Glass Waterlilies at Phipps Conservatory's Summer Show

Giant purple water lily sculpture at Phipps Conservatory this summer.

 Summer is always a hot time to visit a conservatory, but it can still be worth while. Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, PA helped make their summer show something special this summer by including lots of beautiful glass art. My favorites were the waterlilies in the East Room...

Echinacea purpurea and Canna 'King Humbert'

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) and the red-edged leaves of Canna 'King Humbert' in our Hill Garden this August.

While we are busy taking kids to the pool, picking local blueberries, biking some short trails, enjoying tea and fresh blueberry peach galette on the patio, buying "new" used books at our local library sale, swinging in the hammock, playing with our new bunny Ginger, etc., it is nice to know that the garden can just hold its own for a little while. Purple coneflower (and also the white ones, also in this bed) make summer color look effortless.

Hope you are all out enjoying the fruits and joys of summer!
~Julie

Curb Strip Plantings for August

 Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) in our front curb for August.

Summer is moving right along, but there are still perennial flowers bloom in our garden. The Hill Garden is full of coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), the Shade Path full of hosta flowers, and the curb plantings are in full bloom again this week. In the Front Woodland (the name of our large front curb strip), the Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) are beginning to flower. They had a July pruning to about half their height, so the plants are looking fuller, not floppy, and have many branching stems of flowers. They rebound for flowering surprisingly quickly.

My Garden Fairies

My garden fairies flew by the other day. They played under the weeping cherry, made flower crowns for their heads from my clippings, and flitted about pretending to be princesses having a tea party...