An overgrown garden

Well, another month away without the gardeners, with LOTS of rain -- of course, the garden is overgrown.  But the pocket meadow is lush (hey, it could be parched) and the overall impression isn't too bad.

Aromatic aster and Verbena are in flower.

I've been averting my eyes as I squeeze my car into the much smaller driveway space and step out into the Salvia gauranitica that's flopping over.  Thankfully, the Solidago 'Fireworks' is in flower now, so I'm distracted by its attractiveness (and the hordes of flower visitors).

Solidago 'Fireworks'

 Ditto for the vegetable beds. 

The chard plants, planted the day before we left, are huge, thanks to the rain and the organic fertilizer I added while planting, I guess.  My chard is usually much smaller, but I liberally applied the Espoma, too, finishing off a containter.  I'm usually quite stingy with it.

The parsley and herbs have flourished, too.  The sage in the deep bed in the back is a monster.  Yikes! The cabbage whites have happily defoliated most of the kale and broccoli plants (of course), but so it goes.  You can see an example to the left of the large chive clump.  Sigh.  Even the ones that I put wire cloches over were munched.  The morning glory vines and the climbing rose on the trellises in back look awful.  Oh, well.

Thyme, parsley, chives, oregano. rosemary and sage: looking robust

 Thankfully, this won't be a huge job to shape up, but I have lots of other things to do in the next two weeks, too, including doing 4 presentations (as a volunteer).  It's really all good, as they're favorite presentations (about native woodland gardens, pocket meadows, and native plants).  And I've been away so much this last year, I wanted to cluster my classes and talks during times that I knew I would be here after all!