fruiting.

Some of the lillies are blooming...the early bloomers.

Common Daylily

 Easter Lily

Corina Asiatic Lily

Stella D'oro Daylily

In the front annual bed, I planted pink and red pelargoniums in the center

of the bed with surrounding calibrachoa. Sweet potato vine starts to trail

over the side edges.

Pelargoniums, calibrachoa, sweet potato vine

In the cottage garden, many of the plants are beginning to flower.

Bee Balm

Threadleaf Coreopsis

Coreopsis lanceolata

Echinacea 'Firebird'

Lamb's Ears

English lavendar

French lavendar

Painted Daisy

Shasta Daisy

Veronica 'Sunny Border Blue'

Yucca

I like the faded blooms of yarrow. They offer another color variation. Soon,
I will clip the blooms off and hope for another bloom.

Yarrow

Salvia plumosa

Catmint

Astilbe 'Amethyst'

Cottage Garden

And I am very excited about the coming vegetable harvest. Just recently, I harvested tomatoes, beans, and some peppers.

Tomatoes, Roma

Bush Beans 'Tendergreen Improved'

Okra

Sweet Pepper 'Cajun Belle'

Zucchini Squash 'Black Beauty'

Cucumber Burpless Bush Hybrid

Peach (Duarte)

Strawberries

Onion, Roma Tomatoes, Green Beans, Thai Chile Peppers

Some other bloomers...

Oakleaf Hydrangea 'Alice'

Hosta 'Black Beauty'

Nandina

Hibiscus

Calibrachoa 'Superbells Plum' and  'Superbells Yellow'

Calibrachoa 'Superbells Callie Mango'

Red pelargoniums with calibrachoa

Caladiums, 'Carolyn Whorton' and 'Postman Joyner'

Caladium 'Postman Joyner'

Clematis jackmanii

And some butterflies have begun visiting the garden...

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

Silver-bordered Fritallary?

Indoors, I still have one Phalaenopsis blooming...

Phalaenopsis

What do you have blooming?

©Michelle A. Potter

Off in the Morning Mist - Wordless Wednesday

Note: These are the geese I have been following over the past few weeks. The young ones have grown into the geese coloring.

Note: I will be offline for about a week to catch up on some work and garden projects and perhaps take a mini-vacation. Until then...

Visit Wordless Wednesday for more photos.

Awaiting Summer's Display - Hope Grows Day - June

Last month, I was very excited to see things grow and bloom because it was the start of those first blooms after the spring bulbs. This month, there is excitement to see more and more blooms--to have that spring to summer garden that has been so missed.

It is Hope Grows Day  sponsored by Sweet Bean Gardening on the 5th of every month.

Last month, these climbing roses were just waiting to show their display.

Climbing Rose, Blaze

The peonies showed off their blooms. These are only a few years old, and it is interesting to see how many more blooms show up each spring.

Double Peony

This yarrow needed a larger space to spread, so I moved it before it bloomed. I am glad it tolerated it well.

Alpine Yarrow

Other plants are blooming...

Veronica

Coreopsis

And we have the first tomato in the vegetable garden.

Tomato - Early Girl

We have blooms on the beans.

Bush Bean - Tendergreen Improved

Bean Vegetable Bed

Slugs have been nibbling on my peppers, but I think I have finally gotten them under control with some beer traps.

Bonnie Bell Hybrid Pepper

This Oak Leaf hydrangea was about a foot tall a couple of years ago. Now, it is about four feet tall.

Oak Leaf Hydrangea - Alice

The butterflies love the blooms on the Red Twig Dogwoods.

Red Twig Dogwood

Here are the blooms I am looking forward to next time...

Painted Daisy

Bee Balm

Common Orange Daylily

Easter Lily

Stella D'oro Daylily

Hydrangea - Limelight

Shasta Daisy

Hydrangea - Nikko Blue

Echinacea - Kim's Knee High

Buddleia - Pink Delight

Cucumber - Burpless Hybrid

What blooms or fruits are you looking forward to?

©Michelle A. Potter

The Mystery of the Blue Robin's Eggs

A few weeks ago, a robin began making a nest on a support board under our deck. I was a bit concerned that area would not be such a good area for a nest because we had planned to temporarily store our mulch there while we finished mulching all the garden beds. We knew we would often be disturbing her as we grabbed bags and steered the wheelbarrow through there. However, I could not help but be thrilled because I had never seen a robin's nest, and I was looking forward to those lovely blue robin's eggs and watching the nestling's grow.

A few days later, when she left the nest I took a photo of the one egg she had laid.

A couple of days later, I noticed there were two eggs. I wondered how many more eggs she was going to lay. The eggs are such a lovely shade of blue--pure and solid.

And the next day, there were no eggs. The nest was clean, and there were no broken eggshells anywhere around the nest or on the ground.

I waited to see if she would return, but I never saw her again. I have heard that snakes will eat the eggs whole, but I really don't know how a snake could have gotten up there.  I still have not found any trace of the eggs or broken eggshells. Does anybody have any ideas?
©Michelle A. Potter

Falling into Yellow - Wordless Wednesday

Visit Wordless Wednesday for more photos.