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!

Condom in Yew Bush on First Street

This condom was hanging in the yew bush in the tree box beside the sidewalk on my way to work one morning. You just have to wonder how it got there. Did someone chuck it out of a car window? Was it pitched out from a nearby bedroom window? Was it left by some kids fooling around with dad's stuff and then tossing it? Did it blow there in the recent high wind? I really didn't spend too much time on this but it did make me wonder if the prostitute is back on the corner of First St NW and if this is something to do with her and her business.

And then there was the discarded radio or tape deck appliance right near the condom. Did someone get mad and just chuck that there too? Since they were in the same tree box sidewalk area, were these items connected? Was someone cleaning out their car and thought they'd unload their private life leftovers onto the rest of us?  This stuff stayed there for about two days until someone unknown picked it all up and it was gone.It's a strange world we live in and strangers all around us.

The Bluest Hydrangeas

This year my front garden had the bluest hydrangeas and this photo really captured the color exactly.  But the price I paid is a bush that is now almost completely dead and I think it is because I let the soil get too alkaline. Most of the stems did not leaf or flower and I think the soil was out of balance around most of the bush. You need just the right amount of acid/alkaline balance to get blue hydrangeas otherwise the bush just gets very pink in the marine clays that are in DC gardens. What I will probably do is just cut the bush down completely and see if it will grow back. We did that once before and it grew beautifully a couple of years later. Garden resurrections are among the best!

Love them Summer Roses!

While my front yard does go out of control in the rambling columbine vine department, and there are a number of other mysterious things growing there that I swear I never planted, the pot with the bright pink red roses hasn't failed once this summer. From the day I planted this rose bush two months ago to now in the sticky mid-August heat, this little bush just keeps on budding and flowering and blessing me and every passerby with its small and lovely flowers.  I forget the name of the rose plant but if they have them on sale at Home Depot or Lowe's later this month, and if they are in white or yellow, I think I'll go get a couple more. This is the kind of gardening I like! Just plant 'em and water 'em when I remember, shake a little plant food occasionally, and off they grow, sharing their little flower faces with us! What joy!

Those Glorious Myrtles

Crepe myrtles grow easily in the soil my neighborhood. They flower in several shades of pink, purple, and white gracing neighborhood gardens, waving their frondy heads at passersby with the slightest of breezes. Several of us on our street planted them about four years ago and we enjoy the different varieties; some are huge trees, some are bush size and some are something in between. They are a big splash of color that starts in early July and keep flowering well into August, especially if you water them a lot. They are not expensive to buy, they grow quickly and for us lazy gardeners, they don't need all the plant food, pesticides and attention that our rose bushes need and yet they give the same amount of pleasure in many ways. What a garden we all enjoy when we take the risk and plant something together!