The back yard.....update in the heat.....

It is only 90 degrees but when you are in the direct sun it is very uncomfortable. Florida is sweltering in the heat right now and they would think we were cool. I have been working in the backyard the past two days. I had to build a frame for a customer from scratch. I had to move my miter saw in the shade of a tree and run a cord to it. I have finally got the back gate primed and today put the final two coats of color on it. I will show you tomorrow what color I painted it. I have talked about painting that gate for two years. Huh>?

This poor rose needs to be moved. It is too hot now. I said I was going to do it and in the time being I will put out this wonderful photo of the flower. It is tough to survive where it is growing.
My monardia, beebalm has thinned out this year but the bumblebees are so busy flying around to them getting nectar. We have a lot of bees this year which is good, we haven't always had so many.
A lot of my hostas are blooming in the back yard and the blooms lie on the ground. I just look the other way. The bees are loving them though and this one variegated hosta has straight, upright stems. It is going to be more beautiful in the next few days.

This is the present view of my mass planting that sits next to our patio, former basketball court. It is so amazing how flat and desolate the whole area is in the winter and then this all comes up and becomes a jungle. It is somewhat crowded, but I am not going to address it until this fall. I have phlox coming up in every different area and they are wimpy in color and size. It is too shaded for them to get blooms but good enough for good foliage. The field lilies next to the pond aren't blooming well this year either. I suppose they need to be thinned, but not this year. Pruning back the ash tree above all of this would help a little.
The pond is my first water feature that I have ever had. I dug it years ago and it went underneath a sidewalk, which worked as a bridge. With little money, I lined it with an eight dollar plastic tarps and when doubled up, it works well enough. A few years back I got ambitious and redug it and made a dirt ledge and lined it with brick in the top area, like a rim to help hold the plastic. This year it was a mess and sprung leaks and I didn't deal with it for a while. Now I have put in seven loads of wheel barrows of dirt in it and raised the bottom of it. This fall I want to line it with concrete. I don't want a deep pond anymore with young children living next door. The area is fenced in but I don't want it to ever hurt anyone. So I am not filling it with water and whatever rains come that will be it's meager moisture.

A shop kid threw this birdhouse away after in the dumpster after he got a grade for it. I salvaged it but I see I need to nail it up a little and I think the hole is too small for wrens even though he must have tired to use it as it is full of twigs.
My wife says I have to quit blogging now as I am watching Cultivating Life on tv, in which they are planting catus. Mamma Mia music came up on the computer by itself and that is playing and I am also blogging. So I guess I am done. They are eating catus on tv now and I have shut Mamma Mia off and I guess I have done enough. We have a large Mexican population in a nearby town, 9,000 or more now, but they have cactus for sell for eating at the major grocery store for them. I have never tasted it so I can't even say, yuuuummmm.
Thanks for reading.....