It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

These are starting to look overgrown.

I believe it was a strong storm that tore the sweet peas from the post.

Mystery vine

Look! The portulaca grown from "let's see what happen" seeds sown last fall! (And note that the parsley next to it also fell into that category)

Mini-greenhouses and vertical gardens

I have had these two browser windows open forever, as if I would be spontaneously motivated to enact their ideas.

I have not been.

But I like the ideas, so I am recording them here in case someday I have motivation and time and ingenuity and whatnot.

Garden cloches (mini-greenhouses):
https://www.gardenista.com/posts/the-beauty-of-the-garden-cloche/

Vertical gardens:
https://www.ftd.com/blog/design/think-vertical-ideas-for-the-vertical-garden

High point of the action

On the one hand, the plants are busting out all over the place. The sweet peas reached the top of the lamppost. The zinnias are a mile high. There are about 20 freaking accidental tomatoes getting bigger daily, and some sort of accidental vine, too. Pumpkin? Watermelon? Other sort of melon?

On the other hand, attacks on the plants come from all fronts. The deer. The recent lack of rain. Even a goldfinch. A goldfinch! I ask you how I am supposed to choose between my love of flowers and my love of pretty birds.

In short, the action in the garden has reached fever pitch. And we are getting close to making major and majorly exciting changes in the back yard - more on that soon.

An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly visited our zinnias on July 10. I read later that butterflies love zinnias.

Emma was enchanted by the butterfly.

Just recording what's going down with the anemones, lavender, and delphinium on July 11. I should not have cut back that lavender so severely after last season. The one I didn't cut back is the size of Cleveland now.

It's not easy to see, but only abominable deer could nip off my sweet peas at this height.

The Larkspur at their peak on July 11. Lovely.

This was July 11 - they're even taller today!

Surprising success stories: portulaca (middle) didn't even exist a few weeks ago; must have gotten a late start from seeds last fall. And the parsley has returned, triumphant!

Tomatoes on July 11. Heaven help me, I'm rooting for 'em.

The olive-colored blur in the upper middle of this shot is a female goldfinch, photographed through the dining room window. It was plucking off leaves of our zinnias.

This is what the zinnias looked like after the goldfinch attack!

General state of play on July 18. The zinnias have gotten kind of ridiculously tall.

Remember the gypsophila? Pity it, nestled at the base of humongous zinnias and accidental tomato plants. Next year I need to not plant stuff around this and see what happens.

Here's the hen-and-chick's swan song bloom. It's not even pretty, really.

The OTHER sweet peas are finally blooming. But this lamppost was largely a bust,

I am pretty sure a baby baptisia is growing in the uphill shadow of this rock.

This is the baby in question.

Our furthest-developed shishito pepper! Apparently they grow 2-4" long.

Yeah, these raspberry limeade zinnias stole my heart.

Sweet peas on July 18 - where do they go from here?

Accidental tomatoes on July 18, unstoppable....so far. NOBODY TELL THE VILE SQUIRRELS.

Persisting in the face of death and destruction

Before we delve into the ugliness, here is a lovely arrangement of salvia, lavender, and Shasta daisies on July 3 that still looks pretty good today.

And now let's get real, below: the vile deer have chomped the blooms off my new hydrangea. I don't think they've ever been after the hydrangea in back, so it didn't occur to me this was among their interests. But I looked it up, and sure enough, deer "occasionally severely damage" hydrangeas. So I have set myself up for failure, or a lot of anti-deer spray.

But now back to the soothing things that have not been eaten (yet) (and only thanks to anti-deer spray).

Cornflowers and zinnias.

Zinnias background; peppers foreground. Peppers are flowering now too.

July 3 - the unmolested hydrangea in back.

As it did last year (http://aylwardgarden.blogspot.com/2017/07/late-bloomers-and-revolting-beetles.html)  this rhododendron bloom so much later than the others. This is on July 4!

Speaking of late bloomers, the magnolia threw out a few additional blooms in the past few days, too. I'm not complaining. But I'm maybe a little confused.

The first tomato has been born in defiance of the squirrels that will surely spell its demise, not that I care, because I absolutely am not attached to my accidental tomatoes. [Inwardly steeling self for impending tragedy]

What is this hen-and-chick doing? Is this normal? OH MY GOD I JUST LOOKED IT UP AND IT'S GOING TO FLOWER AND DIE. No one prepared me for this agony.

This grasshopper(?). I have nothing good to say about him.

Purple overload

My new delphinium plant is already blooming, and isn't it lovely? If it does well, it will definitely need friends next year.

I am worried that something is eating the echinacea petals, or maybe the blooms just haven't fully formed yet? It is supposed to be deer-resistant, but I guess if they just eat the petals? Or maybe a bug?

View from the tree stump. Did I mention that the oak from this vantage point was removed a few weeks ago? It was dying. Sad to cut it down, and EXPENSIVE, but inevitable.

I am worried that there may be too much purple in some spots in the garden. I love the geraniums, but they are taking over. This is fine, but they make the balloon flower (middle of the frame below) irrelevant. Perhaps I should remove the balloon flowers and give them away, since they attract the deer anyway.

Hydrangea. Still no pink. The creamy white is pretty, though.

Finally my Larkspur is starting to bloom! And it is lovely. And, of course, purple. 

I went to drop off garden debris at the dump yesterday, and was pulling away, when I saw them: tomato cages that someone had dumped. Don't do it, I told myself, but I got out of the car and grabbed three. So here they are, a harbinger of my impending heartbreak when the squirrels eventually eat my accidental tomatoes that I foolishly let myself nurture.

Also: the zinnias are unstoppable!