Early June Photos

We've had a bit more sun, which also means I can feed the garden a bit with urea and other synthetics without risking losses into the water table.  That helps accelerate things a bit, although I'm always very gentle with the synthetics anyway.

The gardens actually are coming along finally!

I gave the Knockout rose a pretty hard cut back this year, so it's a bit late and a bit light on the June blossoming.  Still, it's hardly shabby.

The first of the Janie marigolds are up and about and doing very well all across the garden.  Janies tend to bloom early, bloom very strongly, and keep blooming right up until they freeze out.  They're not even that particular about being dead-headed, although they do prefer if you keep after them.

French vanilla hybrids are a new favorite.  They're not as tolerant as Janie marigolds, they tend to stop blooming a little early, develop some fungus problems in September, and grow into leggy monsters, but they're attractive through most of the season.  Used as an accent, they can be cut back or removed when they start to fail.  And the pale yellow-white is a unique hue when combined with the sweeter, completely un-marigold-like scent.

I always have more trouble with the red Profusion zinnia than the yellow or orange, maybe because they're a new cultivar.  While running behind the others, they're still opening nice blossoms now and will be monstrous plants by September that are covered in scarlet blooms just like their counterparts will be monstrous yellow and orange blooming creatures.

The standard lawn shot.  We're starting to slide into summer, so the lawn's color is paling and growth is slowing.  This is good as it's still raining enough that scheduling mowing time is difficult.