Enough of last weeks disasters and disappointments. The garden is filled with delights each and every day. We’ll ignore the fact that I had a dumpster delivered on Monday and spent the hottest week of the summer excavating for my replacement deck. Even that has an upside. I probably sweated off several pounds. The front yard, which is a riot of colour during spring bulb season has responded to my ministrations and continued its ever changing display into the middle of summer. A wealth of bloom from Lilies, Roses, Daylilies and the few Delphiniums adding some much needed blue in the background. The creeping Thyme pathways have finished blooming but are a delightful mat of green and are amazingly good at suppressing weed growth. In the back the low yellow mat of annual Mecardonia is covering the soil with its dense mat of small yellow flowers. Odds and ends of other delights are available to the more intensive observer. The Cucumbers are winding their way up the trellises displaying their bright yellow blooms with the promise of crisp cool fruit to come. It is so colourful and interesting that the few weeds are hardly noticeable.




Sometimes a bargain plant can turn out to be a real treasure. The local Daylily breeder has an annual open house and sale in the middle of peak bloom season, usually late July. “We’re In The Hayfield Now” admittedly a strange name for a Daylily nursery, unless you know their history, has a wide variety of delights available for drooling over and for sale. Each year there are a number of new introductions and at the sale there are always a few “garden specials.” These are nice plants which they have not deemed worthy of being introduced as named varieties. Being a somewhat frugal gardener, I have purchased a few of these over the years. One of them is now a highlight in my garden. We just call it #9 because it was the # 9 garden special that year. I don’t remember when I bought it but it has brightened up a couple of spots over the years. Large dark yellow flowers just burst forth like little suns throughout July. I don’t know what it lacked when they were choosing new varieties that year but it is a wonderful testament to the luck of the frugal gardener.