Feeling Droopy

It is currently 93 degrees. I gave in to the puppy dog eyes I got from both my Garden Assistant and my boyfriend on Friday and turned on the A/C. I managed to get a little crispy on my forearms over the weekend, in spite of reapplying SPF 50 and SPF 70 every 4 hours. (I'll be stepping that up and reapplying every 3 from now on, just to be safer.)

Overall, it's just miserable. I feel the way my 'Othello' ligularia looks:

A few feet down from 'Othello,' my 'Sioux Blue' Indian grass (sorghastrum nutens) looks a bit droopy to me, too. But still makes a nice contrast behind my 'Regina' heuchera:

As I leaned over to take the picture above, I noticed a flash of blue out of the corner of my eye. It was the first bloom on my little clematis integrifolia, which admittedly needs some kind of structure to grow through. (I had planned to use lemongrass for this, but lemongrass is harder to find than cheap gas around Cleveland these days.)

Earlier this morning--around 7:30am, when it was "only" 77 degrees--I snuck around the garden for a few more pictures. It's no 'Coppertina' in terms of flash and color, but I really like the fresh green leaves on my 'Diablo' purple ninebark:

My salvaged rotors were used to feature little alpine plants, and both have a little collar of pebbles that will go away once the plants start to spread a bit. Here you can kind of see the planted saxifrage, but it's nearly hidden by the pretty linaria 'Mini Lights' snapdragon:

And here is my 'Cape Blanco' sedum. The earth around this is bare for now, but I actually seeded some carrots around here. So the sedum will have some company soon:

Last but not least, I planted up my tiles yesterday. There is 'Toffee Twist' carex, 'Yubi Red' portulaca, and several cuttings of delosperma nubigenum, a hardy ice plant, in each one:

Behind the tile planter above you can see my pretty 'Ivory Queen' alliums in full glory... and a pretty Russian sage in front. Speaking of Russian sage, I was rather surprised to see a number of baby Russian sages in my garden this spring. I hadn't noticed them before, so I'm wondering if it's a good year for Russian sage seedlings... or a bad year for a lazy gardener who would normally have had this bed mulched by early June?

Ah, too much to worry about now. There are more important things to think about, like where we are going to head to eat right now. Because we don't have the fixin's for salad in the fridge at this time, and it's definitely too hot to cook!