Purple gladiolus.

June here in my Zone 7, metro-Atlanta garden saw continued but fading beauty of the magnolias, hydrangeas, gardenia and trumpet vine. However, just when I thought we were going to enter a period of not having anything at all blooming, some echinacea, black-eyed susans, gladiolas and – my personal favorite – swamp hibiscus all burst into bloom.

White gladiolus, post-rain.

Having not previously spent much time around gladiolas in-person, I was amazed at how orchid-like they are in form. After some bent over in an afternoon storm, I brought them inside and they looked positively exotic. I’ll have to plant some more come fall.

White echinacea or coneflower

Black-eyed susan and resident

Even past their prime, oak-leaf hydrangea blossoms are interesting

Swamp hibiscus buds

One of the blush-colored hibiscus blossoms the night before it opened. These blooms don’t even last ’til sundown.

Pink swamp hibiscus and pollinator. These last until the evening, but I’m not sure yet if they reopen the next day or not.

One thing we’ve had entirely too much of is ivy, of both the English and poison varieties. We’ve been hacking away in our previously untended for gosh-know-how-long jungle area, and man is it scary! There are English ivy vines going up the sides of trees that are as big as my ankles. And I have fine, strong German ankles! The poison ivy vines are only as thick as my thumb, but they are terrifyingly densely leaved. And I get poison ivy just by looking at it. And usually on my face. And when I say face, I mean mouth. Ugh.

So, for lack of a better solution, I’ve been spraying copious amounts of poison ivy killer. At least the English ivy can be touched and succumbs easily to our new 22-inch machetes. We cut the ivy ’round the base of most of the trees more than a week ago and the leaves still haven’t turned. I am anxiously awaiting the die-off so all my mosquito bites seem worthwhile. I’ll be sure to come gloat about it when it finally happens. (Damn you ivy!)