Summer Shrubberies

The baby shrubs are picking up some size and offering up the first of what in years to come will hopefully be copious amounts of bloom. I planted seven of these Bottlebrush Buckeyes, Aesculus parviflora. This is the biggest and gets the most sun. The rest are still twigs. Living twigs at least.

Hydrangea paniculta 'Pinky Winky' is doing well in the ridge top garden. It starts white and turns pink. These are rather round flower heads for a H. paniculata. They definitely don't look conical like all the pictures online. It's a mystery. I'll have to see what happens next year.

The Oakleaf Hydrangea, Hydrangea quercifolia have grown the best of all my twiglings. They are full on shrubs now.

This compost pile hydrangea bloomed with such a huge head I saved it. I assume it to be Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle'. That is a very likely candidate for trimmings of something that could land in the compost. Now it lives in the garden.

It's not all white out there. We have other colors in the sunny utility meadow, the roadside vegetable garden and in my roadside beds.

The colors of the hundreds and hundreds of daylilies run the full gamut available.

But in the big picture there is still a whole lot of green. The tall flower meadow really gets going in August. It is a late summer into fall extravaganza of awesomeness. I try to be patient because after that it gets cold.

Now is the time to enjoy the shrubs of summer and to ponder where there might could be more and adding a bit to the color selection.