My plots of plants are their own community.  Each is its own star, and sometimes its own diva.  They make their own music and sing their own song.  I love ’em, with their weird little quirks.  Sometimes they’re in harmony, sometimes off key.  They feed me and please me every time.

My tribute to them is to introduce them to you.

The front yard has the hostas & day lilies, surrounded by impatiens, my native plant garden which features some happy black-eyed susans in bloom right now (they always remind me of a photographic negative of daisies – and I may pair these in the yard next year), a couple container vegetables, a few herbs (growth spurt prone mountain mint, rollicking rosemary, and cheerful chives), some lovely jasmine circled by flowers, my container rose bush and the three potted zinnias.

The back has a potted Meyer lemon tree, several struggling beets in various containers for comparison purposes, some cautious carrots that once seemed on the fast path to success but have all but given up in this heat.  There are a few potted begonias who are delighted to live with me.  Along one side I have (yes, in this order) a pretty parsley, beyond robust sage, a sad little bit of rosemary, some thyme that doesn’t know where to end, and then a little cilantro book-ending the row, for diversity.  Then of course also out back are my prized tomato plants.  I usually have a bunch of potted peppers too but this year I just have one small container with a puny (but improving) cayenne and a mysterious chili pepper plant I bought from a small food market on Church Avenue.  The guy I bought it from doesn’t speak much English and all he could tell me (in English anyway) was that it was a chili pepper plant (that leaves it pretty wide open for type) and that it comes from the DR.  He, I believe, is from Bangladesh.  Nice guy.  They always invite me in whenever they have food there after fasting.  Further out back are the peach and cherry trees and the flowering dogwood/elderberries (whose leaves are turning a little brown at the top after a recent clipping to prevent my clothes on the line from landing in the bush, which every summer gets to be pretty ginormous).

The upstairs terrace is having its own little party.  I’m starting to think it might have something to do with the sun — like getting just the right amount now with only a touch of shade from the London Plane that sits in my neighbor’s yard, but shades mine.  The petunias are quite happy.  The peppers are in their element: cayenne, jalapeno and habanero have been having fun.  There’s an ivy put there at the beginning of the summer but she’s kind of off to herself in the corner, not quite sure what to do.  I’ll let her be for a bit, and move her at the end of the summer if she still hasn’t joined the party.

Some are stars, some are struggling.  I think they’ll all get it together in time, with more or less help from me.

QUESTION: What’s in your garden?  Go ahead .. gimme the dirt!