Lovely Orchids at L'Orangerie in Paris

We visited Paris, France recently and got a chance to visit some of the amazing museums there. One museum was the L'Orangerie right in the middle of Paris. We went there to see the lovely display of Monet lilies paintings.  But in the lobby area was a lovely display of orchids that I also photographed as they really caught my eye as they seemed quite unusual. They were on the reception desk shelf and looked like they got a lot of light.  Just wonderful! Just wish my orchid looked like this but right now it's now flowering as I think I overwatered it and it hasn't got much sun.....

  

Flowers of June in my #Bloomingdaledc front yard

hydrangea

Asiatic lilies

day lilies

The June garden is jammed with flowers of the brightest colors and I'm quite dreading the heat of July that will kill these blooms. But for a month at least I have this wonderful bluish purple hydrangea bush that seems to have at least two dozen heads.  I suspect the coffee grounds I pour on this bush are helping to make the soil more acidic which makes the flowers bluer but I'm really not sure about that.  Then there's the lovely popping red of the Asiatic lilies which come up from bulbs and seem to double every year. They are being eclipsed by the bright orange day lilies who are invading the yard without mercy.  I was weeding around them all this morning and pulled what felt like a million columbine vines which were curling their way up these flowers and getting a good stranglehold on some of the buds. So I yanked those climbers out and found that very soon I'd filled a trash bag with weeds and leaves and other yard debris. I also found that the pollen from the day lilies had dyed my wrists orange!  Hubster says I should wear gloves in the garden when I do this, but invariably I'm weeding on a whim and don't have the garden gloves at hand. Also, I have a faint hope that the plant juices that get on my skin are actually good for me!

Summer Garden, BloomingdaleDC

June was a terrific month for flowers in my city garden this year. It seemed like everything bloomed profusely all at once. Not just the day lilies and the Asiatic lilies, but the pink and the white roses, as well as the biggest hydrangea heads in several years, not to mention the petite little orange nasturtiums that I am very happy about as this is the first year I really got them to flower after growing them from seeds. And now we are in July, many of them are deadheads or getting very wilted as the heat is so much for them.  But the flowers have been wonderful so far even though we are now only enjoying crepe myrtles and tube vine and some honeysuckle which I will photograph soon and add to this page.  I just love having tons of flowers in the garden. 

Summer Garden with Flowers

Nasturtiums

Yucca

 I really do like to have something flowering all the time in both the front and back gardens and this June I've had bright orange and yellow nasturiums for the first time, the big white bells of the Yucca cactus, some glorious orange and some red tiger lilies and a lot of pale yellow to orange day lilies. I like all my flowers and each year the yards are slightly different as it seems the sun and how much I water them really affects whether I will have a lot of blooms. Also, I use some plant food and some kitchen things to feed them. But right now, there's lots of flowers and I'm very happy. My neighbor thinks I'm an expert gardener; I'm not. I actually quite lazy and only grow what grows easily. I just can't be bothered to fuss too much, after all weeding is backbreaking and I only want to be doing it once a month.  And I only get around to cutting the grass once a month too.

Golden Asiatic lilies

June back garden with day lilies

Watching the Gardening Flower

On Sunday mornings I usually have an hour or so to relax since we usually go to Church at 5 p.m. and this morning was no different. I sipped my coffee and watched my garden grow from the front porch and it was just a delight. The new rose bush has the brightest crimson flowers, the pink crepe myrtle is about to peak with its frothy fronds, the roses of Sharon are blazing away, the little red gold marigolds are starting up and even a few day lilies are still hanging about. An interesting smoky dark blue bird, slightly larger than a sparrow, hopped along the neighbor's fence with something wriggly in his beak, catching my eye due to his (her?) lovely color. There was an amazing breeze that swept into the tree across the street making the leaves rustle and rattle and making me think of rivers and trees. Feeling energized, I watered every plant that called out to me, "Me thirsty!" and then transplanted a few seedlings into bigger spaces so they could grow better, taking care to make sure I didn't rip my back out again. But it was glorious and sunny and stayed that way all day even when I went inside and cooked Sunday dinner.