Home at last

After two lovely weeks in Prague, Salzburg, and Vienna, we made it home. While it was a good trip, I'm thoroughly glad to be home. Elliot does much better in his own bed and in his own time zone. While we were gone, there were storms and windy days. Unfortunately, one of the windy days took out our apricot tree. We knew it was damaged, first by rabbits and then by insects, but it had actually set fruit this year (i had counted about 36 apricots) and we were going to let it stay as long as it continued to bear fruit. Oh well. Now I have an excuse to get a nectarine tree (in addition to the peach we already planted this spring).

The yard wasn't as much of a jungle as I had feared. I credit the thick layer of hardwood bark mulch we laid down earlier this year. Without that, the weeds would have been much, much worse. Here's the front yard. There are two columnar apple trees (I think they're Sentinel Yellow and Sentinel Scarlet) in this picture; the one behind the false indigo in the upper right corner has set fruit for the first time. The one in the foreground didn't. The grass is prairie dropseed (I think it looks best right now, before it sets seed) and the red flowers are hardy shrub roses. I highly recommend these - they bloom pretty much all summer and have been hard for me for a number of years. They often die back to almost the crown, but always send up need shoots rapidly.

This is Adam's 'sci-fi' garden. I love this elderberry 'Black Lace' that's in full bloom. 

This is my cottage garden. It's still a work in progress, but most things are growing nicely. The pink flower on the right that's almost done blooming is a foxglove and on the trellis is clematis integrefolia. I think it looks great for only having been planted last year.

This is a lupine that's been there (stuck under a sedum) since we bought the house eight years ago. I always knew it was there, but it has never bloomed before. Lupines are supposedly short-lived, so the fact that this one bloomed after so many years is kind of funny.

My mock oranges are in full bloom. 

And finally, this is a wood lily. This is the second year it has bloomed. We bought it as a tiny seedling year ago so the fact that it survived to bloom makes me feel like a somewhat competent gardener. 

And for fun, here's a picture of Elliot at the park on a gorgeous June day. I have to put a burp cloth over the swing since he always tries to eat it.