Early July at Pink Gardens

I've had shamrocks, or Oxalis, for decades. They were one of my mom's favorite house plants. All of ours have been green, though, some with a tinge of dark red in the veins. I was recently given this beautiful purple variety. The green ones love to be on the porch for the summer, and this purple/pink variety does, too. The green ones have small white flowers and this variety has pink flowers.

A new addition to the cast-iron Victorian planters this year is this variety of Begonia. They're salmon-colored, which goes perfectly with the historic color of the house, just visible on the left.

Another type of begonia I've had for years. Technically an annual, I winter it over in the attic and it comes back every summer. This year I've added that pretty green foliage underneath in the same planter.

Another new addition this year is Celosia, or Cockscomb. I have two varieties, a gold and a dark pink, both in the photo above. They SHOULD get to about four-feet tall, but so far they seem to be in suspended animation, lol. My entire cutting garden looks like it did a month ago. I think we've had way too much rain and too little sun. They're living but not exactly thriving.

I also winter over my geraniums. This pot has both a red and a white geranium planted together. I'd say they're close to ten years old.

Very pale lavender Hosta. The flowerstalks are four-feet tall but they're almost all horizontal this year because of all the heavy rainstorms we've had.

This large honeybee doesn't seem to mind the Hosta not standing upright!

One of my hydrangeas beautifully blooming. This bush changes color as the season progresses. Today most of the mature flowers have turned to this lovely blue-tinged with lavender.

The same hydrangea's younger blooms are almost pale green. You can see the petals at the bottom right just beginning to turn blue.

This view shows the blue slowly starting to turn purple. By fall they'll be dark burgundy.

Showing young and mature blooms on the same plant.

I recently bought this "Wandering Jew" houseplant. It's a form of Tradescanthia. I remember having darker purple ones in the 1970s, but this one with almost aqua and green added to those darker purple stripes, is really striking! I have it outside for the summer and it's more than ten times larger than when I bought it in early June. It's quite something on my porch steps.

I don't have any cultivated morning glories this year. I bought a few beautiful plants but the rabbits have completely eaten and killed them and I'm not going to replace them. This is a wild variety which borders the property. They're "just" white but still pretty. I have no idea why the rabbits don't eat these, which are MUCH more plentiful in the yard, but they only seem to eat the blue ones. Oh well. Last year was a wonderful year for my blue ones, so I'll remember those.

I have approximately seven or eight colors of zinnias this year. Many have been killed by the rabbits and chipmunks, but I have plenty left. They're not growing very quickly, again the weather is at fault, but I'm hoping to have some beautiful bouquets next month and September.