late summer flowers

 Found one last gladiola blooming on the second sideyard, and brought it inside. Lovely pink salmon.

Tithonia thicket is doing great. Sometimes when I go out to deadhead them, I crouch down in the middle so the plants tower over me, just looking at a wall of green leaves, flowers, insects droning, and piece of blue sky. Even though there's the road and another house just a few yards away, it feels for a moment like a secret place. Like the feeling I'd get the other year when pole beans grew up to the garage wall making a green narrow space behind, to stand back there felt secret and peaceful.

A few very new-looking monarchs have appeared. There's one in the middle here on a tithonia but I couldn't get close with the camera, it kept flitting up. The few stalks of milkweed here are bare now, but looks like at least one caterpillar made it to pupate!

Now the borage is all pulled out and celosia "combflower" is thick around the mailbox. I didn't plant them this year, they just came up on their own from dropped seed. There was one plant with yellow that I cut the flower heads off (I prefer the red, pink and cream ones). In gaps I've put cuttings of cuban oregano. I do like to think it keeps the dogs away- the scent is very strong, almost unpleasant even to me. Sometimes I sit at my desk upstairs and glance every time someone walks by with a dog. Nine times out of ten now, they don't pause, and if they do, it's brief.

Beautyberry is starting to show off- its glowing purple fruit like jewelry on the stems.

fall blooms

More zinnias! 

I still cut a few for inside the house.

Celosia took me by surprise. These sprang up self-seeded after I pulled out the bug-ridden borage. Grew very quickly. 

Some even have the convoluted 'cockscomb' or 'brain flower' look. Might just let them grow on their own every year, instead of painstakingly starting them as seedlings in spring.

Lovely petals like crepe paper, rose-of-sharon

Even though it just got planted a week ago, 

my wandflower bloomed!

Liriope is making purple spires

and japanese salvia softer yellow ones- 

Some of my nasturtium plants recovered from the heat (and I sprayed for bugs)-

a week later-

The cardinal climber has wound all the way up to my deck railing

and one on the other fence is actually flowering now!

Thickets of turtlehead. 

Even the small patch at the very far back of the yard did better this year. Because I swiped off a lot of mealy bugs on stems early in the season? or because more sun reaches them now... 

Pannicle hydrangeas-

'Autumn Joy' sedums. Some are more pink than others.

Summersweet had plenty more flowers this year and occasionally I paused in the very back of the yard to lean into their vanilla scent. 

There's also marigolds and nicotiana of course... . .

sculpit handful

This morning in the herb bed I trimmed back nepitella, winter savory and hyssop- then scattered their leaves through the rest of the garden. Cut a generous handful of sculpit, had it in scrambled eggs w/cheddar and mushrooms for breakfast. Kids didn't really like it though. I think the herb flavor was too strong. Might try it in a risotto next time. (That would be new, as I've never made risotto! but it's supposed to be really good in that dish so I want to try).

Showed my kids the curious little "balloon flowers" before tossing them in the compost bin.

Borage is long gone in the front mailbox spot. I pulled them all out when bugs spread sickness. Left it empty for a while, more borage sprang up but the celosia (from self-sown seed that dropped the year before) grew quicker. It's already blooming now, though won't make the huge "brain flowers" that get admired. I tossed some flower seed of something particolored in the daisy family too, but haven't seen those germinate.

celosia and temps

The temperature point for celosia is sixty degrees. Below that, they suffer. But I've found I have a bit of wiggle room with my coldframe. They've been doing nicely so far and several nights this week I've been able to leave them out, down to fifty-eight degrees they were just fine.

Fifty-six was too low, though. A few suffered that night, see the leaf wilt and curl:

They've already got flower spikes, I'm a week or two off in my timing.

Should have started them later than I did. Don't know if I'll get large blooms this year.

taller!

My tomatoes are really ready to go in the ground.

Getting top-heavy in their containers. (That's celosia in the coldframe).

the many young plants

Getting warmer, but most of my younger plants still come in at night.

I really started too many celosia this year-

a dozen would have been plenty!

Very pleased with my tomatoes, I think they will be great this season

Have to remember next year to start amaranth and tithonia in a later sowing group, because they're doing so much better now, and struggled a lot earlier on

Here's celosia and marigolds-

One of them has bloomed already, still in its paper pot

Nicotiana need to move up, but I have run out of soil for containers, so thinking of clearing more grass.

plants update

Changed habit with putting some of my young plants out for sun. Now all the celosia go into the coldframe- they don't seem to mind a bit of draft, or getting too hot if I am tardy to open the glass lid-

Whereas the young tomatoes had been suffering, had some leaf burn and wilt. Doing better now. Here they're waiting to go out into the greenhouse.

Finally potted up the nicotiana. Wasn't sure if it was worth trying. They tend to not do well being transplanted.

Some in paper pots (above) the rest in plastic I had

But I did better at digging up and moving borage this spring, and a few turnips and beets when thinned instead of eating them tiny I move 'em and they survive. Maybe my hands have got enough practice working with the tiny fragile plants I could do okay by the nicotiana too.

young crowd

On cold mornings, or windy days, or during thunderstorms, all my seedlings are in the little greenhouse. It's quite full now!

Amaranth has done much better this year started early indoors.

Here's a photo of it on wicker chair.

Celosia very thick in their seedling tray

Last week I separated them out into pots-

and had to make some of folded paper too. I really prefer using brown paper, but all I had on hand was newsprint. It will do.

Young hyssop. Going to plant my new ones on edges of the garden. It's supposed to keep cabbage moths away. I'll find out. Haven't seen many of the white moths in the garden- but I've wiped their eggs off underside of collard greens already.

Tithonia still get sad and droopy if it's any bit below seventy-five in the greenhouse.

I pricked the summer savory plantlets out of their tray and moved them into pots. Two big pots, a half dozen plants each. Maybe too crowded, but it's about the closeness they've had in planter boxes the years before.

Here's the next lot to go out into the ground, once we quit having cold nights. They sit out on these little benches unless it gets below forty-five or threatens to downpour (then I tuck them in the greenhouse, or set under the deck table). Marigolds, leeks, sweet peas, chervil and dill.

Tomatoes in the coldframe. They come in every night still, and will for a while.