Fourth of July Lawn and Gardens

It's traditional for me to take photos on the Fourth of July to hallmark the unofficial "middle of summer" for the lawn and gardens.  Please note, the actual middle of summer isn't until August fifth.

As always, you can click any image to embiggen it!

The lawn is doing very well this year due to the constant and very heavy rainfall we've experienced.  I irrigated it exactly once, and then only enough to carry it through until the next rainfall arrived.  The color is a touch pale, but that's normal for July and normal for heavily overcast conditions that have persisted for more than a month so far.




I managed to get the hydrangea to bloom mixed blue and pink with a note of purple this year, but that was mostly luck.





Overall, the gardens are doing tolerably well, but some things are delayed.  The marigold and dahlia don't mind the weather, but the zinnia would prefer more sunlight.



Here are some closeup shots of a variety of flowers.

A dahlia with a visitor. This particular dahlia is slated to be tagged later on in the season and wintered over in the cellar.



This is another dahlia that's slated to be saved--as it turns out, most of the bi-color and multi-color ones are.  The flowers on this look brighter in person, with brilliant cherry-red petals centered in a creamy white.



Here's a zinnia that's actually producing large, scarlet flowers--the color is more saturated than it looks in this photo.