some flowers

first of all the tithonia, glowing bright

the wall is little this year, but I'm still glad I planted it.

better photos of turtlhead, from two different angles

pink cosmos over rue- with a skipper butterfly

one little dahlia

my clematis is blooming again! (they're not overly large this time)

black-and-blue salvia has really filled in its space

here's its dusky flags

and blue flowers

I'm fairly pleased with the marigolds this year- they look a lot healthier kept in pots

Echinacea is looking worn-out and sad- rudbeckia a bit better

the young plants sure have grown up thick

I made a little bouquet with sensitive fern, liriope blossoms, hosta flowers and turtlehead

they will flower (or already did)

I forgot I had this plant. I almost pulled it earlier this spring, thinking it was a weed.

It's the dahlia!

Columbine is done- but the seed heads are so interesting. I keep meaning to go out and cut them, to save and replant where I want another year...

It's also got those squiggly lines like the joe pye weed- I think leaf-miner bug is the cause- another pest ugh

Monarda (bee balm) has become a thicket

and is just starting to bloom

The black-eyed susans I transplanted are all growing up

Next to them, echinacea already budding- here with early morning light on their heads

I finally planted out my tender echinacea babies from the coldframe.

So small- even compared to one of the smaller of the established plants-

and here you can see how small among the bigger ones!

Sweet peas are a big tangled clump on the sunnier sideyard- but finally doing something- I think flowers are coming!

The gladiolas look larger, more robust than last year- although a few seem to have got overwhelmed by the sweet pea vines. I have a new clue to the identity of one of my unknown houseplants- this one- its flat spray of leaves looks so much like the gladiolas. Just realized that this week.

I almost missed the daylilies blooming- in terms of photos- have been admiring them as I come and go. Buds just the week before last-

Flowers came quickly behind, and are already fading now. I got this hasty photo, but really they were nice.

the catch (and other things)

Didn't get exactly what I expected. I put out eight beer traps last night- five in the vegetable garden and three among the salvia. I did catch three slugs- two big ones from the salvia area and a smaller one near the swiss chard. But the rest? Ants in one. A black beetle near the peppers (sorry for that, I think beetles are good guys). A few earwigs. Some pill bugs. And crickets! More crickets than anything else. Do crickets eat garden plants? I thought they went for decaying material, or fruit. Maybe they fell in by accident.

Wiped the underside of broccoli leaves with my hands again. I'm not sure, but it seems there are less whitefly swarms this morning. Maybe smashing off the larval stages and eggs by hand did some good. Or maybe some got caught on my yellow boards after all. I am seriously considering trashing all the sickly green bean plants and keeping the broccoli, just to continue picking caterpillars off them... A handful more of those today. I tried to identify the ones I don't know- that aren't cabbage loopers. All I was able to narrow down was that they're some kind of moth. If they were butterfly larvae (other than the cabbage white) I would have just moved them to a landscaping plant, not stashed in the freezer for my fish.

Speaking of fish, I am going to have to re-think my food trap. Functionally, it's great. The black kuhlis are ecstatic each time I lower it into the tank. But they're getting injured. It had been four or five days since the last time I used it, and their scratches were healing. I took a good amount of time sanding the edges of the entrance and exit holes with a metal nail file and tiny strips of sandpaper- now the plastic is all scuffed in those areas, but it did feel a lot smoother- at least to my fingers. Not good enough for the kuhlis though. I watched them go in for soaked micropellets. They went through the holes a lot more smoothly than before- not as much hesitation- I think the sanding job widened the opening a bit. But still they got hurt. When all was done and the kuhlis lay around hanging off of green crypt stems and lounging under the subwasser baskets with full tummies, I saw that the two biggest ones (Sluggy and Curly) definitely have new scratches. Must be the trap. I may have to go back to feeding them under a rock. It sure looked more difficult for them, and was entertaining to watch! but not foolproof (sometimes the barbs got the food anyway). However they never sustained scratches from digging under the rock.

Other notes: looks like the lysimachia in the back planting bed is dying. Of the newer plants I have lost completely one heartleaf brunnera plant, and half of the astilbes. Lupine and larkspur are dead. But these ones are fine: heucherella, columbine, bee balm, argyranthemum (although it looks funny, lower foliage has died off leaving tufts of green on the terminal ends of stems). I will have to get a picture of that. The young echinacea I put in this spring are doing great- they're not big yet, but they seem fine through all the heat. To my surprise gerbera daisy plant is steadily growing, while the dahlia remains small, stunted looking- that plant has not impressed me at all. Well, this list definitely tells me what I will be adding to the garden next spring- more of those that made it (I'm glad that bee balm is one of them. A bit disappointed that lupine is not). I just don't want landscaping plants that have to be pampered.

One last note: when I was setting out beer traps, I noticed a big difference in the soil. In the garden where I've built it up continually with my best compost and worm castings plus shredded cardboard, leaf mulch and grass clippings, the soil was nice and loose, dark and soft and full of gleaming healthy-looking worms that moved away from me pretty quickly! I could dig into it easily with my hands. Lovely soil. Makes me hopeful for a better garden next year, if I can pay attention and get on top of bug control earlier. Soil around the salvia in the landscaping bed was very different. Dry, compact, paler in color. I admit I don't give them nearly as much attention. That area gets leaf mulch and compost only twice a year- or when I think of it and have extra after feeding the garden. Only new plants get the rich worm castings when they first get planted. I'm really tough (or stingy) on that set of plants!

This post really got all over the place. I don't usually write one up about so many subjects at once- and without pictures. But it was all on my mind this morning.

yard plants

There is so much going on in the garden now, I can hardly keep up with it (in terms of updating the blog!)

My bee balm (monarda) is blooming-

it's easily the tallest plant in the back bed (full pic of here, hit with the sun)- bee balm is just behind the tree trunk.

Another plant I want to divide and spread or get more of next year.

I see it attracting bees and other insects already.

Lots of cosmos are blooming- these in the garden bed

and the nicest foliage on the three largest I put in a pot on the deck.

I've been regularly cutting the flowers to put in a little vase with daisies. The daisies last a lot longer than the cosmos, which fade and drop petals after a few days.

I pulled up that tallest daisy-like plant that was growing in the back bed. It made a cluster of small flowers on top. Yes, they look like daisy family but a weedy one. (This is a bouquet my youngest gathered for her room).

My red daylilies are flowering!

and the other lily (still can't remember its name) coming up nearby.

Gladiola foliage is getting taller- I might have to stake these.

My coleus in the front aren't doing too well- and one of them has simply disappeared.

The area they're in has some celosia as well- these are growing faster,

although I had to put plastic cloches over some during a downpour (they were under the eaves of the house where water sheets off) and stones ringed around them to hold in place. I had almost forgotten I'd sown some celosia seed directly into the ground around the stump, and now those are coming up too!

New hostas are doing well-

this is the blue one I transplanted to a different area in early spring. But the biggest, yellow-green ones are suffering from too much sun now that the neighbor's trees are gone. I think I will have to dig up and move them to a shadier area come fall.

The salvia I moved to a spot under a side tree have grown a lot, but I think their spot gets too much sun as well.

Joe pye weed 'chocolate'

and turtlehead also doing great (I really like the joe pye) but my husband thinks these look like glorified weeds and I have to keep reminding him not to pull them up. I might have to move them as well, into a less noticeable part of the yard!

Rose looks healthier now that we've picked off most of the caterpillars-

but the stems continually bend over. This is looking down on the plant. I think it gets leggy reaching for more light. Another plant I'm going to try and move in the fall.

Dahlias are blooming too! But I'm surprised how short the plants are. Maybe they will get taller as the season goes on.

This is that blue-green (not so much anymore) weed plant I put into pots. It's finally making buds so maybe a flower will help me identify it (and then if it's an undesirable I will toss it before it makes seed). It's foliage kind of reminds me of parsley now.

Here's another unknown- I think it's virginia creeper. I also think a lot of people try to eradicate this plant from their yards? but in this case both C. and I find it rather attractive, so for the time being I let it stay against the fence. When the runners sneak out into the lawn I pull those up.

And last of all- I'll save more plant pics for next post- are the coleus on the deck. Last year at this time the potted coleus was twice as big, but I shaded it under the tomato plants this time. It wilted fast for lack of water in the hottest days before; I'm trying to avoid that.

My funky coleus also went from an indoor pot-

to a larger, outside one. It's grown a lot.

I found the label, so now I know its name- 'kiwi fern'. How cool is that?

Here it is next to the nicest cosmos. It's twice as big now, since I took that picture.

You might think from all these pictures that my yard is full of flowers, but really it's not. They're all spread out and one of my main goals for next year is to divide what I can to add more plant mass and fill in the gaps...