Back at the start of July I started to post images of my garden with my orange daylilies in full bloom, but I stopped when I realized I needed to reduce the file size of all the images. Today I finally did that. Below are the images from back then.
Now, in the heat of August, we are in a drought and have been for weeks. The orange daylilies are long gone; I've cut them down and the foliage is slowly rising green again. Most of my hostas have bloomed furiously and are done. They are all deadheaded now.
There is no glory in my garden any more. It has been done in by drought and rabbits and deer and fungus attacks. It's nice to remember that at one point I was in love with the garden.
Now I mostly am in survival mode, trying to fend off the predators, hand water my poor dehydrated plants, clean out the southern blight that has attacked, deal with the dense thatch that has replaced the grass in the front yard, and kill the crabgrass and broadleaf weeds that have invaded the back yard. It's not a good time in the garden. I am out-numbered.
But I did enjoy the orange fest.
Two beds greet you as you come up the driveway.
Here's what you see looking off to the side of the driveway drop-off. This looks like an early scene from Jurassic Park. I expect to see a long-necked dinosaur munching away down there anytime.
Here's looking up at the back yard. There are lilies in front of the big rocks and again up back forming a "lily hedge." That makes four substantial massed plantings of common orange daylilies all blooming at the same time. They put on quite a show and it makes me smile every day they are there.
Here's that lily hedge seen up close from the back corner of the big hosta bed.
And here it is again seen from the middle of that hosta bed. Back then the hostas were not suffering from drought conditions. They are now.
An up close view of my favorite spot in the garden.