Sunday's Stormy Weather

The storm passed us on Saturday, but not yesterday. Holy cow! It was awful, strong winds blowing the heavy rains sideways, and hail. Not our usual afternoon thunderstorm weather, it was worse. We had a section of privacy fencing blown down, neighbors had trees down, holes from hail in plant leaves are seen all over. I'm thankful we did not have worse, like the folks in the mid section of the country with golf ball and baseball size hail and tornadoes. That would totally freak me out.

Clouds

This is from my chair looking out before the bad stuff came.

Looking out the scullery window, wish I would have gotten pictures when it was blowing sideways when it was at it's worst.

Here I am outside after the storm blew over, to see what the damages were. Front patio off the library. A potted tree blown over.

This is looking north down our driveway. We curbside shopped that huge fish hanging on the fence. I think it is 11' long. It was the only place we had to hang it. I'm a pisces so we couldn't leave this on the side of the road. Although, some of you will disagree. What is she crazy? Hmmm, I might agree with that.

In this picture you can see the driveway is two river channels heading toward the street.

This is looking west along the front of our property. I see that I need to get out there and edge the sidewalk as the one foot swale stuff is overgrown. Last weekend when we had the heavy downpour in a short period of time, the street was flooded so that we had water up over the sidewalk.

This is from our driveway looking southeast, still some storm clouds around, moving northward.

Front path underwater. Rose canes from main garden arbor blown off into path also.

The jacuzzi that I had just cleaned and refilled earlier in the day.

It was so inviting before the storm, dang, look at all that debris in there now.

(It is now cleaned out, thanks to DH and we put the screen cover back on.)

Tork does not know what to make of all the water,

she walked gingerly around the edges, not into wading.

This is inside the secret garden.

I saw my reflection in a window, so here I am in real life.

Storm Coming

As I was sitting here piddling in my computer, I noticed that the sky had a certain cast in color, and I could hear thunder in the distance, so I grabbed the camera and headed out.

This first picture was from the back of the house, looking east.

This next picture was from up front looking south east. What a treat!

The last picture was looking west, a totally different color of sky.

The storm passed us by after all.

Have a nice evening everyone and a peaceful, healing good night's sleep.

Where the close up pictures are taken

Good morning everyone. It is cooler out this morning after yesterday afternoon's nasty thunderstorm with torrential rains. It is very humid out though, but the rain has been great for our drought stricken part of the country.

After weed-wacking and mowing this week and sweeping paths, I decided to take some pictures of where I garden and where the pictures of my flowers in bloom are taken.

I don't have wide or long vistas. I mostly have hallways and rooms here on our 1/4 acre. Right now there isn't too much in bloom as things have gone through their first flushes. I'm also adding more color by growing things from seed, it just takes a little longer, so patience is required.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend, playing in your gardens or whatever summer projects you are doing.

Please click on the picture below to see a green, summer tour. There are descriptions under each picture in the album. Please excuse the rusty color on some of the white pieces, it is the swampy, rusty well-water that so. FL has which stains everything.

Walking Iris - Neomarica

This is a wonderful plant. I don't even remember where I got it, I've had it for years and years. It might have come from the local flea market where I bought plants many years ago. There is a blue one that I'd love to have, but haven't seen it yet. I'll see if any of the gardeners have it in the FL forum I visit.

Here is info I found this morning to do this post.

"As a member of the Iris family from Brazil, there are approximately 15 species of Neomarica found throughout the tropical Americas. The genus name "neomarica" means new 'marica'. Plants in the genus were previously called Marica from the name of a nymph. The Latin word ‘neo’ (new) was added when it was discovered that Marica had already been used to define another genus—Cipura.

The Neomarica is commonly called Walking Iris because the flowering stalks take root after bending over and making contact with the ground. Thus, the iris appears to "walk" as it fills the garden with graceful foliage and flowers. The walking iris is also called the Apostle plant from the belief that a Neomarica will not bloom until the plant has 12 leaves.

The walking iris is produced from rhizomes and forms vigorous clumps of foliage and spring-flowering blooms reaching up to 3 feet or more. The unusual, yet attractive, flowers of walking iris appear to grow out of its sword-like, gray-green leaves. In actuality, the stem bearing the flowers is fanned out, resembling the leaves. These are followed by small plants (or offsets) that make aerial roots, which establish themselves quite easily. The flowers of walking iris also open only for a day and then take a short rest to open again several days later. This rest and bloom cycle goes on for 4-6 weeks."

For more information on click this iris click on Walking Iris

I just took this picture a few minutes ago to show you the leaves. The flower stalk bends over, and when it touches the ground starts rooting. This plant is in a pot with Desert Cassia, and yellow million bells. Behind it in the terra cotta pot is Jewels of Opar.

This is a close-up of the flower, which is a couple of inches across at the most.

Hope you are all enjoying the beginning of your summer. It is hot and steamy here once again. I mowed earlier and it's miserable out. There's more outdoor work to do, but that will have to be for another morning.

It looks like we're going to get some more rain. Afternoon T-storms are our normal summer weather pattern. I'm sure glad our drought is over.

Have a nice afternoon whatever you are doing, wherever you are.