FLOWERS IN THE YARD ~ UPDATE ON THE GARDEN ~ THE "NURSERY" ~ VISITOR TO THE BACK GARDEN ~ PUZZLE UPDATE ~ PARTING SHOT

FLOWERS IN THE YARD

I tell you what, we have a beautiful yard, if I do say so myself! Everyone who comes to our house remarks on how pretty all the flowers are, and I always give credit where credit is due. Linda is the reason we have such a lovely yard. She works very hard at taking care of the flower gardens in the yard, and I do the vegetable and herb garden. I think she does a wonderful job. Here are some pictures of some of our flowers so you can judge for yourself.

Our Stargazer Lilies

 A friend of ours gave us the Stargazer Lily plant about 9 years ago and it has gotten bigger and bigger over the years. There are so many blossoms on it that I had to stake it up yesterday because the stems were bent over and almost touching the ground. The flowers are absolutely gorgeous.

Butterfly Bush (top) and Bee Balm (bottom)

I got our Butterfly Bush last year at the Yakima Master Gardeners sale. It was very small and didn't bloom last year, but it grew a bit over last summer. This year it has numerous beautiful blooms on it and we have seen a lot of butterflies going to it. I am hoping, when the hummingbirds return to Yakima on their way back down south, that they will go to it also.

(Clockwise from top) Yellow Currant berries, the Dad Rose, and Lobelia

We bought one Yellow Currant bush a couple of years after we moved to Yakima. Over the years it has proliferated and we have had baby bushes coming up all over the place. We routinely pull them up unless one happens to be in a spot we want a bush. A few years ago, Linda decided to make a hedge of these bushes across the back of the vegetable garden area, and along the side of the house. She carefully transplanted tiny babies along the line where she wanted the hedge, and faithfully watered them in for the first summer so they could establish themselves. We now have a nice hedge growing in both places. The berries of this plant can be picked and made into a jam. I made Currant Jam in the past when Linda's dad was up here visiting, because he loved jam and toast for breakfast.

Hedge along side of house

The garden also yields some flowers when it is producing vegetables. Right now we have a plethera of squash blossoms on all of the squash plants. The flowers are so beautiful when they are open, and when you think about what develops at the base of the flower (the squash itself), you realize they are even more beautiful. These gorgeous pictures below are of the North Carolina Yellow Straight Neck Squash that we grew from seed sent to us by my good friend Sheila.

Squash blossom (top) and squash fruit (bottom)

UPDATE ON THE GARDEN

As I mentioned above, we have loads of squash growing out in the garden. The potato plants are doing great, and the cucumber plants are starting to get bigger and creep along the ground. Here is a picture of our biggest cucumber plant, with a little spoiled brat beside it for size comparison (sitting in the shade, of course).

Lemon Cucumber (left) and Summer Girl (right)

We have a few peppers on the pepper plants. Some of them are finally getting bigger, although the two Habaneros and one of the Jalapenos are still small. Also, we have some tomatoes coming on too, so everything is starting to get in the swing.

Black Krim tomato (top) and Sun Sugar Cherry tomato (bottom)

THE "NURSERY"

Right before we went on vacation I took some video of the sparrows underneath our feeder in the front yard. I was hoping to get video of the quail babies, but they didn't show so I settled for the sparrows. They were quite comical as there were probably 10 or 15 babies out there, hopping around. I think the parents were trying to teach them to fend for themselves. The babies seemed to be having a good time playing in the dirt.

There was some bizarre behavior on display by some of these youngsters. It appeared to me that they were exploring the various objects out there, trying to figure out what they were supposed to do with them.

As the videos above show, one little guy sees another one pick up a twig and fly off, so he tries to imitate his friend but doesn't quite know what to do. And then we have a little sparrow inside a Basket of Gold plant, and it looks like he is trying to take a bath in it like they do in the dirt. These little fellows were very entertaining to watch!

I was hoping to have better news to give you on the quail babies, but I have only seen the one May baby and the Papa since we got back from vacation. He's growing, though, so Papa is doing a good job of taking care of him!

Baby May

VISITOR TO THE BACK GARDEN

Last week we finally had a visitor to our garden that I have been looking forward to seeing. A gorgeous Western Tiger Swallowtail butterfly came to our butterfly bush and visited each flower on it. I was able to get some good video of her as she sipped on the nectar from the flowers. As far as I can tell, this one is a female because she has a lot of blue on her wings. The males have more black than blue at the bottom of the wings.

I saw one again earlier this week so I took some pictures of it to compare. I don't know if this is the same butterfly, but it looks like a female as well. The video above was taken on July 3rd, so in the span of a week's time this butterfly's wing has taken some damage. Their lifespan is only two weeks, so by the end of that time their wings are sometimes in tatters.

Top picture taken 7/3, bottom taken 7/9

PUZZLE UPDATE

It was my turn to pick out which puzzle we were going to work on after we got back from vacation. I picked out my favorite puzzle thus far. We did this one way back in February and really enjoyed it, so I picked it to do again. It is the first puzzle that we got using Colin Thompson's design (thank you, Emily!). This one is called "The Gardener's Cupboard" and we will probably finish it today or tomorrow. I just love this type of puzzle because there are so many little interesting things to see on each piece.

The Gardener's Cupboard

PARTING SHOT

Whenever I go outside and get out my lounge chair to sit under the tree, Summer Girl usually comes nonchalantly ambling up, and this is where she usually winds up.

Sitting in the lap of luxury

I apologize for the look of this week's blog. Google apparently changed something and the colors went all wacky. I will try to get it fixed before next week's blog because these colors are not very easy to read. Thanks for your patience.

That's it for this week, my friends. Please check back again next week because I have a feeling that we will be harvesting something out of the garden by then! Until then, have a safe week!