The Summer Flowers are Blooming

In my last post I brought you on a stroll through our vegetable garden. As promised, today I am going to show you some of the flowers that are starting to bloom throughout our yard this season.

I had trouble capturing a good photo of these beauties, but I still wanted to share them with you as I thought they were rater unique. This is pink lavender. I have had various shades of purple lavender planted in my gardens and in pots on our deck over the years, and I actually planted this pink variety in the yard several years ago. Each season it would turn green but it never bloomed, so I was really excited when the pale pink buds appeared a few weeks ago! Like other varieties of lavender, it smells wonderful, but this color is so unusual. Bees seemed to be really attracted to these flowers and several would be pollinating them at once. With the recent launch of his new business Hexacomb, my son Dave has become very supportive of  working to help sustain the endangered honeybee, as it provided inspiration for the design of his product.Therefore, we were really happy that these pretty  flowers provided another pollination source in our garden for this beneficial insect.

Next, lets take a peek at another summer beauty...

This hibiscus is planted in a large container which we bring inside at the end of the season, as it is not quite hardy enough to survive the NJ winters. Since it has gotten quite large over the years, it is starting to take up a lot of space indoors, but it is worth the effort as it is gracing us with beautiful tropical flowers that are giving the area around our pool a bit of a tropical feel.

This is another example of the flowers that are enhancing our pool area. The aroma of these gorgeous lilies is amazing!

But those aren't the only lilies we have planted near the pool. These beautiful day-lilies  come back every year and provide sunshine yellow color throughout the season...

We also have a large urn near the lounge chairs by the pool that we plant annuals in each summer. This year we planted petunias and I can not even describe how amazingly well they are doing! The photo doesn't really show the size or dimension of this plant, but it is huge! These flowers have actually started to attract some Snowberry Clearwing Sphingidae that I was able to photograph last year, but I haven't yet been able to capture a picture of them this year. You can check out last year's post here if you want to see what they look like. I am still hoping to get some more snapshots of them in the near future as well.

The Spingidae aren't the only visitors that are enjoying our summer flowers....

The Coneflowers or Echinaceas are doing a great job of attracting the butterflies, but the butterfly bush is just beginning to sprout flowers so I can only imagine the amount of butterflies we will attract when that shrub reaches it's full glory.

The black-eyed Susan's or Rudbeckia hirta are just starting to open as well...

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We are fortunate enough to have eight hydrangea shrubs planted throughout our yard, and I must admit, I am in love with these flowers. We have two shrubs that are a little sparse with their blooms this year, but the other ones are more than making up for them. The range of colors they are producing is great. I have read that you can change  the colors of your hydrangeas by adjusting the pH of the soil, but given the gorgeous array of colors we have, I have no desire to experiment with this technique yet.

 I'll share more of our flower gardens with you as the season progresses, but I hope you enjoyed taking a look at the colors that are starting to enhance our yard so far. What are some of your favorite blooms where you live?

Linking with:
The Enchanting Rose
Cedar Hill Farmhouse
Hope In Every Season