My garden roses

In the studio today, I was admiring photos of the roses that bloomed in my garden this season. Although I have a mixture of English and American roses, I tend to love the English ones for their strong, intoxicating scent. They almost resemble a Peony. Maybe that is why I liked them, I use to have a luscious peony garden but unfortunately a hired a few men that didn't know much about gardening to help me around the place, and when I came home, I found they pulled them all out, boy was I mad.  They have lived in my garden for over 12 years, the peonies, not the men, I can tell you that!

  

                                                                       Like a pretty doll wearing a gown
                                                                                        of pretty petals.
       

 This yellow American rose I bought at Shoprite for 9.99. It didn't do so well in my garden, this was probably the only nice bloom I got all season.

  

               

 They smell heavenly especially when the windows are open.

                                  Beach roses smell very nicely as well.

            I will keep watering them and admiring them till they bloom no more...

The last song of the Cicadas

The sail of the Hummingbirds

The cicadas are certainly pretty loud this morning, making one feel, its in the middle of July, but in fact, its almost mid September, the sad end of summer. I know the pretty birds from the southern countries are flying back home very shortly. I enjoyed them so much this summer, I looked forward to coming home after a long day on the job, to sit by the pool and admire my flowers or when a hummingbird would appear. Some of them would fly right up to me, and stay there, gracefully flapping their wings with a kind, thank you for having them over for sugar water all summer.

I painted this old hummingbird feeder with red oil paint to attract them since my pine trees are so overgrown these days. I thought, will they see it? Do they just scent it? 

It really does work! 4 cups of water, and 1 cup of sugar. Boil and then pour into the feeder. At first I worried they wouldn't come and I tinted the water with red food coloring. But I found even without the food coloring, they still come.

So as sad as it sounds, I realize summer is coming to an end. But not yet..no I still have another few three weeks to pretend its still summer. All the bakery girls are closing their pools. I don't want to close mine.

Especially when my flowers are still in bloom

Not only did I come and enjoy the pool garden at the end of the day, on my days off there was no other place I would rather be, then to take my paints and sit under the shade of the umbrella and paint. It is such a relaxing way to spend the day.

But I had a lot of visitors this summer. 

The benefits of living in the country.

He stayed all summer.

Like my niece use to say when she was a little girl, 

"can I come back tomorrow?"

Pretty soon fall will be approaching.