Outdoor Wednesday: Black Magic and Pink Roses

What could be better in the summer than spending some time outdoors?? And what could be better for a Wednesday night than checking out all the submissions for Outdoor Wednesday?? I'll be linking up to the blog party tonight along with many others, hosted by Susan at A Southern Daydreamer.

We had a few days of some heavy rain, which took it's toll on my foxglove and my white salvia, but today was a beautiful warm and sunny day and I came home from work to find my Black Magic hollyhocks were blooming, at last!

I planted these at a special request from my hubby, Erik. He really likes hollyhocks.

Just a couple of days ago my pink climbing rose only had a few blooms starting to open. I wish I knew what kind of rose this is....my other one I believe is a William Baffin. This one has very small, double candy-pink flowers. The leaves are much smaller and it has the most wicked, needle-like thorns on it. We jokingly call this rose the "Demon Rose Bush" because when you walk past it, the branches seem to reach out to you and try to suck you into it's thorny depths.

Today there are more blooms opening.

Did I mention it grows like a weed?? We had to finally add more trellis last year, which it has already almost completely covered. It is almost up to our second-story windows.

I'm going to try to train it to go over the lower windows and across to the roof of the rear porch!

I also found the first blooming purple coneflower of the season. I love to come home after work and wander through my yard to see what my flowers are up to! It's always a surprise and there's always something new to see.

I have my summer wreath out now on the back door. I found this cute metal star for $3.00 at Target just the other day. Isn't it cute?

Thanks for stopping by!