We seem to be entering a rainy spell, which is “our” (flora + me) favorite!  I’m still feeling a little “under it”, so that works out perfectly.  I’ve been spending some time boxing up belongings and shredding the bottomless pit of papers.

I also have another exciting first for me–the black hollyhocks finally bloomed, after a couple of years of trial and error.  I’ve been waiting with anticipation, and they did not disappoint.  And by black, I mean literally sucking-all-light-into-a-black-hole black.  Not dark purple.  Very impressive.

Many of my tomatoes, peppers, squashes, and now even an eggplant are flowering, which means hopefully some food will follow!  It’s not an automatic given, around here.  You really have to work hard against all the handicaps to get results.  Sometimes I feel like giving up, but I’m too stubborn.

Here is your daily dose of misc. flowers.

I just had to say it–Tardigrades in Space!  SpaceX just launched 5,000 of the little buggers (and some baby glow-in-the-dark squids) on a trip to the international space station.  I’m actually terrified of these microscopic nightmare creatures, but they would make a great cheesy monster scifi movie.  Radiation + indestructible/bioluminescent critters=fill in the blank!  https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-tardigrades-squid-space-station-study-2021-6

Closer to earth, here are the latest garden finds, including the first St. John’s Wort (Hypericum) blooms, more passionflower opening, orange butterfly weed going crazy, and the latest homegrown salad.  It’s raining again, which is great (for our water bill, too).  I realize many of these flowers are not native, but at this point, I’m just happy to leave a diverse flower garden behind.  Less chance the next owners will destroy it all.

I’ve been under the weather again, just in case anyone missed me.  Conveniently, it was raining while I was under it, so the garden got much-needed water without me.

Today it’s hot and sunny, and flowers are booming.  As for myself, not so much.  Still, I’m happy when they’re happy.

I’m a bit pissed about the cicadas killing off so many of my young tree branches, though.  Damn buggers.  I’ll be glad when they bug off.

After conferring with our RE agent, and considering the possibly narrow window of this unique seller’s market, we’ve decided to try to move up our time frame for getting the house and property ready for sale.

Accordingly, we’ll be getting more serious about expediting our house repairs and packing process.  To that end, we have a new mountain of boxes awaiting contents, and our work cut out for us.

These photos are a just a few of the many I’m sending our agent for our file.  Anybody want a house and garden in TN?

I’m happy to announce my first native passionflower (Passiflora) ever!  This is a big deal for me, having despaired of my one plant coming back, but did it ever!  Vines took over half the sun perennial garden, and buds are forming all over.  I just can’t get over how such a hardy native can look so exotic and striking.  Or how I was able to grow it.  I mean, look at it.  I even posted two shots, just because.  Nature is such an artist.

The native orange butterfly weed (a milkweed) is starting to bloom, another plant I thought hadn’t made it back.  Other natives and perennials are starting to do their stuff, too.  It’s bittersweet, because I had hoped to stick around and get to see them all come up and spread, but I’m happy to know they’re getting established.  Maybe the next buyer will appreciate them as well.

Speaking of which, our real estate agent just did her first preliminary visit to get an idea what we’ve got and advise us on how to proceed.  She’s not sure how long this seller’s boom will last, but she’s confident we’ll make a little money off it.  It was nice to see a familiar face after all this time, though the circumstances aren’t the happiest.