As Spring gives way to Summer, earlier week's flowers have faded while others are hitting their peak and still more are gearing up to put on a show...
The
Siberian Irises have past their prime.
One of my favorite plants,
Heliopsis 'Prairie Sunset'. I first saw this variety at another house in the neighborhood. It took me three years to get this mature plant. I have two more younger plants in other areas of the garden.
Waves of
Moonbeam Coreopsis fill many areas of the main bed. I just planted six small pots of the pink variety,
Coreopsis American Dream, in among the existing yellow plants. (This photo is the desktop picture on my new MacBook!)
My 2008 Menard's
'General Sikorski' Clematis is starting to bloom. I hope the whole trellis will be covered in flowers in the next week or so.
Asiatic Lilies are starting to bloom all over the garden. These are from BloomingBlub.com.
More
Asiatic Lilies--planted three years ago. They've become a mass that probably should be divided.
New
Asiatic Lily from the Spring NSLS sale, I don't remember what the name is, but I bought three of them.
The
Hydrangeas are in full bloom, even though I never trimmed off last year's dead flowers.
There are a couple of
Coneflowers blooming currently...
... but most are still working up to it.
Not all blooms are large and come in bold, bright colors, some are more subtile like this
Karl Foerster grass. It seems a bit early for it to be flowering.
I haven't spent all of my time wandering around the yard with my camera. In the last two days I bagged 120 apples on the tree in the front yard. The bags are to protect the fruit from flies that lay eggs in the tiny apples. "
They" say you should get them covered by July 1st-- although I'm not sure the flies have a calendar. Many apples had small specks of sticky dew on them that I suspect were the result of the flies already doing their business.
There is a lot more fruit this year than last. Last year I bagged 65 apples, but once the squirrels ran out of unbagged apples from the top of the tree, they went after the bagged ones. I ended up harvesting the last nine apples early to keep them away from the tree rats. I hope this year turns out a bit better.
Huge Oriental Lilies.
Tall Balloon Flower.
Heliopsis Summer Sun, bloomed in the bright shade of the garage bed. I've been surprised by the things that have bloomed in that shadier-than-I-expected bed.
Some kind of Oriental Lily. I don't buy pink things generally, so I wonder if these were mislabeled-- I'll have to check my records.
There are Snapdragons here and there around the garden, volunteers from seeds of last year's annuals.
I seem to have run out of room in the existing beds, so I decided this weekend that meant I needed to dig out a new bed! Day one entailed cutting the edge and removing the grass. Today I dug a trench and pinned the plastic edging down. This would have been a great job for my Dad and Sister! Too bad I didn't think of it while they were here. I am hoping this area will get enough sun with a couple of hours in the morning and again in the evening. This area already has a small patch of tulips. I will be adding more bulbs in the Fall, but mainly I'll add things salvaged from other areas of the garden. 
The Panicum amarum 'Dewey Blue' Switch Grass is the last remnant of three planted in the main bed three years ago. One-by-one they failed to return each year. This year only a few stems came up on this last one. I felt bad digging it out of the main bed to replace it with a different variety. So, it gets a second chance here. And the sad little Coneflowers were outside of the soaker hose area of the North bed. They, too, should find a happier future here.
