Happy Midsummer ~ Hyvää Juhannusta ~ Glad Midsommar

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Tomorrow we are celebrating midsummer. With these red clover pictures I wish you all a warm and sunny midsummer.

Wood Anemone

I spotted the first brave wood anemone  about three weeks ago. It was still quite cold, even snowing at some point. May brought the sun and warm weather and they all popped up into carpets of white and green. Beautiful.

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Two Tuberous Begonias

I’m so happy these two wonderful begonias have been with me already for many years and hope that they still will for many more years to come.
Unfortunately I don’t remember the names of them. The one with the double flowers is one I bought myself. The other one my husband’s cousin gave me. I surfed the web to see if I could figure out their names. The double one I couldn’t find but the other one I think is a Begonia Bertinii. It’s a bit embarrassing but I have to ask my husband’s cousin one more time for the name and then write it down and put it somewhere safe.

Pink lily/lilies.

Yay ! The pink lilies are flowering 🙂 I hope they will last for as many days as possible. I don’t know but to me it looks like the rainy, wet, damp weather is no good for the flowers. The ones that already have faded look almost rotten. I think there was more or less rain most every day in July. Thumbs up for less of it in August. Wishing you all an enjoyable August !

Campanula patula

Campanula patula, spreading bellflower, harakankello, ängsklocka

I haven’t posted anything for a while. I’m waiting for the rest of the lilies to flower 🙂 I have, of course meanwhile, taken lots of pictures of all kind of wildflowers. Here some pictures of cute spreading bellflower. It’s been pretty windy lately so it was hard to get sharp pictures. I had to delete many shots.

Yellow Lilies

A few shots of the yellow lilies. I wonder when the other yellows will bloom. Maybe next week.

Yesterday we made a quick visit to the Gardenia in Helsinki. There is both a tropical garden and an outdoor garden. These lilies are in the outdoor garden. I wish I had this many in my garden of each color 🙂

Summer’s First Lily

How I have waited for the first lilies of the summer to bloom. Finally, yesterday the red Asian Lily (Lilium Asiatic ‘Matrix’) opened. I’m so happy there has been less snails, lily bugs and stink bugs this year. Last year the insects and snails made so much damage. They ate both leaves and buds. This year I had to do something about it. I bought Ferramol slug pellets. Much less snails/slugs in my flower bed now. I still find some but take them away immediately. I guess I can’t fight them all (snails) as there are trillions in the surroundings. I also bought Bayer Garden Calypso spray for insects. I think it worked for the bugs. But, still I can see some damage on the leaves and disappeared buds. Yesterday I found out there are ants ! They love the buds ! Ufff ! I guess I need to spray no matter how much I hate to do it !

Clover Flower

Summer = flowers, flowers and more flowers 🙂

Again ~ The Melancholy Thistle

I can’t get enough of seeing the development of this flower from bud to bloom. I love it. It’s as amazing year after year.

Cirsium heterophyllum

I read the following on Wikipedia: “Sientific name Cirsium helenioides also known as Melancholy Thistle. It is native  to Europe and western Asia. The plant grows up to 120 cm tall.”