And still more photos

Remember that spindly little butterfly bush from an earlier post? Well here she is in all her glory! After only one year she is now about 6' high and 3-4' wide. The older stems are flowering first but today the tops have blooms too.
And this is an up close and personal shot of one of the many coneflowers I planted. Other than the green envy and these two that is all I have for now.

the double deckers have buds and I cannot wait to see them come up. The weather has definitely been in their favor. It has been crazy hot for days now probably going on a week. I can't get enough water into my garden it is so dang hot. Thank goodness for the rain barrels other wise my water bill would be sky high!

More to report....

so, I some how forgot to mention that I installed a rain barrel over Memorial Day weekend too! (Purchased through New England Rain Barrel at www.nerainbarrel.com - and with a discount because I pre-ordered and it was my first one!) Well, I wasn't 100% sure if I did it correctly but low and behold I did! After all the rain that we had earlier this week my barrel is now 99% full! I love it - using what nature gives me to help conserve water not to mention save money! The flow coming out is V-E-R-Y slow, but heck, I can take some time out to fill a watering can mulitiple times and water all the container flowers and plants.

The garden is looking HOT!!! My zukes are growing like weeds - much like the weeds that are growing in the garden but that is another post all together. Holy cow - I already have the flower buds growing and I can totally see the males from the females so I am keeping my fingers crossed that the pesky squirrels keep their grubby mouths off of them and allow me to enjoy the veggies of my labor. The peppers...not so hot. I think that is because the weather has been so erratic. I am just waiting for one whole week where the weather stay solid and I expect those babies to shoot out like from a cannon. The buttercrunch lettuce looks absolutely fantastic - at least the cold, erratic weather is helping along some of my plants.

I have been saying this for awhile now, but truly THIS is the weekend where I will spray that all natural squirrel repellant. Now that there are flowers coming up on the zukes and the tomatoes I have got to keep them away. Fingers crossed that it will work. I am thinking of spraying it EVERYWHERE. THose little buggers are digging up the moss roses out front, trampling all over my moonflowers and they have stolen at least 4 that I can see of my morning glories. They are really starting to piss me off - this is war!

I planted the sugar baby watermelons last weekend - and of course the weather dipped because these plants like it HOT But as an added precaution from the weather as well as the damn beetles that infect them I used a floating row cover - purchased from my new favorite web site - gardensalive.com. I am not so sure how well they will do - they need a lot of room, heat and tender loving care. I really only have one of the three to offer so I am hoping the tender love will save them and provide me with some great watermelons for the season.