Summer

Fireflies rise from the lawn at dusk. This evening two were coupled end to end on a leaf of the potted mint by the back step, as in this New York Times article, according to which the female is receiving the male's "nuptial gift".

The orange daylilies ("road side" type) are blooming but my favorites are the tall but delicate pale yellow ones (Hemerocallis citrina) that open in the evening. Now that I see where they are, I will dig out some of the orange ones later on to make room.

The State Farm zinnias planted as spindly seedlings are doing nicely and turn out to be exactly the sort of mix of hot orange reds and strong violet pinks that I like on a hot day.

And the bind weed is having a great June, because it's been too hot and buggy to weed much.

Cleaning up, continued

We had a nice sunny day. I put in another 2.5 hours digging in the south west corner, prying up weeds, dividing and redistributing daylilies and siberian iris, and dividing and replanting bulbs as I came across them. I also worked in the 75 small bulbs from a bag I bought at Hardware City on impulse, while we were in line to buy a space heater after the furnace died. It seems that perfection in the flowerbeds, or at least satisfactory improvement, is only about 24 hours away. At this rate, I'll finish in February. At least I'll have a nice new furnace to keep me warm between digs.

Cleaning up

Yesterday afternoon was another installment in the flowerbed cleanup saga. This time I worked on the back (south-west) corner. Accomplishments included removal of the big old dead deciduous azalea, digging out a lot of poke weed, and generally digging up and replanting (rearranging) the daylilies in that corner, and the bulbs hiding in their toes. Weeds and weed roots (couch grass, poke weed, and bind weed) filled 2 county-approved paper yard trim bags.
That limited area at least is a lot better but I was rushing. I need several days I don't have to finish and really think things through.
While I was working 3 butterflies came to the purple butterfly bush: 2 painted ladies and a lovely buckeye.