Birthday Blooms

What a week it has been! My birthday was on the 22nd, and a great one it was, but immediately followed up by an excruciating pain in my wisdom tooth the following weekend, when we were trying to hold a garage sale (which was a success, btw!).

Monday I went back to work, but only for a day. I called an oral surgeon and was scheduled to get all four of my wisdom teeth pulled on Tuesday. Today is the first day I've felt like myself again since then...and it's just in time for us to be able to celebrate Tom's birthday tomorrow! (I love that our birthdays are so close together)

Today I just wanted to share a few of the garden joys I've experienced lately. I'm officially smitten with gardening in our new yard...I want to do more and more!

Our bee balm has started to bloom. Pink isn't my favorite color, but when it's nature, you can't help but admire anyway.


When we re-landscaped the front of the house, we moved all the daylilies back into the corner of the back patio, not knowing what color anything was going to turn up. As you recall, a couple of weeks ago we got our first bloom, a stunning huge peach and dark purple daylily known as Egyptian Queen. Well...does this look familiar?


That's right...the dayliliy opposite the plant that had the original bloom has also started to bloom, and it's another Egyptian Queen! We're thrilled.


The smaller daylilies on the far corners are these lovely little dark red numbers. The light made them look brighter than they really appear in person...they're more of a rich burgundy shade.


About a month ago we bought an Endless Summer Hydrangea, and I intentionally bought one that was large enough that it looked like it would bloom this year, but small enough that it hadn't yet bloomed in the store. You see, Endless Summer Hydrangeas act as litmus tests for the soil in your yard. If your soil is alkaline, they will bloom pink. If your soil is acidic, they will bloom blue. You can, of course, mess with the soil to get them to bloom more one shade or the other, but I was curious to see what our soil was naturally.

Well. The first bloom hasn't quite arrived all the way yet, but I think I can definitely see which way our soil leans:


Acidic. No wonder why the neighbors have such tales of rhododendrons doing so well at our house in the past!