Our Summer Yard - July 2014

Maryland has had a variable summer so far: a few hot days with thunderstorms in the later afternoon and then relatively cool days that start out in the low 60s. The yard always seems to need mowing. The flower beds are better than ever.

The day lily bulbs I dug up last fall from a place that had become too shady for them to bloom are blooming profusely - where buds survived the deer back in June. They are a bright splash of orange around the bird bath (along with the purple blazing stars) and around the base of the oak tree where there branches are trimmed high enough that they get a little morning sun.

There is a dahlia with one flower open and loads of buds.

There are a few leaves on the lawn. Some were jettisoned by the tree like the sycamore leaf on the right and some were torn off by our recent storms (like the small brach of oak leaaves below).

The patch of cone flowers is always good for some insect photography.

As I walked around, I noticed mint growing in some unexpected places. It’s probably time for another harvest!

Aargh! Deer ate the Day Lilies

A few days ago the flower bed of day lilies was full of potential. A few buds had opened but there were a large number of buds that were still forming.

Yesterday I discovered the devastation caused by browsing deer. The part of the flower bed I had photographed on the 18th still had a few buds; probably about half of them had been eaten. Maybe something has caused the deer to hurry away because the other end of the flower bed had almost no buds! I’ve circled the nipped stalks in the image below. Aargh!

I’ve learned my lesson….I’ll be spraying the liquid deer fence every week; it had worked well during the spring when I had sprayed regularly but I had stopped - thinking the deer now had a lot of other food around. I hope that somehow the lilies recover enough to produce a new crop of flowers if I keep the deer away.