July Blooms & Caring Parents

        Here are some photos of flowers blooming in my yard this month, along with a few from our trip to Manning Park last month. I just love the way the little Colombian ground Squirrel parents stood watch over their young. They couldn't even be lured close with peanuts, one of their favourite foods. We ended up giving away most of our peanuts to the brave Clark's nutcrackers. They took the peanuts right out of our hands. Some of them can even catch the peanuts when you toss them up into the air. The peanuts were tossed, not the birds, ha ha. It's a whole lot of fun and worth the drive out to Manning. I'm linking up with Tootsie Time for Flaunt your flowers Friday. 

Colombian Ground Squirrel

Parent Guarding its young

Clark's Nutcracker

Daylily

Daylily Strawberry Candy

Daisy

Nigella self-seeded from last year

White Nigella

Nigella and Butterfly Bush

Gladiola

Echinacea 

Poppy

Lily

Summer Birds and Blooms

Blooms from my summer garden and a few of my favourite visitors

Cosmos and Yarrow

Balloon Flower (Platycodon grandiflorus 'Fugi Blue')

Bud of the Balloon Flower along with some Alyssum

Daylily bloom, the last of the season. In spite of struggling with gall midge, this daylily still manages to wow me every year

Daylily 'Strawberry Candy'

Shirley Poppy

Sweet Peas with a lovely fragrance

Everlasting Sweet peas. I was a little disappointed to discover these didn't have any fragrance but they are pretty nonetheless.

Oriental Lily 'Acapulco'  The fragrance of this lily is amazingly potent

Cerinthe Purple Bells for the hummingbirds

Hydrangea macrophylla Nikko Blue This shrub is in the bed that will have to be dug up this fall to replace the rotten wood ties that collapsed recently.

My gardening buddy enjoying the morning sunshine

Steller's Jay enjoying the sun after too much rain, sitting on my patio fence

la la la la la

Chickadee busy with second batch of wee ones.

This Downy woodpecker became a regular this summer, and even brought his or her young. In fact this may be the young, I can't tell.

Summer At Last!

After weeks of rain and the coolest June in thirty-one years, it looks like summer has finally arrived in Southwest BC, much to everyone's relief. While my peas and lettuce were enjoying the cool weather, my cucumbers were at a virtual standstill, and my zucchini and sunflowers were struggling to sprout.  Our old retaining wall along our driveway gave out during one of our rainy nights, and now looks ugly as you can well imagine. I'm hoping we will have the funds to rebuild it in the fall.  Here are some flowers that have been blooming in spite of all the rain.

Cosmos

Feverfew

Dianthus plumaris

Hydrangea Buds

Poppy

Poppy

Virginia Stocks

Lily

Unknown blue flowers with ivy and columbine foliage

Elderberry and birdbath

Fall Booms

I love sunflowers, for both their cheerful yelllow flowers, and their ability to attract birds to my garden. I planted two types of seeds this year: Autumn Beauty, and the black oil seeds I feed to the birds. I had to replant three times, because of our unseasonably cool spring. The Autumn Beauty was a no show, but the black oil ones grew & grew, once the weather finally warmed up.  Most of them are very tall, and have multiple flowers per plant. Then there was the little one, the smallest sunflower I've ever seen.

Sunflower

Little Sunflower

Black oil Sunflowers

 Here is a late blooming Gladiola called Purple Flora

 Another view of a Cobaea Bloom also called Cathedral Bells

 A Pretty Pink Poppy

Humming Bird Visiting Cerinthe Flowers, which she visits everyday now

Interesting Berries I found at Aldergrove Bowl Park

The rudbeckia, garlic chives, daisies, morning glory, sweet peas, and even a few roses are still blooming.

Rudbeckia, Oregano with daisies in the back