Flowers!

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were stifling.  Awful. Then Wednesday night we had a summer thunderstorm of incredible proportions, with non-stop lightning, a soaking rain, 2 heavy downpours and a couple of minutes of pebble-size hail! No damaging wind.  Thanks to the hail, leaves litter the ground, and the purple iris (the picture is pre-storm) were shredded, but the tomatoes and most everything else came through. And now the temperatures are much more bearable. 

The picture above is one of several patches of batchelor's buttons, which turn out to be a long-lasting cut flower, although the buds won't open in water.  And now more pictures (click to enlarge), a mere hint of things to come:

"Sun Power" hosta from Vermont Flower Farm

Camassia lilies to the right, a super late-spring/early summer bulb.  Below, the old purple iris, in the garden when I bought the house, always the first iris to bloom, and "Ballerina", another early and very short iris that is thriving in the worst soil imaginable.



This is a Preston lilac, a late bloomer,  that is thriving thanks to Tim. On his last visit he moved this and its pair from their original spot, where they were dried out and competing with burdock and other weeds, to the shed, after he took down an old and overgrown shrub that was beyond reclamation. Look! Flowers!

 

And finally, the first daylily, accompanied by Coral Bells (heuchera):