Garden progressing, house at a standstill

The garden is hopping. Using the 15-30-15 fertilizer on the flowers has been a very successful experiment. I see a huge improvement in bloom, and it is only one week since I fertilized. I am going to push it and fertilize again in the next day or two.  The annual dalhias have doubled in size and their buds are bursting, where before using the flower power fertilizer the buds just sat there and were not opening.  The big dahlias, the ones that grow from huge rhizomes, were also improved by the flower power fertilizer. Before they were blooming, but their color was faint and the petals were green instead of the pink they were supposed to be.
Since fertilizing they have been big blooms with good color. Success!  More fertilizing with 15-30-15 is in order, asap.

Our volunteer sunflowers are putting on a great show. The bees seem to find them the elixir of life. The sunflowers are teeming with bees, not all the bees I know as bees. Some of them have a very different body than bees I have known before. It is interesting to see this diversity. The yellow of the sunflowers is so uplifting and beautiful. A real treat.

Many of the sunflowers have their top petals chewed off by the birds. They seem to appreciate the sunflower at all of its life stages. When given the opportunity the birds would eat the whole flower, at least that is what I have observed!

Some of our Crape Myrtles are magnificent, though they don't seem to have a scent anymore. That only occurred on day one.  The bright pink one is spectacular.  The Crapes along the water have not bloomed yet, at all, and I find that curious.  Maybe they are a bit cooler than the ones upland in full sun. As I said, curious!

The bees just love these Crape Myrtles too. I walk out the door and I hear a constant resounding buzz. The butterflies come from far and wide for the Crapes, from now until they disappear a month or two from now, we will have lots of butterflies come visit. I forgot that, until today when I saw some Swallowtails cozying up to the flowers. I look forward to the parade of butterflies that are yet to come.

The hummingbirds have really upped the ante. There are many new hummers coming by the feeders. We think that many are new fledglings out in the world for the first time.  Females have visited in the last couple of days and up until this point we have only seen males, very beautiful bright green ones with red throats. The females do not have the red throat, they are a much duller color, but equally interesting to watch.  We have three feeders out and they are well visited. As the season progresses, the feeders have to get filled more often to keep up with the dinner guests.  The antics of the competitors is so entertaining. Diving, body checking, buzzing, intimidation and out right harassment are the tools of the trade, soooo funny and amazing. There is nothing so cool as watching a hummingbird fly backwards. It defies imagination. So, the hummingbirds are our treat of the summer. If they didn't return we would be heartbroken. I hope that the gulf coast oil disaster does not wipe them out. That would be devastating!

One more change, the big tomatoes are coming to red. YES! I can already taste the Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches we will be consuming sometime soon. Oh, they are a big treat of summer. We have been taking cherry tomatoes for weeks, but the big tomatoes are not ready yet, it will be great when they are ready. I think we might have enough to can for freeze some because we have a lot of tomato plants out there! Here is what they look like now that they are greening up.