Many Pictures....

While scrambling through the archives to find a photo to post, I found this one. When our house was built 15 years ago, the builder decided to paint black material on the side of the foundation, I am assuming to waterproof it.  The didn’t bother to match the dirt to the area along the side of the house. Its other good function is to give me a good background for my dandelion.

The red color and my camera seem to be in conflict.  With just the perfect lighting, the camera does a great job.  Other wise the temperature of red doesn’t work well with the automatic focus.

A good photo of the knock out roses is rare but I did get one. The roses were all trimmed back recently and the rose has bounced back. The house shades the rose partially so I can get a focus on the flowers better.

I randomly planted spike plants among the petunia patch. At first it seemed to work as a design feature.  Now with the drought going on I can see it helps to fill in space where there are not blooms.  When it cools down in the fall, maybe the petunias will spring back.

While planting marigolds around the raised bed this spring I had extra zinnia like flowers and not place to plant them.  So I put them in the middle of the tomato plants.  It really was a good idea as they get watered everyday.  It is a bad idea too as I see orange among the tomatoes and they are flowers and not tomatoes. This is the second year that I have planted marigold around the edge of the tomato plants. I really like how it all looks in the backyard and the tomatoes don’t look weedy with the crowded row of flowers.

I shared this photo on Facebook and my old college roommate had to have a raised bed. He is planting strawberries in his new bed. Our grass right now is not green. All grass is dormant except for those few who like to drag the sprinklers all over their yards.

I didn’t plant any large tomato varieties this year and I really wished that I had. I guess I thought I was cutting back on the plants but instead I have all these perfect round ones and loads of roma tomatoes. My volunteer yellow pear tomato will be fun to harvest.

It looks like summer for sure now that the grass has lost its green The zinnias have filled in the left side and the cottage style of planting really has worked well.  I really didn’t get too many weeds in the willy nilly planting.  I have space left in the front there to plant some more flowers.  I put in a Russian sage plant this week moving it from the front garden area. It isn’t a great time to move anything but I water often so it should live.

My plantings of cheap pink seed hardy geraniums is really doing well.  Barney’s continuing wetting in the same area kill out the grass so I covered with these and some mulch.  The grass will grow back into the mulch and I may just put back in as yard again.

Our day looks good for temperatures today.  Southern Iowa did get some rain last night which was good for the drought down there.  I had raindrop showers for five minutes yesterday morning with the sun shining.   It will rain again I am sure. Thanks for checking in today.