My new Anna apple in bloom and now it has lovely red/green/yellow apples that are sweetly crisp!
One of my favorite camellias is from Nuccio nursery (sorry it was a gift so I don't know the name) and in July, it amazingly still has one bloom. After five years, it has filled in more than ten feet on the North side of our home. In the winter, it blooms reliably and abundantly.
Here is a snapshot of a spring mix featuring my dianthus superbus ssp. specious from Annie's Annuals in Richmond California, yarrow, and a miniature rose I bought at the San Diego fair from Tiny Petals. I love the long eyelash like petals on this pale lavender dianthus!
I love my peony poppies and so do the bees. I dry heads in paper bags and shake the seeds into containers so I can sow more in the fall.
My garden needs the height these pale Watsonia provide. I have a mirror behind them, so the reflection multiplies them.
What would summer be without my constant, bountiful, white iceberg roses??
I fill vases with them, pile blooms on gifts and float petals in iced tea. As the best, one line, quip-stress, Dorthy Parker said, "They that have roses never need bread."
If you don't have summer flowers, it is not to late to plant! Try zinnias, cosmos, petunias, amaranth and moss rose. You can still add basil, dill, fennel, to your herb collection.
Summer veggies love this heat. Plant cucumbers, soy beans, Kentucky beans, okra and of course, plenty of tomatoes.
Home grown tomatoes by John Denver
"There ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon 'n lettuce 'n home grown tomatoes
Up in the mornin', and out in the garden
Get you a ripe one, don't pick a hard 'un
Plant 'em in the spring, eat 'em in the summer
All winter without 'em is a culinary bummer
I forgot all about the sweatin' and the diggin'
Every time I go out and pick me a big 'un
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What would life be without home grown tomatoes?
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes
You can go out to eat and that's for sure
But there's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put 'em in a salad, put 'em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice...."
"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato." Lewis Grizzard
