Peony update

Once again, a complete row of peonies was successfully removed by one driven turtle over a period of a couple days. You can now start to see how the ground gets compacted where that one turtle (who is not Cathy Jean) stomps back and forth during the day until those peonies are gone and out of his way for another year. When it rains, water flows down the two little gullies created by the opposing pairs of turtle feet. It's frustrating...but it's also kind of funny, I guess you can look at things from two points of view at the same time. Errrgh. Turtles. Actually, just one turtle (who would never be Cathy Jean).

The backyard is really looking awful because I haven't spent much time in it this year and besides, it's been so darn hot. It's almost July and I am still potting up bulbs which should have been potted up in....oh.......April at the latest. Oh well. Things will grow if they want to grow.

I never have much luck with petunias but I'm trying to grow them again this year.  I do have a lot of luck with golden lysimachia however. I remember seeing this plant for the first time on a water garden tour covering an entire backyard slope to a pond. It was memorably lovely. Lime green is one of my favorite colors and I think any color that gets itself next to it is the better for it.

The pansies are still blooming but they're soooooo tiny.

Another plant that is predictably pretty without much attention is Crossandra. It's sold as an annual but you can bring it indoors for the winter and it is a perfectly good non-complaining houseplant. This one is called "Orange Marmalade (the plant on the left is a caladium)."

This is a close-up of another variety of crossandra I bought last year. The flowers on this one have have more yellow in them.

Orange flowers are very pretty to me. The tawny daylilies are now winding down and even though they're the most ubiquitous daylily there is, I still really like them. 

This calla lily almost looks like it's got a lit cigarette in there. I guess that's appropriate because callas certainly have a garden porn aspect to them. :-)

Every year I try to get as much orange into the garden as I can, as well as lime green and purple. These three colors are the core colors for my garden every year.  I hope to really get started on that poor garden soon.... and also to keep four determined turtle feet off everything that gets planted. I'm thinking there are a lot of broken garden dreams ahead for me but for one turtle (who will never be Cathy Jean), this looks like this is setting up to be one fun summer.