Hummingbirds and Butterflies!

These last couple weeks have been just crazy, with the new family addition & getting the kiddo’s ready to go back to school. Blogger has taken a back seat to my ‘other life’! 

The garden is showing signs of quieting down & just a few flowers are blooming.  It has been hot (high 80’s) with very little rain here to accommodate all of the garden needs.  I do have to laugh that the nurseries here encourage us to plant drought tolerant plants for these few weeks that we do get the hot sunshine. Yet in my garden those types of garden plants seem to die because of all of the rain the soil has to absorb.  I cannot tell you how many plants I’ve had to pull because they have rotted in the ground due to how wet the soil is.  So I’ve just decided to do my own thing and plant what works here at Fishtail Cottage and not plant again what doesn’t work. 

This week – it’s the abundance of blooms for hummingbirds and butterflies.  It’s been crazy the amount of hummingbirds that have been visiting the garden.  They say hummingbirds are very territorial – however, there must be enough food here in the garden between the feeders and the blooms because I’ve seen up to seven at a time swooping in and visiting.  Their favorite will have to be the hardy fuchsia!  This year I split my plants up and planted more throughout the garden to enable more visitors! 

 
Another favorite of these sweet birds is my Rose of Sharon.  I have three of these gorgeous bloomers and the hummingbirds definitely linger a long time around these blooms.  This year these shrubs have reached at least 4feet wide and 6 feet tall~  I hope next year is the year they cover my bedroom windows fully! Just so pretty this time of year!

More favorites that I see a lot of activity at this time of year is the (in order) Penstemon, Gaura &  the second blooming of Delphinium.

Don’t know what this sweet flower is in the first picture, believe it’s natures gift to me & these four ‘o'clocks are finally blooming & are very inviting to my buzzing my friends!

 
Thanks for coming by this week to visit my garden post for the week!  Hope to see you at Cottage Flora Thursday’s later this evening! To see what I am linking to this week – please check my “Cottage Links” label…xoox, Tracie
PS - Fishtail Cottage is now on Facebook