In case you haven't heard, it's July, and it's hot outside. How hot? This weekend, a giant heat dome will cover half of the United States. Oklahoma isn't just the center of the heartland, it's also the beating heart of summer heat. The main pathway of the back garden with the now lavender chairs. Note the shasta daisies and crapemyrtles are laughing at the July heat while 'Ruby Slippers' hydrangea blooms have turned their red hue. We need plants that thrive in Oklahoma summers. The lower lawn is still green, but with temperatures in the 90s and 100s it won't be for long. We do not water it. An angled view of the potager or kitchen garden. It's doing well, but hunkered down until September. Greenhouse and garden beds facing the street. Oklahoma gardeners aren't worried though. Like good Boy Scouts, we're prepared. We grow plants that not only survive...

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you may have noticed Bill and I went with our friends, Layanee from Ledge and Gardens, Mary Ann from Gardens of the Wild Wild West, and Cindy from My Corner of Katy, along with several new friends to East Anglia, UK. We spent most of our time in Norfolk and Suffolk. I posted loads of photos as we traveled, and I'm just now home and getting back to my garden. Mary Ann, Layanee and me taken by Layanee's sister, Sue. I don't know where Cindy was. This was in Bressingham Gardens. How is my garden doing? Well, we've had plenty of rain while I've been away--quite the rarity in late June and early July in Oklahoma--but this is a weird weather summer. It is hot and muggy, and the weeds are rampant. I don't want to think about weeds today. Instead, like...

Rain is the big news at my Little Cedar Garden. It rained the entire time I was in Denver for the Garden Bloggers' Fling. It rained when I returned home, and on Saturday night, Sunday morning and this morning. Hemerocallils 'Tuxedo Gent' (Pearce 2011) is really, really dark. As I went outside to grab these photos before church, the mosquitoes were thick. Eight landed on me, and I killed at least six of them. I'm fast. I hate those creatures. The cutting garden survived, and we weeded before more rain to hopefully keep the seeds from washing away again. I don't mean to complain, but I am tired of the rain. Hemerocallis 'Tomorrow is Another Day' (Reed 2012) According to the Oklahoma Mesonet, Guthrie, Oklahoma received 15.34 inches of rain in May. I saw on the local weather Oklahoma has had over 62 inches of rain so far this year....

This was the cutting garden in 2015 before we built raised beds It was a full-on zinnia garden that year. This photo is of my cutting garden in previous, happier summers. I'm telling myself it can again be this good if I try, try again. This will be the third planting of sunflowers, cosmos, and zinnias in the cutting garden, and I'm hoping the third time's a charm. The big washout I try not to whine, but the cutting garden has been washed away twice. Also, I accidentally left my original seeds from Floret Flowers and Johnny's Selected Seeds in my tool bucket which proceeded to get rained upon. Cutworm damage has also been rampant. There must be a lot of very hungry caterpillars around here. The seed packets were a mucky, stinky mess which of course, the seeds loved, and they germinated with abandon. What to do? I just...