Surprise!

It has been nearly a month since my last post. The garden is pretty much sleeping, except for the surprise lilies. They're growing along the north fence and part of the east fence. These are the lilies that produce foliage in the spring, then die back completely only to send up a beautiful stalk of pink flowers in mid summer. Believe it or not, these were thinned a year ago. They're royally hard to kill. I think I may try to move some of the bulbs of them later in the fall. They're nice lilies, but it seems unnatural to have them growing in such a straight line.

Other parts of the garden aren't faring so well. The coral bells haven't bloomed and are showing signs of ill health (circle), and the nasturtiums, which should have grown to three times this size and been flowering for weeks, are still stumpy and weak (arrow). I don't think they get enough sunlight here.

The bleeding heart has passed on to botanical heaven. I'm not sure if it thinks August 1 is the time to go dormant or whether it just up and died. I guess we'll find out in the spring.

The tomato is not exactly the picture of health, either. It is just now flowering. It's on the north side of the fence, but it does get sunlight several hours a day.

Lloyd's cacti, however, are thriving. He has plans to replant them, but while they're patiently waiting for new homes, they're blooming quite well.

The yellow arrows point to real cactus flowers. The red arrow indicates straw flowers that were glued onto a cactus. Silly, isn't it?

Other than chasing weeds, there's not much happening right now, which is good, as we're leaving tomorrow for two or three weeks. That's right. At this point we're not sure when we'll be back. My good friend Norma Jeane will come water while we're gone. I can't wait to see how it will have changed in our absence!