Lilies and More

The garden suddenly seems to be entering a new phase. Gone are the peonies and many of the roses. Yesterday I deadheaded the Martha Washington geranium, whose flowers had mostly gone brown, and the brook thistles. And in their place we have a whole new crop of flowers coming on.

The pink Asiatic lilies were just starting to open yesterday morning.

The bear's breeches, or Acanthus, have sent up towering spikes of flowers. We have at least six spikes on this single plant -- more than ever before. The flowers always remind me of mussels.

The Senecio, or Dusty Miller, has produced large, flat clusters of yellow blossoms...

...and one of the "Bishop's Children" dahlias has bloomed. (First dahlia of the year!)

Here's one of the hogweeds (native, not giant) that I put in the ground last March. This one sent up a big flower spike, but the other one is hanging back. It will no doubt bloom next year. Insects love these flowers.

Here's Nicole Nicotiana, producing her white trumpet-shaped blossoms. Nicole has had a rough year. The drainage holes in her planter somehow got blocked up and she became waterlogged. We didn't notice until she began wilting, and although I cleared the holes and got her drained she's not looking too good. This is a bonus year for her anyway -- we didn't expect her to live through the winter -- but I hope she perks up. At least she's blooming.

And here's the Asiatic lily this morning -- all six of those flowers opened yesterday! Funny how they pop at the same time. In the background is a Peruvian lily (Alstroemeria) and a single purple geranium -- the "Rozanne" variety.

I had a very quiet day yesterday, hanging around the house. I finished my Louise Doughty mystery, "Apple Tree Yard," which was ultimately very good. It took a little while to get going -- the first part mused ad nauseam about marital infidelity -- but ultimately I liked it.

Today I have the hazardous waste people coming to pick up a box of old pesticides. When we first moved in here, ten years ago, we bought some bug spray and slug pellets, which we used occasionally in the garden. Our thinking on that evolved pretty quickly, though, and within a few years we stopped using any of it. I would occasionally still use the spray on houseplants -- never outside -- but even that seemed risky and largely ineffective, so we're discarding it all. (The slug pellets aren't even legal anymore.) 

I much prefer a pesticide-free approach. Most pests won't really harm plants. They might make them slightly less productive or attractive, but really, who cares? They're all part of the ecosystem. And in the rare instance that a plant dies, c'est la vie. We have room for a new one!