Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - Summer Transition

Poppy from seed I bought at the Chelsea Physic Garden

Well, this is what happens when I don't blog often enough - spring flies by and summer is here! This year I've got very few spring posts and photos from my own garden. Now that Garden Bloggers Bloom Day is here, it seems fitting to catch up on May and then show you what June has in store. And since it's been a while, I hope you don't mind lots of pictures!

'Mango Popsicle' kniphofia - I've been enjoying this one. It requires no care whatsoever and blooms are constant.

This is my best yellow daylily - first to start blooming and many blooms. 

You can tell I've already started to transition to summer with this daylily pic. This year's crop of daylilies has been a mixed bag for me. Many of them are shorter than usual and some of them got a good case of daylily streak. I think it was the long, wet spring. But these tough flowers still manage to bloom! If I don't tell you the name of the daylily, it's because it was a passalong and I don't know the name.

One of my favorites daylilies. I call it Dreamsicle but I really don't know what its real name is.

I have lots of daylilies that are this color. They are some of the ones who didn't grow very tall this year.

'Windmill Yellow' daylily - it has massive blooms and our own Joywalk Daylilies wins awards with it.

Another one of my favorite daylilies - 'Crimson Pirate'

Okay, last daylily photo. This is 'Yellowstone', a progeny of 'Hyperion' that is very floriferous and fragrant.

Moving to a cooler spot - Southern wood fern, inland sea oats, and oakleaf hydrangea.

And more coolness, a rex begonia

The figs on my espalier are plumping! I only hope the tree rats and birds leave me a few.

I bought a few milkweeds, 'Silky Deep Red' variety, for the monarch butterflies but I've only seen one monarch.  

The long spring we had has delayed ripening of my tomatoes. This is 'Black Cherry'.

Some cool looking dragonfly nymphs on my papyrus in my stock tank pond.

I can't forget to spotlight 'Belinda's Dream' rose, now in its second flush of blooms for the year. There are 'Yellowstone' daylilies and coneflowers in the background.

Wow, my sacred lotus finally bloomed! And I have several more in bud - excitement!

'Grand Marshall' monarda (bee balm) is starting to pop. It's great for pollinators and hummers.

Last but not least, my new tuteur. Gotta get cracking at planting some moon vine and exotic love vine (Mina lobata) at its base!

I hope you managed to make it through my compendium of late spring and early summer garden highlights. And I hope you'll visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens to see what other folks around the world have blooming on this Bloom Day. Oh, and I hope to see you at the Garden Bloggers Fling in San Francisco later this month. If you won't be able to make it, I promise to post about it, and hopefully before the summer is out, ha!

This post was written by Jean McWeeney for my blog Dig, Grow, Compost, Blog. Copyright 2013. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.