July flowers in the garden

One of the smaller sunflowers. I think it is Ring of Fire but am not positive.

The heat has arrived and the humidity has never left.  I’ve been occupied with painting in the studio but the yard and garden are never far from my mind.  A quick tour around this week reminded me that I need to get out there and weed again.  Didn’t I just weed that?  Well, time to go around again.

Zinnias which I use for casual arrangements.

The garden is going well and starting to produce.  Green beans, squash, peppers.  The snow peas are nearly past and the lettuce and asparagus are long gone.  We had to replant the corn as the first plantings weren’t doing too well.  I think probably due to some wascally wabbits.  Anyway, the next crops of corn are coming along nicely.

The hostas are almost over. These are actually light purple.

So far, only some cherry tomatoes but the other varieties are heavy with fruit.  Won’t be too long.  And the eggplant has survived the flea beetles and are looking healthy.

I love the shape of the budding sunflowers. They are such interesting flowers with lots of geometric shapes.

But I always have a passion for flowers.  They grow all over the yard.  Many perennials and some are very old as they were here when we moved here decades ago.  But the garden will always have zinnias and cosmos for cutting.  This year I have six kinds of sunflowers in two long rows.

The new sunflower patch. I’m so anxious to see the whole patch in bloom.

Plus!….I added a new 30 x 30 foot patch to plant sunflowers.  This is just below the spring garden.  And, I planted it with the birdseed sunflowers, probably oiled sunflower seeds, as I felt they probably didn’t have any chemicals on them since they were for the birds.  By the time I got to this area, I was flagging after all the other gardening work.  I just sowed the seeds, scratched them in with the rake and called it a day.  I thought the birds and the rabbits would have them all.  But, to my surprise, they took off and are now blooming.  Yes, there are some weeds in there but plenty of flowers. It’s always fun to experiment with new gardening ideas.

All the sunflowers feed the birds (or whomever).

Purple cone flowers.

The last of the lilies.

Mystery flower. These flowers started coming up in my peonies a few years ago. I let them stay as the butterflies seem to like them. But I really don’t know what they are? Any help out there would be appreciated.