Summer Flowers

In spring, my front yard blooms with tulips. In summer, it blooms with lilies!

The north side of our house also has some beautiful landscaping now - ferns, astilbe, and hosta. Below is a shot of the pink astilbe shoots, as well as an early hosta bud, taken in July.

My front yard also has 3 hydrangea bushes - two small ones and one giant one, which is now too tall for me to trim! The tallest one doesn't bloom until the fall, but these two little ones started showing their flowers in July.

I love being able to take pictures of flowers without even having to leave my property! :)

Spring & Summer Landscape Photos

These photos were all taken in May-July in my front and side yards.

I planted a few dozen hybrid tulips in the fall, imagining our front yard bursting with color in the spring. They bloomed late and then didn't stick around long (I didn't spray enough deer repellent, and the deer that frequent our subdivision ate most of them), but I did manage to grab a couple great photos:

I also took pictures of the pretty blossoms on the crabapple tree in our front yard, as well as the red lilies and roses:

My hydrangea bushes (I have one very large one, and two small ones now) are also doing well (the large one especially):

The biggest front yard story of the spring/summer, however, was this little mama duck, who made a nest in our bushes, incubated 8 or 9 eggs, and then one day vanished - leaving one sad, unhatched egg behind.

Last fall, we also did a lot of work to our side yard landscaping, planting several hosta, ferns, and astilbe - all of which, I'm happy to say, came back and looked great this spring/summer, with little watering or attention given on our parts. I love the pop of color on the astilbe, especially:

Autumn Flora Photos

I didn't have much free time to snap a lot of photographs of changing leaves this year, but I did take some pictures of the very early hints of fall color on a trail walk along the Paint Creek trail in September, and (of course), documented the landscape work my husband and I did in October. I knew the hydrangea, hosta, ferns, and astilbe we planted would likely never look so good again, so I had to take a couple pictures of them when they were freshly planted. :) We also planted tulip bulbs in our front yard - and I'm hoping to see the rewards of that job come springtime!

Here are the (few) autumn photos I took of plants this year:

September on the Paint Creek Trail

September on the Paint Creek Trail

Someone left these pretty yellow flowers behind on a Paint Creek Trail footbridge

The new hydrangea bush that we planted in our front yard

The four new Earth Angel Hosta we planted along the north side of the house

We also planted four Lady Fern and two Astilbe plants along the north side of the house

And here's a bonus photo of a carnation bouquet on my parent's kitchen table

Late Summer Backyard Flowers

Here are the "late summer" flowers I had in my backyard this year.

My orange lilies in the backyard were really beautiful for about two weeks in early August, until some deer (presumably) came threw and ate them. (I say presumably only because I didn't catch them red-hooved. But I'm like 90% sure it was deer.)

I also actually saw some roses on my backyard rose bush! I thought Ginny had totally dug up/destroyed them, but a couple managed to poke out for a few days, before the hot August sun dried them up.

A dying rose

Pretty purple flowers on the hosta by the lilies

Hosta flowers

Lilies

Lilies

As always, I take these photos, keep them, and organize them on my computer so that I can use them in the future for artwork (drawings or paintings). I like having an extensive digital archive of my own images that I can use as source material when I need to.