lily in a vase

Lilium Scheherazade. Oriental x trumpet. Need I say more?

morning in July

A Lily Scheherazade had outgrown its stake and one morning I found it toppled over in the back yard border. So I cut it at the bend, put the sizeable stem in a vase and balanced it with a piece of twine extending upward to the front porch chandelier. In the defined space of the front porch, the collective beauty of the blossoms going every-which-way is breath-taking. Isn't this the very thing we seek to reproduce in the dead of winter, in the form of a Christmas tree? This is it, the real thing, a morning in July.

a new line-up

A line of container plantings extends the left border in the backyard and (maybe) distracts the eye from the rusty fence.

like water lilies on a pond

This is the most beautiful hydrangea in my garden - hydrangea macrophylla Jogasaki, a double-flowered lacecap from Japan. According to the Almost Eden website: The individual double blooms which surround the sterile inner blooms have been described by some as "miniature pink water lilies floating atop a pond". She didn't bloom at all last year but this year, she is glorious. Walking by, I tell her "thank you for blooming in my garden". She needs to be moved (very gently) to a site where she has room - maybe this fall ...

summer, essence

Sweet-smelling lilies. Fleeting essence of the summer border. Beautiful sunshades, elegantly tall and vulnerable, so much beauty depending on that one stem .... carefully staked, but still ....

"As the gardener, such is the garden." Hebrew proverb