Late July. Aside from the zing of color from the potted plants, the front garden is mostly shades of green. Soothing in its own way, but the front garden certainly doesn’t have the same punch as it did when the evening primroses were in bloom.

On the other hand, the back garden—with its begonias, lilies, bee balm, and black-eyed Susan’s—is pretty much at its best. With our daughter Dee home, we are having lunch, drinks, and dinner on the patio where we can admire the flowers and watch the comings and goings of the hummingbirds, the bees, the chipmunks, other birds, and various insect visitors.

Here are close-ups of some the flowers.

Despite the heat, despite the humidity, despite the haze that is blowing in from the fires in the western United States, summer is such a sweet time.

Most mornings, I listen to music on YouTube as I check emails and read blog posts. It is a part of the day I greatly enjoy as I hear old favorites and discover new ones.

This morning I was going to listen to Foster The People’s Tiny Desk Concert—courtesy of NPR—but the rain stopped me. My desk is by a window overlooking the front yard, and even though the day was cool and rainy, it was warm enough to leave the window open.

As I was about to click on Foster The People, I became aware of the gently falling rain and the soft dripping sound as it fell on the road and the front lawn. I heard various birds—a cardinal, a tufted titmouse, a chickadee, goldfinches. From the little pond up the road, the deep croak of a bullfrog. And because I don’t live in paradise, the occasional car or truck. All sounds of everyday life from my home at the edge of the woods.

Later in the morning, the rain abated, and I went outside with my camera.

I took pictures of snapdragons in the deck box,

a mouse-ear hosta in bloom,

a red daylily above Minerva the cat,

the flower of another hosta, whose name I do not remember,

and a web with jewels resting on a coleus on the deck.

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And for readers who are interested, here is a link to the NPR Tiny Desk concert featuring Foster The People.

Yesterday, I visited a garden with 192 varieties of daylilies. Yes, you read that right—192 varieties. The garden belongs to my friend Carolyn Downing. On one-and-a-quarter acres behind her home in Winthrop, she grows this astonishing number of daylilies, which she sells to  flower enthusiasts who visit her gardens. The name of Carolyn’s business is Obsession Daylilies. What a sweet obsession!

Carolyn told me that thirty-six years ago, she started making the garden behind her home, but it was only four years ago that she started devoting a large portion of it to daylilies. There was no organized plan. Instead, there was a passion for plants, and Carolyn’s business sprang from her love of flowers.

Full disclosure: Daylilies are one of my favorite flowers, and when I stood in Carolyn’s backyard, I hardly knew where to look. In mid-July, the daylilies are in glorious bloom, and right now they are about a week away from  their peak. I was dazzled by so many different colors—yellow, red, pink, orange, white, near-black, coral. As Carolyn noted, the only color missing is blue. She also told me that there are a few varieties—red—that do well in part shade. I was oh so happy to hear this, and next spring I’ll be visiting Obsession Daylilies to buy some plants for my gardens.

Here are a few of the splendid daylilies from Carolyn’s garden.

With my wee camera, it is difficult to get the broad sweep of a large garden, but these pictures will at least give you some idea of the loveliness of Obsession Daylilies.

Although Carolyn specializes in daylilies, there are other flowers in her garden, including  liatris, black-eyed Susans, daisies, and poppies. Snappy garden art punctuates the beds, along with trees and hedges.

There is even a frog, with a sign pointing the way to its home.

As I wandered around this place of beauty that was full of fluttering, jumping life—frogs, bees, birds, and butterflies—I thought about how love is at the center of so much creativity, whatever form it might take.

Carolyn’s gardens shine with love, and that love radiates over everything, making this a special place. Blogging friends, if you live in the Winthrop area and have an ardor for flowers, put Obsession Daylilies on your list of gardens to visit.

Carolyn would like you to call first, and her number is 207-377-6316. Although she would be glad to sell you a plant, Carolyn is happy to have people just drop by and look at her amazing garden.

And for folks who are keen on flowers, that’s about as good as it gets.

My gardens are what I call June and July gardens, when there are a few other colors besides green to liven the yard. The slugs and snails have yet to chew the hostas to ribbons, and everything still looks fresh. In early summer, the gardens are at their best, and I never get tired of looking at them.

It is not easy to take pictures to get the sweep of the beds, but the following pictures will give you some idea of what the gardens look like right now.

Here is the front yard.  As I’m sure you can see, there’s still a lot of green. But look! There is also some yellow.

And if you look a little closer, you can see the purple of Jacob’s ladder, which seems to be thriving. I am particularly fond of yellow next to purple, and I will be planting more Jacob’s ladder next year.

The yellow repeats itself in the backyard. The evening primroses are one of the few flowers that actually thrive in these gardens on the edge of the woods. Wish the evening primroses lasted longer.

Like the evening primroses, summer, beautiful summer, is all too brief.