The first three pictures were taken on the grounds of the history museum where Gill and I went on her birthday on Friday. The capitol building is just across the street and is in the first shot.

I don't know the name of the tree that the blossom in the second  was on. I'd like to know, however, so if anyone recognizes it, let me know.

The third shot is trumpet vine, of course. The vine was growing up the trunk of a tree. I have some growing up our bird feeder in my garden, but it has not bloomed yet. This is its second year, so I hope it will have these wonderful flowers on it next year. Click any image to see it larger.

Below are shots from my garden taken today. The first is a Formosa Lily. I brought it from my old garden several years ago and thought it had died. Then last year I noticed what I thought was foliage of the Formosa lily. Now this year it has one bloom. It will be interesting to see if it does even better next year.

The second picture below is a hardy hibiscus named Fire Ball. The foliage is very different than other hardy hibiscus that I know about. It is bronze and deeply cut.

A Naked Lady is the pink cluster of flowers and the last one is my patio clematis that is blooming again.

   

---

Find of the Day: What your food cravings mean.

---

The first image is one of our Weekly Nutcrackers this week in digital nuts. As I've mentioned before, we get seven new photographs each Wednesday to play with. The challenge is to turn a photograph into digital art using whatever program, tools, filters, or techniques that strike our fancy. I rather liked what I did with this one. The original photo is here.

The image below is Challenger, a tall daylily that I have shown you before. Today it has seven blooms on it, not bad for the middle of August.

We got a wonderful rain yesterday morning -- over an inch at our house. Some parts of the city had so much that there was some flooding, but I'm happy with our inch. We sure needed it.

---

Find of the Day: A Game

---

This is the first year that the honeysuckle actually climbed all the way up my arbor. The garden angel was given to me by my friend, Kathy, when she came to visit a few weeks ago.

The tall garden phlox really hangs in. It's been blooming for several weeks. The yellow daylily is named Dainty Eyes, and I've been really impressed with how it has preformed this year. It was sending up new scapes loaded with buds in 100° weather. A great daylily.

Lantana is one of those flowers that seem to really thrive in heat. The little annual cypress vine is another hot weather flower. It doesn't even sprout until hot weather has arrived, but it sure makes up for  it.

Challenger is the name of this very tall daylily next to the fence. The Zinnias were volunteers this year, but they are doing well.

This wonderful daylily bloomed for the first time in my garden yesterday. Its name is Black-Eyed Susan, a confusing name for a daylily. This is its first year and the scapes are pretty short, but that often happens the first year. I think next year they will be taller.

Naked Lady is the pink flower. It is actually a hardy amaryllis that puts foliage on in the spring that dies back with warm weather. Then in August it send up a scape with several buds -- and no foliage at all. Gloriosa Daisy is the last picture, another flower that does fairly well in the heat.
 

---

Find of the Day: Eight of the World’s Most Unusual Plants

---

While I await the Wacom Intuos3 tablet and pen that I ordered last week, I've been practicing with ArtRage with just my mouse so I'll be more familiar with the program that I will most likely use the most with the tablet. ArtRage because you can "paint" stroke by stroke with realistic looking "paint." One can achieve results that look like it was done with an actual brush and paint, and I think when I get the tablet and pen, it will feel more like I am painting, too.

---

Find of the Day: The Lazy Bloggers Post Generator

---

Below is another photograph of the daylily, Fat Lady Sings -- what a great name for a late blooming daylily.

After I wrote my last entry, we did get a nice little rain, thanks to the remnants of the storm, Dolly. It was over a half inch and so very welcome. Our heat has been oppressive. Today the prediction is for temps over 100° again, and the way it felt when we were out at noon, it will surely make it.

Below are pictures of Crepe Myrtle and a single Gaillardia blossom. I have very few Gaillardia blooming this year, but quite a few healthy little plants that I hope will come back next year and put on a nice show.

Below I'm reprinting a piece I wrote several years ago about August in Oklahoma -- and about life:

When I took my bucket and shears to the garden this morning at sunup
I knew what awaited me: the same chore I've performed since our hot dry
August began taking its toll on my flowers. I spend my time trimming
away the plants that can't take the heat.

I often begin by wondering what the garden has to teach me today. I
find many lessons demonstrated eloquently there and have come to
appreciate the metaphors.

My garden has shown me repeatedly that life is very temporary. It
does not despair of this reality, however. It blooms when it can and
glories in the beauty of each day. It doesn't spoil the present with
worry about what the future holds, but faces the inevitable droughts,
disease and pests when they come.

I've learned to hold back sometimes and watch. There was a time when
I tried to micro-manage the garden, pulling every weed, spraying every
bug, and training every vine that seemed to go awry. I sometimes did
more harm than good. I've learned that the garden does not find its own
grace if I hover -- and the natural grace of a garden (or any life) is
better than anything I might plan.

The garden has taught me that sometimes its best to give up certain
cherished ideas. Some things don't grow well here.  When I let the
garden lead, I'm a better gardener. It doesn't do any good to try to
make my garden something it is not. It is not a Michigan garden or a
Portland garden. It is an Oklahoma garden and it knows it and will not
yield to my demands.

Which brings me to the lesson of today: control. I don't have it…
never did even when I thought this was "my" garden. Yes, I can
introduce new plants and shape the garden in some ways, but it has a
will of its own, as does a child. Both are subject to forces
that we have no control over. We are not even "stewards," because that
implies more power than we have. We are caregivers.  I tend to my garden's needs and enjoy its gifts when they come. And when my garden
is in sad shape, I keep tending it. I water it, I keep the weeds from
strangling it, and I keep a compost pile going to improve the soil
because I know that this is just one season. The dry brown leaves of
August do not tell the whole story.  Life awaits in the roots and in
the seeds that are ripening on the withered vines. My garden will bloom
again. Life is like that.

---

We didn't get the rain we were hoping for, but there wasn't really a very good chance anyway, and at least we had a cloudy cool morning. With temperatures over 100 for the last few days we really could have used the moisture, but the cool morning was great and afforded me plenty of time to tend the soaker hose and continue the never ending job of tidying up the garden. I'm trimming back foliage burned by the heat right now.

The picture is of some bougainvillea I have on my patio table. It had lost all of its blooms earlier this summer, but I'm happy to say it looks pretty again.
 
Rosie had a tapeworm, poor baby. We are hoping that now that it has been treated she will put on a little weight. She did gain some weight in the last month and weighs 5 pounds now, but she looks painfully thin to me.

---

Find of the Day: How to Write with Style

---

 
Fat Lady Sings is the name of the lovely daylily above and it began blooming this week. As its name suggests, it is a late blooming daylily, but not really the last one in my garden. I will have a few blooming for weeks, but I must say that the daylily season is over for all practical purposes.

The second picture is prarie coneflowers. I had cut them back when they started to go to seed and look ratty, but they've grown back now and are blooming again. The last picture is some double sunflower I have growing in a pot. The purple behind them are garden phlox.

---

Find of the Day: Ways to Overcome Shyness

---

It's way too hot still. I've been staying in after about ten in the morning. These are gloriosa daisies with yellow cosmos behind. Both can take the heat much better than I can.

Here is one of the images I enhanced for Digital Nuts this week. The image I started with is below it. There are no rules for our weekly "Nutcrackers". We just take the digital photos that are uploaded each week and create "art."

---

The daylilies today are the yellow, Heirloom Lace, and the very tall, Challenger.


It reached 100 degrees again today. They are predicting even hotter later in the week. I should be used to the heat. Most summers are brutally hot here, but I always feel that it is just isn't right for it to get this hot. The garden certainly suffers when the temperatures are so high. I try to grow flowers that can take the heat, but too many days of this will take a toll. I'm hoping for a big rain that will surprise the weathermen and moderate the temperatures before the garden turns to toast. Right now the garden looks surprising good for the middle of summer. I hope I can say that in a couple weeks.

---

Find of the Day: Funny Animal Signs
Interesting: Eckhart Tolle

---