Whiter Shade of Pale

We are getting a new patio poured this coming week, I have a large flower bed beside it that I dug all the flowers out of to save them from the whatever machine they use to break up the old concrete, mostly lilies, day lilies and Asiatic lilies. I am sure the day lilies will survive but I am not sure about the other lilies. I also dug a bunch of peonies, I am not sure if they will survive being moved this time of year. Also 3 clematis vines, not sure if they will make it either but what do I have to lose by trying? And a peony tree that has not bloomed for a couple of years, probably because the flower bed that was sunny is now shady due to my linden tree getting much larger. With everything going on this year due to the flooding I doubt I will do anything with it except maybe plants some bulbs this fall, over the winter I will be planning a shade garden which will be fun. I plan on using lots of the new coral bells with the beautiful foliage varieties you can find now days.

Whiter Shade of Pale

Well, our freeze warning for Friday night turned out to be not really a freeze. The temps got down to 31 for an hour or so. It didn't kill a thing not even the mosquitoes, it may have slowed them down a bit. As I worked outside today for quite awhile and was only bitten a few times. I dug some peonies that I wanted to move and divided more iris. Dumped more pots of annuals. I bought 3 big pots of mums for my fall display, my hubby is going to get the bale of hay tomorrow. I also bought a big pot of asters.

Yesterday morning we were walking the dogs early, it was very foggy and as the sun was coming up it was shinning through the fog, it was very halloweeny (is that a word?) anyway it was very cool.

Phlox

My Phlox are in an area of the yard that was difficult to water during the dry spell so they sure could look better than they do. We received over two inches of rain last night, so the total is over 5 inches since Monday evening. Things look much better. We even have the air turned off this evening, it is so nice to have fresh air in the house but thank heavens for the air when it is needed.

After the rain this is the time of year that the surprise lilies or naked ladies (Lycoris squamigera), should spring to life, but with that terrible cold spell we had in April after they were up out of the ground and frozen off. I wonder if they will bloom?

Dream Weaving

While Iowa was getting its 6 inches of snow this weekend, I was reading through old issues of Birds and Blooms and gazing through seed catalogs-again! In Birds and Blooms they had a picture of a flower grouping of Holly Hocks in the background, Phlox in the middle and one of the shorter goldenrods in the front. It is a grouping I am going to try, it was gorgeous. I am crazy for all 3 of those flowers, in fact I already have all of them in my garden except for the shorter goldenrod, I have some tall goldenrod, but I am sure I can find the shorter variety in one of my catalogs.