It was lovely!
Lilies are opening up. This is the view from where I sit in the morning with my coffee.
The gazanias are loving the sun, too! This is a two year old plant, and is truly enormous. Grown from seed, and is just stunning.
Gazania close up shots. The little white specks make me think of bird feathers.
Hope you have had some sunshine, too!
I finally have some lilies, and roses, and a few other blooms to share. This summer… Ugh. Comparing to this time last year, everything is blooming two weeks later. It’s been a pretty poor summer. Good thing I didn’t even try to grow any veggies. I had a feeling this year was going to be shite for veg, and I was right.
Another clematis, slightly different in colour. It’s only the second year in the ground for this one, so it hasn’t gone crazy like the other one. That icky looking brown thing on the right is me using old knee-highs to tie it to the tree. I recycle everything I can!
Love the California poppies. Also in shot: the damned Duggar violas, irises, some of the new pink lilies, part of an astilbe I dug out of a friend’s back-garden-wasteland, and an ash tree that moved in a few years back.
‘Pixel’ lilies! Quite fond of these. They are very short compared to the next ones.
Forget what genus these lilies are, so I just call them my black lilies. Clearly they aren’t black, but they are lilies. This is the first one to open this year, now I have several out front and back. I’d guess they grow about a metre or yard tall – hard to say as again, they are in a pot.
Wonderful white rose. Smells sooooo good.
Orange lilies going bonkers as usual! Also lavender, columbine, sweet william…
Galliardia survived the winter. Still waiting on the rudbeckia to bloom.
More roses! iPhone really proved itself with this pic.
Sweet william, by my raspberries.
Key for size reference – raspberry season has arrived! They never make it far from the bush to my mouth. I do try to share with hubby. Sometimes.
Yes, I know my countertop is hideous.
Ending with my favourite rose, a lovely lavender colour. Bloom is too heavy for the stem, poor thing. I’ve been struggling with this wee bush for years, it is isn’t happy where it is, I guess. At least the black spot that is taking down my massive white rose hasn’t hit it, despite them being less than two metres apart. Two more blooms on this one yet to open, and I’m excited – that is two more than last year!
I again have new blooms to share! These are more lilies of the Aldi set, and they took the longest to mature. Now that I see what they were working on, I understand why the long wait.
Last weekend, when I thought that one petal peeling off from the bottom of the bud meant they were close to blooming.
Wednesday, when I saw that they weren’t ready yet, and needed to change colour a bit more first.
Thursday, when those same two flower buds had gotten so huge I needed something to show scale – my big calloused man-hand will do…
…but those two didn’t compare to this bud. It was near to bursting with promises of beauty.
It hasn’t disappointed!
Same angle, sorry – but first pic was Friday and second was today.
Something better than my hand for scale. I promise I was nearly touching the petals with the measuring tape when hubby took this picture. Over 8 inches across, or around 21cm! Quite wonderful to have outside my front door.
Nearly forgot – early edit – this is one of the smaller ones that has also opened. I shouldn’t play favourites!
Ugggh, I am incredibly far behind on posting photos of my most recent blooms.
This is the only Tigridia I’ll bother with. They’ve slowed down, but nearly every day there are one or two new ones, shrivelled by the time I get home from work, of course. I have no idea what I’m to do with dozens of photos of slightly different flowers.
You can really tell this was taken with the new SLR camera, wow! Here’s a new one, for Tom (and possibly his mother) – my giant red sunflower, from seed. This was day one that it opened. Day two the petals went droopy a bit, and now it is more of a rust colour, but the centre is getting larger and larger. It’s also not very giant. I can’t be arsed to measure it, but it’s in an 18 inch high pot and barely reaches my shoulder, and I’m 5ft 8in. Can’t be arsed to do that in metric, either – sorry! I’m under pressure to make dinner tonight…
Broad/fava beans. The pic doesn’t give scale – the long one was really, really long. But even it only had six beans inside – a lot of messing about for hardly any bean goodness. The dog loves the pods, so at least they didn’t go to waste.
Cosmos! Of all my seeds it seems only the white ones bloomed. This one has an interesting cupped petal…
…while this is the more traditional form that I’m familiar with.
More rose photos. These two bloomed together. I found it interesting the way they matured. Here, they look very similar.
A day or two later, here is the left bloom.
And this is the right. Both stunning and smell like a little bit of heaven.
Or my grandma.
Not too dissimilar.
The white roses aren’t as big as last year. It’s a climber, and has gotten really leggy. I think I’ll have to prune, and I’ve never done that. No sign of new growth on my lavender rose, but at least the leaves are all still there and I’ve kept the black spot away. Wonder should I try to move it?
I’ve saved my favourites for last, of course. My first dahlia, ever. From the Aldi set of bulbs and tubers. I have to say I’m impressed with the quality and variety Aldi had on offer. Most of the lilies, the dahlias, the Tigrida, the … Oh hell I’ve forgotten! The Babylon 5 spaceship-looking pineapple flowering thingie… Something like Euconomis. Anyhoo, all from Aldi.
Since I’ve never had a dahlia before, I didn’t expect them to be so sloooow to open. It’s been a week and this first bloom still isn’t open all the way.
Getting there! Seems we shoot it daily, it is ever changing. To be honest it is much further along today, but it’s dark out now.
My current favourite – more Aldi lilies.
What I like best about these is that the black has a raised texture as if tar has been spilt on the petals. I need to ask iDJ, with his superior photography skills, to try to capture the texture better. These blooms last a long time, too, but turn more orange red than dark red as they age.
Yes, I have more to come, but it’s my bedtime soon!
heretherebespiders 