Archive for August, 2011

Summer Flowers

These are 3 pictures of flowers blooming in our yard this summer. The first picture shows an Amaryllis belladonna plant. These beautiful fragrant light pink flowers have appeared for the second year in a row from a bulb that I planted in the ground several years ago. The flower stems appear from the bare earth about a month after the leaves turn brown and die in June. Ours has about 10 flower stems this year, about twice as many as last year.

The second picture shows a cluster of purple dahlias that I planted in one of our raised bed gardens last year. These dahlias have grown vigorously and bloomed profusely in our raised beds, which get watered regularly and have some protection from snails and slugs. When I tried to grow dahlias in the ground a few years ago, snails devoured them.

The third pictures shows a group of hollyhocks growing in another one of our raised bed gardens. I planted the hollyhocks by seed last summer. They have grown very quickly over the past year with regular watering, but no fertilizer. Some of our hollyhocks are now over 8 feet tall. Our hollyhocks started blooming in early July, and they were full of dozens of flowers of various shades of pink and white for over a month. Now they are starting to fade. This picture was taken about a month ago.

August 20 2011 | Amaryllis and Dahlias and Hollyhock | Comments Off on Summer Flowers