Pumpkin Flowers Shine

Once again our Pumpkins are blooming. These flowers open in the morning but by noon they are already fading. Our pumpkin patch started several years ago when we tossed a small pumpkin that had been used as a fall decoration into the garden. The next spring the seeds sprouted and grew into more pumpkins. In addition to the bunch of flowers from the pumpkins in the garden, the picture of the single flower is a pumpkin plant growing in the lawn about 15 feet from the garden. I'm not sure how it got seeded there but the vine has two baby pumpkins growing on it.

Ice Cream Colors by the Pond

The giant Lilies are blooming again. Their rich, vibrant colors remind me lemon and orange sherbert ice cream. These blooms are 8 inches across but like most lilies they only last a day. With a bunch of buds yet to bloom, we have many more flowers to enjoy.

Baby Deer Join the Fun

What fun it is. Yesterday we saw two baby deer in the front yard with their mom. And today we get some pictures of them with the wildlife camera. This is really special to get these shots. These pictures are in the side yard outside the fence where I have been throwing the apples that are falling on our deck. This year the apple tree has been excessively bountiful in producing apples. The squirrels run around the tree biting into the not quite ripe apples and then dropping them on the deck. I have been picking up the dropped apples and throwing them over the fence and the deer love them.

2 New Birds Join the Pondscape

Two new sculptures are nesting next to the small pond. These are Crane statues that stand over 2 feet tall were a gift. I thought they would be happy sitting next to the pond and they do look happy.

Deer in the Side Yard

This weekend I cut a good size branch off of the Apple tree because it was hanging too low on the deck. I dropped it outside the fence on the side yard and setup the wildlife camera. Yesterday this deer spent at least 10 minutes chomping on the tree. The camera captured 18 pictures in that time before the memory was full. These were two of the best pictures. In the first picture, it looks like he is sticking his tongue out at the camera.

Big Frog in a Little Pot

The frogs continue their infatuation with the flower pots in the greenhouse. Here is a big frog in a little pot. The plant in the pot he is snuggling up to is young grapefruit tree. My wife loves her grapefruit and this year she read about planting the seeds. The method is very successful. First, you soak the seeds in a glass of water overnight. Second, put the soaked seeds in a folded wet paper towel which is put in a Ziploc bag. Put this bag in the greenhouse. Third, after a week open the bag and some of the seeds will be sprouting green stems. Finally plant these time seed sprouts in the potting mix and keep it damp. Soon you should have little grapefruit trees. My wife now has a dozen of these trees around. I don't know what happens next since our climate isn't right for grapefruit trees but it is fun to see them grow.

Black Magic Loves Summertime

The Black Magic plants are just doing great. 5 weeks ago they came out of wintertime storage looking pretty rough and now they are growing like crazy. We had to repot one because it got so large, the pot was falling over which is not the success I am looking for. Another one didn't recover except for a small plant at the edge of the 10 inch pot. We pulled that small plant and gave it it's own pot and it is now one happy plant - growing bigger every day.

Butterfly Bushes Recover Nicely

The Butterfly Bushes have recovered nicely from the severe haircut we gave them in February. They are now 6 feet tall, looking very healthy and today the first blooms appeared. Now that the flowers are popping out, the butterflies should be here very soon. When we chopped the bushes back in February, we planted 3o of the cut off branches outside the fence near the pond and all but 2 are still alive. We have read that deer don't like Butterfly bushes but we'll see if that is true.

Oak Leaf Hydrangeas

Here are two of our three Oak Leaf Hydrangeas. We bought them at the same time, planted them at the same time. The deer chomped them to near death at the same time. We moved them to the back yard at the same time to get them away from the deer. They recovered at the same rate over two years and yet the one on the right is heavy with flowers and the one on the left has no flowers.

Frog in the Pot

Yesterday my wife was watering the plants in the greenhouse and she found this frog had setup residence in one of the pots. I think she was trying to grow a grapefruit seed in this pot. The seed probably doesn't stand much of a chance competing with this frog. We'll just see how long the frog stays in his new home.

Elephant Ear Bounce Back

The Elephant Ears are getting pretty impressive. The planting in the back yard is doing the best as you can see with its large lush leaves. The other picture shows the Elephant Ears by the pond. They have been slower to recover but they are looking good. With this progress we're likely to have 6 foot plants with 3 foot leaves again. What fun.

First Daylily Blooms

Here is the first Daylily this year and it is blooming right in front of the white blooms of the Oak Leaf Hydrangea. The Oak Leaf Hydrangea continues to recover from it's near death experience 2 years ago. We originally bought three Oak Leaf Hydrangeas a couple of 3 years ago and planted them in the front yard - little did we know they were like candy to the deer and the deer quickly gobbled down the leaves leaving just bare stems. We transplanted the dead looking plants into the back yard protected by a 5 foot fence and after 2 years they are making a strong comeback. Now they make a great back ground for beautiful daylily.

Mr Black Snake is Back

Yesterday afternoon my wife asked me to come outside and remove the big game. I found a five foot black snake sunning himself in the middle of the back yard. I approached him with a stick attempting to encourage him to head for the woods. He attacked the stick a couple of times and then went the opposite direction - right under the deck. My wife was not at all impressed with the outcome. Snake 1 human 0.

I Jinxed Mother Nature

About 3 weeks ago I finished setting up the 150 gallon as a cistern to collect water coming off the roof when it rains. I covered the wire with a dark fabric to act as a filter and slow the growth of algae. I'll use this water for the plants on the deck. The bad thing is, we have only had 3 one hundreds of an inch of rain since I set up the cistern. That one little rainstorm did produce about and inch and a half of water in the cistern so an inch of rain might just fill it up. The good news is the weather man says we have a better chance of rain this week.