Summer Blooms

These Prickly Pear flowers are the last ones in our garden. A low evergreen shrub has spread over all the others. As gardeners know, each year brings surprises, no matter what came up last year.

The Bergamot came back in full force this year after threatening to disappear. Maybe we will see some hummingbirds again!

A profusion of hollyhocks appeared this year. Most are rose-pink, but we have some pale yellow ones and a few that haven't revealed their colors yet. The ones near the building withstood a scraping-and-painting session. In other spots, ladder placement was not kind to the garden.

Next up are various lilies , daylilies and Black-Eyed Susans. I planted saved portulaca seeds in a windowbox, just to keep track of them, and now I have plenty to transplant to borders.

Among the missing: Blue-eyed Grass and several kinds of Columbines. Why they disappear or flourish, only Mother Nature knows.

--Bernice Paglia