Flora galora!

It's just so darn pretty right now in my yard. Everything is just flourishing. I've got pretty greenery, happy vegetables and gorgeous flowers just everywhere! Much as I've not enjoyed the heat and humidity that we've had this entire summer, the plants are just loving every minute of it! Of course, I've had to water and water and water because we just have not had a proper rain this entire summer except for this past Thursday.

HOLY thunderstorms! I cannot possibly impart to you the deluge that we experienced on Thursday afternoon. It was wilder than wild! We got like 2 inches of rain in so many hours. It was a storm of biblical proportion! Not even kidding! I was on my way home from the grocery store and had to slow to like 10 miles per hour to just try to see through the rain. It was a rain blizzard with the same kind of white-out conditions that those of you who live where it snows can be like. Awesome in the most crazy way!

Anywho, I digress. My plants are very happy! They loved that good, soaking rain. It sort of gave everything new life!

I moved the fig to the back yard with the cute, miniature aloe:
I didn't have it in the most ideal location in the house, so I'll have to find a good home for it in the house when the weather gets cooler. It's definitely loving life outside right now! You might notice the herbs in the background, there. They are all just HUGE this year! Check out the size of that basil!

The tomato plant continues to grow ever upward:


Hydrangeas still producing flowers like crazy!A tip for you who grow these (if you didn't already know), do NOT prune back your hydrangeas. They are already setting the flowering heads for next season. If you prune them back, you'll lose a lot of flowers. I know they look ugly in the winter, but just live with it! Once they start leafing out, you'll be able to trim back the sticks that have no new growth and you can shape them this way.

Same thing with butterfly bushes. Don't trim them back too much this fall. Wait until spring when they start greening out. I know people who cut them back every fall, and they don't get the fullness that they want. Just like hydrangeas, butterfly bushes like to grow their new growth on the old branches that might look dead, but are very much alive inside their core.

Ok. Back to fleurs. The forget-me-not sprouts are getting quite big:So cute!

The verbena and brachyscome are looking very nice alongside each other:Aren't they pretty? One definitely gets the feeling that someone over here is fond of purple plants...Hmmmm. I wonder who it could be?!!

And the side yard is looking very pretty with the big row of obedient plants in bloom:
Aren't they so pretty? I love how delicate they are.

Flower boxes are still going strong:

Ok. That's all I've got for today. I'm having a lovely, lazy Sunday. Hope you all had a good weekend, too!