Mother Nature seems to be kind and cruel all at once sometimes! We have mostly her kindness to share in this post, however. First of all, we’ll say that our weather is finally feeling like summer, and the rain has at least slowed down! Things have still not dried out, and the bugs are still atrocious, but we’ve had more sunny days so we’ll take it! The rain does help to bring all the flowers to life, however, well mostly: It was a little tough on the peonies!
Color is breaking out everywhere. We have the beautiful yellows of the Evening Primrose and another low yellow flower that I always forget the name of (I know it, it just won’t come to me!)!
I’ve said before that I don’t really love Foxglove, but the bees and hummingbirds do, so it’s staying. Can you find the bee in the photo?
Whites are pretty too, and I have come to love this bush that blooms in the early summer. This is the same one that the guinea hens started one of their nests under (we’ll have an update on that next week), and it’s gotten bigger every year.
You are never alone when out on the farm!
The clematis has never failed to delight since we moved here. The Dadz was worried about it this year, because as you can see at the bottom of the photo, the base of that plant is a favorite place for the chickens to dust bathe. It doesn’t seem to have bothered it at all! It has a lot of new growth on it, and I think we’re going to have to find another trellis for it to climb on!
On Mother Nature’s downside, you might remember this photo we shared back in January in our post “Winter’s Return to the Farm”.
I was worried about those two lilac bushes, and as it turned out, both bushes were literally covered with buds in the spring. This variety of lilac blossoms a bit later than our others. At first we thought they’d be fine, but then we got a lot of rain which beat down the branches once again. The blooms were literally dragging in the dirt and ruining our other favorite flowers below! We decided they had to go, there were just too many broken branches. You can see them when they were in their glory in our post “Prolific Beauty“.
On the good news side, there are shoots around those stumps left, and hubby will trim the stumps back and let some of the shoots go, so we may end up with new bushes. They are very pretty, but the truth is I find their scent rather cloying (it is different than traditional lilacs). We are also enjoying being able to see more of the yard from the patio. So if they come back we will keep them much smaller.
We feel that the ups definitely outweigh the downs here, so we’ll forgive Mother Nature her moodiness for this time! We are enjoying the beauty and there will be more to show you over the summer!
Thanks to our friends The LLB Gang for hosting the Nature Friday blog hop. Please visit them and other blogs through the links below!
I enjoy the pictures of your chickens out in the yard, posing for you!
They are more cooperative than the dog is. LOL!
Your flowers are stupendous! I love your Clematis bush 🙂 I’d snooze under it or even bathe in the dust under it if it were are my house! Sorry about the Lilacs. I adore their sweet smell… but I can see why you made that choice.
I have a feeling the lilac bushes will be back…we’ve tried to kill other trees/bushes around here, and they usually come back even better! LOL
My peonies do the same thing. 😬I keep tomato like cages around the them to keep the blooms from drooping on the ground. The pink ones are my favorites! We went from upper 40’s and cold wet conditions to upper 90’s and broiling in the matter of a few days. I’m already for summer to be over.
I have a cage of sorts around them, made just for peonies, but it’s not tall enough I guess! A tomato cage is a good idea.
Your flowers are so pretty. I don’t know how to keep the blooms from weighing down and falling. My gladiolas always fell over and hated propping them up. LOL!
I have a prop thing around it that is supposed to hold them up, but it doesn’t work!!
What beautiful color today! Sounds like the loss(or reduction) of the lilacs may be for the best 🙂
I’m really enjoying being able to look out and see the whole yard, and my herb garden too. 🙂
Beautiful blooms. Your clematis are amazing! We only get a few blooms.
Our bush at our old house was like that too, very few blooms. This one just amazes me, and the size of them as well!
Happy Nature Friday!! Your garden is looking so beautiful. Better then what we have going on at our house. Mother Nature is unpredictable sometimes. Thanks for sharing the lovely photos. Have a fantastic upcoming weekend.
Oh yes, unpredictable, that’s Mother Nature for sure!
Wowzers everything is looking great! We just got dumped on again with rain last night.
We’ve had a few days now without it, so much so that now I think the gardens need some (coming tomorrow I think).
Those flowers are all so pretty, you have some amazing and beautiful sights to see on your farm!
Thank you! We just love it here!
I love this time of year. Everything green and colorful. Great shots. Yikes on all that snow, but I’m glad your lilac bushes survived.
Have a fabulous day and weekend. Scritches to Luke. ♥
I’m not missing that white stuff one bit! 🙂
that#s amazing how big the bee looks in this photo… but I’m glad they aren’t that big it would be a challenge to keep the dogs away from them LOL
I know, I was surprised when I looked at the photo and saw how big it looked. Yikes!
Your flowers are all so pretty! I’m jealous! I love the clematis!!
Back when Sam was still taking care of the plants and flowers, we had some pretty ones here and there. (I have a black thumb, so I don’t touch them except to get rid of weeds.) Thankfully, the azaleas and daylilies are pretty hardy and don’t need a lot of work.
The clematis is one of my favorites too, and it continues to bloom for most of the summer, though not so profusely.
Honestly, I am not as good at gardening as I’d like to be. Luckily the flowers planted by the previous owners of our home do pretty well on their own! 🙂
Your flowers are just beautiful! Love that Foxglove!
Thank you!
You have a beautiful yard. Love all the different colors.
Thank you!
Your flowers look so bright and cheery. The peonies around here are all beaten down from the rain too, which is sad as they look sad all droopy. Normally, they are so pretty.
I find it odd how they have such huge flower heads on tall spindly stems! I should have brought some in the house before it rained, but since they are always covered with ants, I hesitate!