The garden continues to do well for flowers, even though the temperatures are getting a bit warm for our part of the country. Mountain summers rarely reach 90 degrees, but we have had a few days that hot. Most are around 88 in the hottest part of summer, which is now to the end of July, and occasionally about a week into August. Then the highs start going down again. Gladiolas are blooming now, such a pretty yellow color!
They are so tall that the rain made the flower spires fall over, so I had to cut them and bring them inside in a vase. I added a few of the purple hosta flower spires too. More glads are ready to bloom outside.
We had a couple of visitors too. This little guy came by, and stayed a while.
So cute, and I offered him a piece of my home grown lettuce, but he declined to eat it.
Our other visitor is still here. She came up on the rocker and sat there for a bit. She turned her head to look at me after I took her picture. Later I found her deep in the New Guinea Impatiens.
The strawberries are just pitifully small.
The tomatoes have only two pitiful blooms even though the marigolds are going gangbusters.
The lettuce is ready for harvesting another salad.
My lovely salad with my friend Laurie’s generous gift of cherry tomatoes.
The squash is growing and blooming, but no vegetables yet. I need to get out and do some weeding, well, when it gets a bit cooler.
The white lobelia and pink geraniums keep blooming. I just love this planter.
The double begonia is getting huge, with pretty yellow double blooms.
At last, a few peaches for me. The bear didn’t get them this year!
A few peaches gathered in a basket. Hopefully, I can get enough peach to make DH a loaf of peach bread. These are clingstones and they are pretty small. It takes a bunch to get a enough to bake bread, so most years I buy a few locally grown peaches to augment my crop.
This morning I found a few more that the bugs didn’t get.
And looking up the mountain, I discovered the blackberry bramble is back! The berries are small, but given time they should get bigger with all the rain recently.
We had them all cleared out a few years ago, and they have come back. Problem is getting to them, they are tangled up with thorns and weeds, and probably poison ivy. But it might be worth a try with DH’s wellies, some thick clothing and gloves.
How is your garden doing in the July heat?
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From My Carolina Home 
I love your posts on your area and your beautiful flowers. We are contemplating moving to your area so this lets me know what to expect for the seasons. Keep them coming.
Such a beautiful flowers and garden!
It feels like 108 degrees Fahrenheit today in South western Ontario Canada. With all the rain we’ve had so far this year my gardens are loving it. I just did a post on what is blooming in my backyard. Love this time of year.
Carole…Thank you for sharing these wonderful photos and writings; a lot of smiles and a few giggles occurred while browsing and reading. We had a praying mantis visiting and hanging out with us on a porch end table this spring, They are really interesting to observe. Most of my flowers look splendid this year, my raspberries grew tall, full and not one bud, our rhubbarb did fabulous, but the remainder of our garden was a total flop this year. With that we will be visiting several local farms and markets to buy for canning. Have a wonderful day!
Thanks for allowing me to visit your garden. I love your blooms. I’ve a bramble that comes through into my front garden. I should get rid of it but I get a great bunch of blackberries from it that I don’t really want to
I lost my potted flowers in our June heat…sad face!!! So will enjoy my walks through your garden. 🙂
This was like a stroll around Paradise! Thank-you. And the praying mantis is a great visitor as,well as the tortoise.
Everything looks great!! i need to get back to the back woods and see if we have any blackberries there this year… It’ so overgrown from all of the rain I can’t decide if it’s worth the hassle or not 🙂 The squirrels ate all of my peaches and are eating the apples whlle they’re still green 😦 I’m thinking of getting out the ole slingshot and target practice !