New Faces

 The gardens change with the summer heat.  Flowers are spent and leave the stage making room for new faces.

Here are some of them in the Perennial Garden now.

The Pond Garden is wild!  It's hard to keep it tamed so I'm not trying as hard.  The iris have seeded themselves so thickly around the perimeter and now I'm finding Joe Pye weed volunteers in new places.  The water lily that I thought would never grow seems to love it location.  

The frogs are getting big.  Can you see it in this photo below?

The cat tails are returning.

As I write this the pond is getting fresh water as we endure another strong downpour.

Hello Hibiscus!

First blooms opened today for 2015.

These are as big as dinner plates and such a lovely shade.

The butterflies are liking the butterfly bush now that it's in bloom as well.

These were taken in a brief sunny moment.  Mostly we have had cloudy skies and rain.

Potted

I'd love to day these two (above and below) were my pots, but they aren't.  These were outside Arbor House, the gift shop, at the National Arboretum.  I photographed them because I've taken to planting succulents in pots lately.

Here are some of my pots this summer.

These next two aren't succulents but my attempt at growing better heuchera.

[Update: both these pots go munched on by deer on Thursday night late.  They made a meal on one hosta, day lilies, and sedum in the Glen and Perennial gardens.]

This has grass and sedums.

This one I'm most pleased with.  And the raccoon hasn't dug it up this year!

These last are little dish gardens.  Not too unlike this dish garden (above) at the Bonsai exhibit.

National Arboretum - Bonsai

The National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. established in 1927 is part of the Department of Agriculture and serves as a research and education facility and a living museum.  Housed at the Arboretum is an incredible display of bonsai in the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum.  Some of these were gifts to the United States from Japan on our bicentennial, gifts to presidents during state visits and donations by collectors and bonsai artists. 

The oldest bonsai that I saw there was this one - almost 500 years old.  I sure wouldn't want to be the caretaker of that and have it die on my watch!

This bonsai scene had to be captured in two photos.

The dish holding it was very shallow and the soil with the roots mounded on it.

The pavilion where these are housed was lush with plantings.

This dish garden was not labeled

neither was this one but there were scattered through out.

It's hard to capture the scale of these trees.  There are three varieties in this arrangement.

Height maybe two feet max.

The Arboretum is free with plenty of parking.