The Bold and Beautiful Flowers

Hummingbird moth drinks from a delphinium

 My lilies are blooming now, while the towering delphiniums are bowing under the weight of their bright columnar flowers.  I have a hard time even walking through the big flower bed right now though, as the mosquitoes around here are absolutely terrible.  A generous drenching in bug spray doesn't seem to do anything.

Delphiniums

 The center raised bed is looking colorful with its annual poppies.  Somewhere among those, there should be some dahlias, but I've completely lost them among all those pink flowers.  Perhaps they will rise above them in the coming weeks.

 I like the squat and sturdy asters in this seed mix I got from Veseys, called the "Pot and Patio Aster Mix", which came with some whites and purples too, but somehow this pot ended up with only the pinks.  I put a few other plants in other pots, and those are the ones that turned up in other colors!  They stay short enough to look nice in the half barrels.  I pinch off the dead flowers and hope to have bright colors till fall.

Should You Do This to A Tree?

I have been meaning to post for a while now, though I have been out of town.  That is my excuse, but photos of the July garden shall be taken soon!

However, in my wanderings about Canada, I spotted these trees on the waterfront promenade in Penticton, BC.  They had some new walkways created along Lakeshore drive on Okanagan Lake and they replaced some trampled and hopeless lawn with a rubberized surface similar to the stuff you see at oval running tracks. 

I'm not sure what the tree thinks about this. I guess time will tell.  The rubberized surface is supposed to be permeable and allow water and air through. 

Has anyone seen this in their area?  I assume most of these types of rubberized surfaces around trees are quite new, so we don't know the long-term impacts.  I wonder if the city staff will eventually cut out some rubber around the tree to allow new growth and prevent stem girdling?  Who knows.  Otherwise, I learned a lot about xeriscaping in the Okanagan.  Penticton has a great xeriscape demonstration garden, with the plants names and water requirements all indicated on signs.