It’s prime time for Fall colors in the garden this weekend. Fire engine reds, smoky apricot oranges, and flashy yellow golds abound throughout the garden. The gloomy gray skies brightened enough for me to take photos of the spectacle. Come, take a look!
The Summer is racing past.
For a variety of reasons, I have less time to time to work in the garden, less time to plan new projects, and less time to write about it all this season. I’m okay with this. Except for an hour of weekly maintenance, and a relaxed watering schedule due to our cool humid Summer, I’m not putting a lot of time into the garden these days. Instead, I’m taking a lot out of the garden; working on my laptop from the deck overlooking the garden, enjoying how wonderfully large and full the landscape has become, and admiring my all-time favorite flowers: the hydrangeas.
Despite the torture they endured in a June hail storm, the hydrangeas are looking good, if I say so myself. Take a look:
And the still homeless Pink Annabelle:
The violent hail storm in June left the garden in tatters and many of my beloved hydrangeas beheaded. The damage was heartbreaking, and the cleanup painful as I removed tens of dangling, half-mature blooms and branches to the compost bin.
Right after the cleanup was complete, Joe the Gnome arrived from California in the company of my charming nephews Cole and Alan.
Joe quickly found a sheltered perch on a small ledge on one of the biggest Ponderosa Pine trees in the center of the back garden. It’s a great lookout, high above the garden hoses which could decapitate him, and prominent enough to see Joe from the kitchen and living room.
Since Joe’s arrival, things have been looking up in the garden. The remaining hydrangeas have “pulled themselves together” and are poised to come into full bloom in the next week or two:
A few early bloomers are cheering me up tremendously:
Hydrangea macrophylla “Endless Summer”
Hydrangea serrata “Preziosa”
Hydrangea paniculata “Quickfire”
No more hail storms, please!
A storm swept through the garden last Sunday, shredding young leaves and flower buds without mercy. No wind, fortunately, but the pea-sized hail bombarded the garden for at least 20 minutes, leaving the lawn a flooded mess and many of the garden stalwarts in a shocked, tattered state.
The Pacific Waterleaf, native to the PNW, took the brunt of the storm and much of it was reduced to a lacy pattern.
The Hydrangeas, already weeks behind last year’s flowering schedule were battered, the leaves torn in half or severely pockmarked.
Even the tough corrugated-leafed Big Daddy Hostas were ripped and masticated by the hail.
Amazingly some plants made it through with little damage. My new favorite young rhododendron continues to put on a good show, the blooms quite resilient to the storm, the leaves not so much.
A young Geum coccineum “Borisii” also escaped the worst and is now adding some fiery orange cheer in the sunniest part of the garden.
And a glossy leafed, first-time bloomer, is providing some interest beside Tlaloc, “God of the front garden”. Wish I knew what this plant is, the tag is long gone 
Yes, I’m fortunate. The damage could have been much worse.
