Through the last month, it rained every day. It didn’t rain all day every day, but it rained for at least a few hours, most of the time heavily. Downpours, accompanied by thunder and lightning, sometimes wind with occasional small tornadoes in the region too. Not surprisingly, we didn’t go out much unless we had business to conduct or groceries to buy.

Imagine my surprise when finally the monsoons stopped and I discovered our garden had gone into hyper overdrive, producing the most enormous crop of day lilies and hedge roses I’ve ever seen. All the fancy roses died of one blight or another over the past few years, and the spring flowers did poorly with so little sun, the late ending of the cold and snow melt and then the endless rain, but apparently, the day lilies and hedge roses couldn’t have been happier and showed their delight by reproducing like mad.

The hedge roses are small, aromatic, almost miniature and grow in bushy clumps so thick with thorns that they could keep out even the most determined burglar … or creature from the woods. We have learned the hard way to not even go near them. They grab at you and tear you — and your clothing — to shreds. Gloves are little help because they grab every part of you, including hair.

We have given the garden to the roses. They have won the day, the pink and the red. And the lovely Chinese lilies have been choked out by the hardy day lilies (AKA tiger lilies). Even the weeds have been unable to survive the determination of these flowering plants.

This is our garden. Now. Gorgeous. Wild. And dangerously full of thorns.

Categories: #Photography, Home, Nature, photo, Summer

Tags: #Photography, daylily, garden, hedge roses, Home, lily, old tractor, photographs, photos, postaday, roses, summer, summer garden, tractor