August Garden Scenes

August is slipping away and soon the leaves will start putting on their autumn finery.  But for now the garden is looking very green, especially since the days are often overcast with smoke from many wildfires in the area.  The sun often looks red all day, the air quality here is worse than in Beijing, and one evening the sky was spooky green before turning positively brown.  Above you see the honeysuckle has finally reached the top of the swing set and will soon be stretching across to meet in the middle.

In the far SW corner the Limelight hydrangea is covered with giant blooms, though I will be removing many of them to decorate a friend's wedding reception tomorrow.  At the front of this photo is one of my contorted filberts, which has put on some nice growth this season.

Here is the filbert up close.  This shot might seem boring with green as the only color, but I love to see trees and shrubs filling the scene instead of the patchy lawn that covered the entire backyard when we moved here.

The Spring Snow crabapple trees keep getting taller, but not much broader.  I remember feeling excited when I could see a few of their leaves when glancing out our second story windows, and now the trees have almost grown to fill the entire view with leaves instead of our neighbors' houses.  They should top out at about 25 feet tall.

The six Little Lime hydrangeas are blooming profusely near the NE corner of the backyard, and of course the many lavender Rozanne geranium plants are still going strong.  I have to say that I prefer the greenish blooms of Little Lime over the cream flowers on Limelight.

The other day I was sitting out in the garden when a golden finch swooped down to the crabapple trees as numerous honeybees covered the salvia below.  I watched a hummingbird and big fuzzy bumblebee (above) on a butterfly bush while a cabbage white butterfly flitted around and a small orange butterfly zoomed past.  It was a magical moment.  I don't recall if I saw a dragonfly that day, but we have seen many of them this season.  These additions to the garden are delightful!

Our most frequent visitors this year have been a pair of hummingbirds.  They come to drink from the butterfly bushes every day, and it's so fun to watch them chase and squeak at each other.  After several attempts, I finally caught a photo of one, sweet thing.