Behold the Lilies

CONSIDER THE LILIES of the field, and let’s not forget the hydrangeas, ladies’ mantel, astilbe, verbena and other things… July here at Green Half-Acre is turning out OK after all.

Lilies — whether fancy ones from a catalogue, yard sale buckets of roadside orange day lilies, hybrids passed on by a friend, bulbs picked up last summer at the Long Island Daylily  Society show and sale in Farmingdale — all seem to do well here, and they’re so EASY. More lilies, I say!

Above: Showstoppers alongside my front walk (Netty’s Pride, and mine too.)

The purple things are verbena bonariensis, said to be a self-seeding annual, and I hope it is in years to come. That backdrop of greenery is sweet-smelling native bayberry, which was here on my arrival three-plus years ago.

Your classic Hamptons blue hydrangea. True, I don’t have many such, but even a few are spectacular.

More rhodies! These a later-blooming native type, of which I have inherited some two major stands. I  missed seeing them last July and the one before (when the house was rented) and am thoroughly enjoying them now.

The long-blooming yellow ladies’ mantel in the foreground is a treat; I’ve tried it before, elsewhere, without success. Here it’s become a standout.

In the wooded part of the property, still largely ‘undeveloped,’ a profusion of white hydrangea blossoms from a bush bought for $5 from a local couple who have a nursery of sorts in their modest backyard.

I am pleased with my scallop shell mulch on one side of the front walk. The shells are available at the local recycling center, i.e. dump, where some commercial fishing operation evidently dumped them for the taking. The grasses are chasmanthium (sea oats) and, if I remember correctly, Prairie Fire grass that isn’t getting enough sun to turn red.

Things to come: Turk’s cap lily buds in abundance.