Bees

One of the neat thing about hosta plants are all the bees and humming birds the flowers attract. I know the first bunch of pictures are not hostas. Since it's not a hosta, I don't know what it is. It is pretty and it does attract bees or whatever those flying things are.

Deer

So, Pat and I were sitting in the patio enjoying a nice summer day when something caught my eye. Normally the flowers in the soil tiles look like giant ice cream cones with the flowers hanging over the tiles. Not today. the flowers looked like they had succumbed to the drought. But how could that be? We water daily. Upon examination, we found the culprits. It was either giant rabbits or deer. Well Jimmy Stewart has the monoply on giant rabbits, so it had to be deer. They sure do seem to like impatiens and potato vines.

Miscellaneous pictures and a butterfly

It has finally rained. We were 6 inches behind and had to make up the difference with massive amounts of sprinkling. Some of the hosta is showing signs of stress. We'll be moving some plants into deeper shade in the fall. As with most flowers, I am clueless as to what either of the blue flowers are. The yellow flower is from a green leaf lagularia which is in deep shade.

The view from the back of the yard

The best place to see the the full width of the back yard is from seats we put along the back path. It is always shady and peaceful, unless of course, the boys get needy. Then it's only shady, and not so peaceful. Pat did a wonderful job of softening up the vertical surfaces of the deck with all the flowers and stuff. We're using maple sap buckets hanging on the wall as flower pots.

Views from the deck

This is what Pat and I get to look at from the deck. Pretty cool. Maybe I can get little Becks beer flags to put around the Hydrangeas. I really wanted to make the paths look like and oval. But, you get what you get, and I'm not doing it over. Birds, including hawks, come zooming through the yard at eye level when we're sitting on the deck.

Views from the patio

A few shots of what Pat and I see when we hang out on the patio.

Dead Heading

Hours of dead heading is the price you pay for having a lot of flowers. Wait till we have to do the hosta. There will be someplace near a bazillion stalks to dead head, what with around 450 plants. There's only a boatload of day lilies to dead head. That's the boys watching. If they only had thumbs.