The afternoon thunderstorms continued all last week until Sunday. This week the temperatures are rising each day and we are heading into the weekend with temperatures forecast to be about 35°C.
Again the images were taken this morning with the sun at the top of the slope creating shadows and highlighting grasses.
Gaura and Stipa tenuissima catching the morning sunlight
Sunlight on Stipa tenuissima
Many of the plants flowering now seem to be forming a lower storey, including Tubaglia, ground-cover Verbena and Thyme.
Panicums and Tubaglia
Tubaglia
Tubaglia and Perovskia
Verbascum and Solanum jaminoides album
Looking up the slope from the gate, Verbascum in the foreground
Verbascum and its caterpillar
Verbascum caterpillars are appearing but so not seem to decimate the wild plant the way they do garden cultivars.
A few Eschscholzia continue to flower and I can see some new seed is germinating with the warm damp conditions; these may not survive if the heat wave really does arrive but there will be plenty more later from the thousands of seeds that have already been produced.
Eschscholzia californica, Californian poppy
Perovskia and Gaura
Perovskia
Pennicetum villosa
The above image is at the top of the drive so not really part of what I call the slope.
What do you have in your garden that is giving you particular pleasure today? Is your weather a heat wave or more rain than you would like?
Creating my own garden of the Hesperides 
Beautiful images, I particularly like the combination of Tubaglia and Perovskia, and the verbascum is beautiful too. Something I aim to try growing next year. Thanls for asking how I am – I tried to reply but for some reason couldn’t! I’m OK, have just been submersed in the process of getting a new kitchen fitted, it has meant a dearth of gardening and blogging, and anything else, really, but will be worth it in the end!
A new kitchen is worth notbeing able to blog for a while. Plus it is giving you time to see the garden in all its summer brightness.
Beautiful. I wish I had a slope!
Thank you. The slope does show the plants to advantage.
Bellissima la foto del verbasco e del bruco giallo.
( perchè dici che le ipomee da te non è possibile
piantarle?, mi sembra che hai un sacco di piante da clima
caldo/secco).
Ciao
Grazie. Sì, è vero che il clima è secco e caldo d’estate invece d’inverno è abbastanza freddo (potrebbe essere dodici sotto zero°C). Ciao
Gaura is such a pretty plant, but I can only grow it as an annual here.
I think my Japanese anemones are giving me most pleasure today… just opening and standing tall.
I’m not familiar with Tubaglia, but it looks lovely with the Perovskia. Love the caterpillar shot!
We grow Gaura here on our sandy soil it does well and self seeds too. The weather is humid tonight after a heatwave and rain. I would prefer a traditional English Summer though – more rain, less heat!
Hard to believeyou said that about the rain after the year of rain England has suffered.
You have such a beautiful garden – I love your planting style, mixing flowers and grasses to great effect. My garden is so much less stylish, but I am enjoying watching the bees and butterflies on the wild marjoram at the moment.
Butterflies are the icing on the cake in a garden.
Weather here is perfect: a little overcast in the mornings allows comfortable weeding to be done. When the sun comes out, I just enjoy. The morning light was a helpful cohort when you were taking these pictures…beautiful.
Sounds perfect to me.
The Verbascum is really showing off nicely. Tubaglia is unfamiliar but great. The slope is looking wonderful.
Tubaglia is from the garlic family and is best not planted too close to a path or where you sit. It smells more when in a damp spot.
There have been local thunderstorms around our area for a week and areas so close had short, torrential rain but we had not a drop. My Gaura is very droopy this year and I don’t understand why.
Problably all the rain. We also love in a spot that often misses the rain, but we’ve had plenty in the last couple of weeks, especially when normally it never rains in July.
Beautiful images. I like the Stipa and Pennisetum glowing in the sunlight. Also that Verbascum with the caterpillar – wonder what kind it is?
It’s common name is the Mullein moth, scientific name is Cucullia verbasci. It does use other plants as hosts too, but mullein (Verbascum) is the favourite.
So gorgeous – as always, I find your collection of grasses strikingly beautiful. Love those poppies and the tubaglia!
I think I am quite in love with your slope!! It looks gorgeous and reminds me of the good times in France looking at gorgeous flowers and cypress trees. Back home now and thinking about tackling the jungle I’ve returned to!!
The Irish heatwave is over…it is now more sensible temperatures…in the low twenties…with occasional showers to keep everything green.
What a wonderful thought!
My favorite is the verbascum and that cute caterpillar
Beautiful light, Christina. I have many caterpillars and grubs but luckily no verbascum caterpillars – at least not yet. (We had our first rain in about six weeks last night – bliss). Dave
Early morning and late evening the light is lovely.
I love the verbascum and the perovskia. We too have the mullein caterpillar. I love it but it does reduce the plants to a tatty skeleton!
The wild mulliens seem to cope and not get completely eaten, but garden cultivars are completely destroyed.
I am enjoying seeing your garden slope as the season progresses. Your garden is always a source of inspiration, though my inspirations don’t always work. I love your Perovskia. I tried to grow some on my own, but the heavy clay (though amended, it still had a lot of clay in it!), high humidity and rain doomed it.
Thanks Debbie, just think of all the wonderfulplants you have that I can’t grow! Right plant, right place does it for me every time.
you do know, it is Tulbaghia?
Named for Ryk Tulbagh (died 1771), governor of the Cape of Good Hope.
The town of Tulbagh is our neighbour
http://www.tulbaghtourism.co.za/
Diana, thank you for the correction, sadly spelling is my weak point.Maybe it would be better if I had been born Italian. Every letter is pronounced and so the concept of incorrect spelling is more or less unheard of, there isn’t even a work for ‘spelling’ in the Italian language!