Catching up!

It's been a while! Things have been busy the past couple of weeks - 4th of July weekend, then my husband's family came for a visit and we went to see the Yankees and the Mets, and had a really enjoyable visit! So now I'm trying to catch up a bit with the blog, here goes.

Remember that strange looking thing I showed you last time? Here is what it is - a voodoo bulb! Have you ever seen one bloom? Or smelled one. It's nasty. Next year I'll take a picture of it blooming. We have two of these that Mom brought us, one one each side of the fireplace. I like the tropical look they give the beds!



Okay, so these are from the end of June, but thought you'd like to see all the basil we had then, and the result - yum, pesto!





Back to flowers!

We planted spider flowers from seed, but they haven't taken off like I had hoped. They are blooming, though.



The hosta are blooming and look great in front of the shed.



The phlox and echinacea are blooming. I'm still waiting for that big patch of phlox in the middle to bloom, I can't decide if it's the white one I planted when we first got the house, or one I picked up at a plant sale last year.



The sunflowers out front are blooming. These are all the result of seeds that fell from the sunflowers we planted last year. There are tomato plants there, too. Yes, tomato plants in the front of the house. We planted a random, leftover cherry tomato plant there last year and on one day I picked 167 tomatoes! Yes, 167! Apparently they like this spot, because there are 4 or 5 plants that grew from tomatoes that dropped last year, plus we planted a couple of new ones.



I love the pollen on the leaf:

It's been a while!

I was at a seminar all last week that prevented me from doing a lot of things, one of them being blogging. So here goes!

I couldn't resist how beautiful this rose looked after the rain.



Here is some cinquefoil (and some impatiens, etc.) that I moved from the big long bed by the fence, to here under the pear tree. I don't have very good luck with perennials under the pear tree - except for the aster, the aster is happy there. Anyway, we'll see how this does here. The original cinquefoil is over in the big bed and reseeds itself each year. It was here when we bought the house.



Yarrow is starting to bloom.



Here's the original cinquefoil in the front, by the rooster, and the pretty white flowers with the dark burgundy stems in the background - I can't remember what they are called. Mom told me this weekend, and I have already forgotten.



Here's a close up:



The white astilbe is doing well. The pink is hidden. :-(



If we ever get married again, this will be my bouquet. Okay, not really, but it was so pretty and smelled so good, I had to share. It's now in our freezer in the form of pesto. :-)



The pink lilies have started, these are nice, but wait until you see the giant white ones later in the summer!



The dahlia on the right doesn't look so good. Not sure why... Mom brought us the black hollyhocks, the verigated basil and the firecracker fuscia, thanks Mom!



I thought I'd show a progress pic of the pots out front, they are filling out really nicely!





Whew! Okay, I think we are pretty much caught up for now!