Through the Garden Gate: Monday, June 22nd

"If you can't take the heat, get out of the garden" seems to be my mantra lately. Too much of the painfully intense summer sunshine triggers Seasonal Affective Disorder just as effectively as too many days of gloomy gray skies. I was thinking that I was a good month ahead of schedule and that it usually takes me until July to start threatening to run away. Then I went prowling in my archives to find my post from last summer in which I lamented the absence of rain and the unusually high temperatures. I'll be darned ... that post was for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day in JUNE of 2008 ... so I'm right ON schedule to be feeling dispirited, dissatisfied, discouraged, disenchanted, disgruntled, and disheartened! It still feels wrong to be this miserable (diserable?) in June.

Nonetheless, I took camera in hand about an hour ago and ventured out to take pictures through the garden gate. Since I missed the June 2009 bloom day to post about getting stoned, I took a few pictures of some blooms that make me smile despite the inclement weather. First, though, here's the views through the garden gate:

Green is the predominant color this week.


Where have all the flowers gone (not such a long time passing)?


Sunshine & shadow


The desert willow feels right at home in this weather.



This Cuphea is handling the heat well, too. Does anyone know her name? She
was purchased unlabeled at Enchanted Forest a couple of years ago.



Oh, the irony ... the bitter irony ... y'all know
what this bud will become?


A rain lily. Yep. RAINless lily is more like it.



One of many Echinaceas here on Coneflower Corner


Pandora Vine/Bower Vine with busy visitor


Lindsay Woods water lily


Clematis pitcheri


While I continue to dream of a cool, wet summer like those so many gardeners in the Midwest, on the East Coast and even in IDAHO are experiencing, I'm doing my best to follow the directive on this sign* and take what pleasure I can in and out of the garden. I hope each of y'all is able to do the same!


* Which was found in August of 2001 at a cool little shop in (I think) Rockport, New Hampshire ... where it was COOL and RAINY in August, something that doesn't happen in Texas ... exactly the kind of place I plan to go when I run away!

Comments

Ooh, I'm with you. I'm usually a fried nutcase by August but it may come as early as July this year. Still, you've got a lot of pretty blooms going on!
Carol Michel said…
It's good to know that things are on schedule with both the garden and the gardener. I do hope and pray that you get some rain soon. In the meantime, your garden looks very cool and shady!

Carol, May Dreams Gardens
Gail said…
Hear, hear! I am feeling worn out from the heat and bugs! I heard that the Houston area is missing 8 inches of rain...must be lost to NE and Idaho. I do hope that rain arrives and not with a hurricane tagging along. I love your garden Cindy. Gail
Don't feel so bad, the perfect days are over in the Midwest. It's hot & humid here too (fortunately only in the 90s). I'm unfamiliar with the Desert Willow, but those blooms are so gorgeous! Like an orchid they are. I like your armadillo ornament. I've never noticed it before in your photos. Clematis pitcheri is just the cutest little thing.