Late June Photos

Even with no rain (or, perhaps because of the increased sunlight and adequate water via irrigation), the gardens have taken off.  While the Fourth of July is the traditional day for photos for the real start of summer, I took a bunch this evening.

A lot of the dahlia bulbs are second-year, so they're blooming much earlier.  This Blue Boy normally wouldn't blossom until late July.


The same is true of the Sun Lady dahlia.  These highlighter-yellow bloomers are some of my favorites!


The Babylon Red dahlia is new this year.  Although supposedly a late-season bloomer, these are doing very well in late June.  The flowers are pretty large and even redder than they look in these images.


The gene-mixed yellow/orange zinnia bred relatively true, so I'll be saving more of these for next year.  They're a nice tangerine color.


The northwest face of the garden.  It's a little spotty, and I just transplanted Melampodium and Easter Egg plant into the areas well, but the zinnia are starting to look nice.


This is one of the parent plants for that orange/yellow zinnia.


I really like the French Vanilla "white" marigolds.  They were perfect last year, they're a hit again this year.