mixed feelings

A very weedy thing which I'm ambivalent about. Several clumps about the place are putting on a show now, but having struggled to weed them out of a couple of flowerbeds, they don't have my wholehearted affection. They multiply by millions of seeds and creeping white roots, but it's the long, tough rhizome, somewhat like a parsnip, which snaps away easily and stays in the ground that makes the creeping bellflower, Campanula rapunculoides, so difficult to eradicate once it gets a toe hold in your lawns or flowerbeds. This is amongst many campanula which were introduced from Europe and Asia as garden flowers.

Another weedy thing, but I've got to admit the late afternoon sun makes even this thug, the tawny daylily, glowing gorgeous!

Hens-and-chickens living happily on an old stump near my back step.

These flowers are a little peculiar only because I hardly have taken notice of them before. They have, however, redeemed the flowering stalk of the hens-and-chickens which when it first made its appearance, seemed a tad rude! Maybe it's just because my perverted mind keeps going back to a funny photo posted by Melissa aka the Empress.

No idea what the name of this daylily is. This is a new one for me. It's tangled up in a clump of daylilies under a maple and the old hickory or butternut (I'm not sure which), that keeps dropping bits of itself all over the driveway. Most of those daylilies did not bloom last year. But there was one spectacular double orange that I'm watching with great anticipation for it to open up again this year. I think I decided last year that it is Hemerocallis fulva 'Kwanso' -- a coming attraction.

The hollyhocks are multiplying themselves into the raspberry patch and even the ones I dug up and transplanted closer to the house are doing well. The storm that roared through here on Thursday night knocked the raspberry canes right over, but the berries are ripening still and I think I'll have some for breakfast tomorrow. It's not a tidy picture, but if the hollyhocks and raspberries are happy together, who am I to complain?