It’s later in the season now and it was time for a hair cut in the front. My cosmos were out of control. There were as tall as the lily and blocking the view of it. So, I lopped them down about half on both sides of the house.

Now the lily stands out.  Normally I don’t bring cut flowers inside because I like to enjoy them outside, but I harvested flowers from the cosmos that I cut and made a bouquet.

Speaking of the lily – up close and personal.

This is an heirloom type lily and I bought 10 bulbs of white ones to mix in for planting this fall. Already thinking about next year – eek!

The Othello rose has a couple blooms on it.

It’s so pretty, but jeez these blooms are really fleeting. Like a day before they start wilting.

The mums are going to put on a good show this fall. These are 2 of those $1.99 mum pots from the box store that I stuck in the ground.

You just never know what is going to take.  I would have planned the placement a little more carefully had I known they were going to make it through the winter. That is my baby Black Eyed Susan in the back.

At our old house, these were like weeds. Here I can’t seem to get them past one year. Maybe this plant will be different.

Front hydrangea shrub:

All the blooms are at the bottom of the shrub for some reason. They are heavy, too, so the branches get pulled down. I’m still waiting for these to turn pink.

I found one of the culprits that is chewing up my climbing roses:

See that little curled up worm? And if you look closely, you will see a tiny second one. Look at the damage. I don’t like to spray, so I’ve been picking these off as I find them. I have a Garden Safe spray that I will sometimes use on the foliage, but not the flowers.  I may use that here since I have found about 8 worms. Ick.

Now that I have had a full garden season here, I’m deciding which plants I want to move around.  I have decided that the Calycanthus is a little too free flowing for my front gardens:

I could probably prune it to shape, but I like to let most things grow as they will. So this will get moved to the back where I have the button bush and that will come up here.  Aren’t the blooms pretty, though?

It’s been popping out blooms all summer.

Remember how I thought we were growing pumpkins? Now that the fruit is getting larger, it turns out to be a gourd!

John tossed the gourds and the pumpkins out in this bed. There will be a fair number of these, too, if the squirrels don’t get them. How fun!  Kind of wished they were pumpkins for carving, though.

On to the back yard!

We are enjoying the water feature (aka Radiance Falls) very much.

It’s so soothing to hear the water flowing.  Now I want more water features 😀

The butterfly bush finally has blooms on it.

However, it’s really spindly. I think it might need a bit more sun, so I am going to move it a couple feet forward in the garden bed.

Those cardinal flowers I showed the other day? Here is how tall they are:

I guess I didn’t realize they were going to be that tall as the other ones I have are half that size.

Last spring I completely whacked down the hydrangea in the back and it loved that hair cut.

It went from not a green thing on it to this since the spring.  I’m going to try to keep this tree form. This is the border where our garden meets the neighbor’s.

My “giant lavender gem” zinnia:

Lame. No more Ferry Morris seeds. Of course, I know come winter that I will get suckered into getting some kind of seed…

This is a wishbone flower:

It’s an annual and pretty much cleans itself up, like impatiens.  It blooms all summer and is neat and tidy. It’s in a container, which you can’t see.

I’ll be spending some time this weekend deciding which plant I’m going to move where so I’ll be ready in the fall. It’s going to be a muggy weekend here and the weather is up in the air, so not sure how much biking will happen.  Have a great weekend!