It’s very strange reading some of your blogs, and seeing that your tomatoes have just now sprouted, or you’ve just now got the first bloom on Plant A or Plant B. Our tomatoes are getting towards six feet tall, covered in fruit, and our roses have been blooming since February, have already been pruned back once, yet are still all around five feet tall.

Our winters may last only about three weeks*, and I will continue to complain bitterly about the heat/humidity, but it surely does make for some impressive results in the garden.

After half a season of near-neglect, the roses in our original bed are doing wonderfully. The Hot Cocoa is making everyone else look (relatively) bad with a double dozen blooms over a gorgeous dark green-foliaged bush:

The Mister Lincoln is lovely as ever with blue-red blooms on blue-green stems:

The Angel Face took the near-neglect somewhat more to heart than the others, and has taken its time coming back to life, but the wait was worth it:

The Gold Medal is a buttery yellow, but only for a day or two, it pales almost to white as it ages:

The Classic Beauty has evolved somewhat over the years. The blooms are typically a deep rose tinged with yellow, but this plant seems to have cross-pollinated with the Hot Cocoa as the blooms this year are a great deal more dusky than usual. Not that I’m complaining, mind you:

Oops, this is the Remember Me rose, not the Classic Beauty.  Ironic, no?:

The Don Juan climber benefited from some pruning/lashing into place over the weekend. It should now cover the back fence with scarlet blossoms. Between it and the honeysuckle, the “back forty” is the most fragrant spot we have:

It also makes the most massive rose hips I’ve ever seen:

You could have a neighborhood war with those things!

In the vegetable garden, the birdhouse gourd seems intent on climbing up the bouganvillea, and really, who am I to argue?

I think it could take me in a fight.

The Sultan’s Golden Crescent beans turn out to have the most lovely lilac colored blooms:

The Sugar Baby watermelons vinelets are so very rabid that they’ll grab anything near to hand, even random sticks!

And the most exciting bit…the Orchard Baby corn is making tassels already, woo hoo!

Blooms on a pea vine, a profusion of beautiful roses, tassels on corn. It’s the small things that get you through the day.

*I exaggerate…but only a tiny bit