These July photos bring back memories of a fun day seeing all the riotous blooms in my friend Mary's garden. It had just rained that morning, but let up long enough for me to take these photos. Actually it was a perfect day for photos without the bright sun! As you can see, Mary's gardens are meticulously manicured. All of the perennials and annuals get lots of special TLC. She has put great thought into her color combinations and her flowers are all arranged for strategic bloom.

What you can't see in the photos is the large deck behind Mary's house where you can relax and overlook the botanic garden-like setting and enjoy all of her beautiful flowers. Truly an oasis!

One good thing about this time of year...the ticks are finally gone! Deer and wood ticks are very prevalent in western Wisconsin. If you spend any amount of time outside, chances are you've had them. Gardening as I do, I've had lots of ticks. Even a windy day can be problematic at my house. I envy blondes for the simple reason that ticks must be so much easier to find in light-colored hair -- it's not at all about the fun!

I can usually deal with ticks, but what really threw me into a tailspin last June was when, quite by chance, I found a minuscule deer tick embedded inside of my ear canal. Ick! I could just imagine it burrowing into my brain if I hadn't found it. The trick was successful removal without it falling even further into my ear to who knows where. Anyway, it's gone, and I lived to tell the tale.

I know I could use DEET way more often than I do, but I'm not super fond of spraying chemicals on myself. Usually, I spray it on my clothes only. Over the summer I tested out some of the DEET-free products, essential oils, and lemon eucalyptus organics. The jury is still out, but I will do further testing next year.

So if you ever see someone outside gardening, all wrapped up like a mummy, it just might be me. Take that, ticks!

Mummy clipart from Creative Commons focaclipart.wordpress.com

Pictured is "Lounge Lizard." Don't you just love this daylily's name? It never fails to makes me smile. This big, prolific, no-fuss plant grows about 45" tall in my garden. No bending down to deadhead this guy. I have it planted in all day sun with lots of space to stretch, and as you can see it's quite happy. Lounge Lizard is one of my eight Curt Hanson daylilies that thrive in Wisconsin. This lizard can lounge around my yard anytime!

Garden-wise Ange and I downsized yet again - even though it doesn't look like it in the photo!  We took out another 200 square feet from our front daylily garden. The 200 square feet is currently being used as a holding pen for my sale plants (towards the trees). When the spring sale is over and the plants are gone, that part of the garden will be turned back into grass.

There was a split rail fence in the front garden for many years, which we tore down with no regrets. This will make for easier weeding and more air-flow for the daylilies. I was able to move all of my plants further apart.  I ditched (literally) all the perennials that the Japanese beetles favored and skeletonized each year.  I also said goodbye to my phlox. Not sorry! That will hopefully reduce the number of snakes/snake babies that lurked in the weedy parts.

We divided quite a few of my large daylilies to invigorate them for future bloom. You can see that I tomato-caged all the transplants, because in the past deer have occasionally pulled plants out by the roots as they munched them. The cages curtail that behavior since we don't spray deer deterrent over the winter. The cages also discourage the deer from tromping through the flower bed making big holes with their hooves when the ground is wet. Gotta love garage sales for enabling me to have such a  substantial collection of tomato cages.

It was the best fall season ever as far as gardening weather -- one perfect day after another. The great  part was that many of those perfect days fell on the weekends! In fact, as of yesterday my iris 'Immortality' was still blooming which is highly unusual for November! I was able to complete everything on my 'do before winter list' except for one large transplant which can easily be done in spring. So now I'm done for the year; ready to take a well-deserved break from gardening and shift my focus to inside projects. Did I say really say that?