Just Before Sunset

When the sun gets low in the western sky, the light cuts across the backyard and glows through the foliage.

The tropical leaves of bananas, cannas, gingers and cyperus are a bright reflection of the sunlight's last rays.

Even the common Purple Queen becomes a translucent beauty in this magic light.

The bog area which is usually pretty non-descript becomes a bright beauty. 

The last shadows play against the back fence and then the day is done.

(Just finished weeding and mulching this area along the back fence and wanted someone to see it before the weeds grew back.)

When It Rains....It Pours!

Obviously I need a bigger rain gauge.

Four inches of rain fell on My Garden Path between 2PM Sunday and 11AM Monday. 

The back yard is very low and has always held water at the bottom of the slope.  An attempt to make this area into a bog garden was begun last summer. 

Sedge, Cyperus involucratus, Papyrus, Cyperus papyrus, and Soft Rush, Juncus effusus, were planted here to help keep the soil in place.  A Crinum americanum was also planted in anticipation of flooding.  The water stands here for as long as 3-5 days and then will disappear.  Definitely a problem area.  This is the earliest flooding ever experienced for the bog.  Usually it is mid-June after repeated rains that the water stands like this.  The water table must be very high already for this one rain event to cause such a big puddle.

The Leather Leaf Fern, Rumohra adiantiformis, loved getting the rain and began putting up new fiddleheads.

The Resurrection Fern, Polypodium polypodioides, is showing it's loveliness on several of the oaks since the significant rainfall. 

I can almost hear the mosquitoes buzzing.....