Catching Up After a Busy Summer

A few of last year’s dahlias came through the winter.  This waterlily-flowered beauty is in the driveway bed.

The rose on the Jeff Tangen Arbor has been blooming since spring, but for some reason, the summer flowers don’t self-clean the way the spring flowers do…so it isn’t quite so pretty right now.

But there are still some fresh flowers–and oh, that sweet scent!

Here are the “Cola Series” geraniums I grew from seed this year.  I made the mistake of not labeling them by color.  The mixed up pots would make Christopher Lloyd roll over in his grave!  But I can label them this year before they go to sleep and maybe match them up a bit better next year.  Each color is lovely, but they clash pretty badly as a group.

The other clashing is from the snapdragons that I also started–they are beautiful but don’t necessarily mix with the geraniums.

I had cut back this mullein way back, never expecting it to rebloom so quickly.  This is a gorgeous one–I’m hoping to get some seeds off of it to keep it going.

The David Austin roses have flushed with second blooms in the summer–some of them, at least.  The others are fighting with the bindweed, so maybe they don’t have the strength.

A soft pink geranium seedling and an orangey snapdragon.

The amazing first flower on this streptocarpus that I bought last year.

A closer view.

I’m working on my degree at North Seattle College.  The campus doesn’t have the classic architecture and beauty that you might see at UW or Harvard, but can I consider it Ivy League, given that many of the cement walls are covered in Boston ivy?  There are some nice, interesting plantings around the campus, too.

The dwarf gesneriads that I bought late last year have been struggling at work.  This little guy threw a flower, though–either to celebrate life or foreshadow death–anybody’s guess at this point.

Clematis on the Jeff Tangen Arbor.

Clematis and roses hanging in front of the arbor…a little wild growth, but beautiful excess.

Brugmansia blooming on the patio–very heady scent.

A more sunshiney view.