Tour: on the left

So here you can see what I call "the peony bed" and a bit of the bionic bed, along the left of the grass looking from the house. The big stuff is Joe Pye weed, which was a small little two foot plant last year, and grew fence-high this year. I'm happy about that, although I'm a little bit concerned about a Joe Pye invasion. Also growing tall on that side this year was coneflowers (peaked in late July, got scorched-looking in August), and a plant we picked up in Maine in 2006, Liatris (also a July peaker). And then I planted some other stuff that didn't turn out as well...

Some Phlox went in late July, past its prime, and some other stuff too. The biggest challenge on this side of the garden is that there is all that big tall stuff, and although there is some stuff lower down, it tends to get lost in the melee.

Like this guy. A favorite. A bit overshadowed by the puffy yellow balls of his cousin, that I planted behind him (I had just cut them back when this pic was shot, Maybe coreopsis? Or Gallardia maybe)? I gotta find the tag. Not sure. I loved him. Also tucked in there is a hydrangea that was in the store's window, and which I took home to plant and hope for the best. It looks to be surviving ok.

The amaranth was one of the things that took off in the garden. I planted these from seeds. It took a while for them to grow tall, but they're all over, providing nice bright red plants. I have to say, maybe a bit overkill this year, but they did do well without much attention, that's for sure. If I do it again, the message is thin those buggers out! They do much better when not competing against each other.

And here is the "Peony bed", although the peonies aren't that visible. You can see a couple things that just did really great this year, and some stuff that did nothing. First, the good. There's those little white flowers. They're Alyssum, planted from seed. They had a really unpromising start, and really only took off in August. Also in the cement block is Lantana. That was the winner of the year. It just spread out all over those blocks, and bloomed and bloomed and bloomed with no care. Next to the Lantana, also in the cement block, I planted Celosia, some of which did well, others which just got soggy and died. Sun seemed to be a factor -- it likes it. And there were those weird little red flowers, also good for color. Not sure what those were called -- I lost the tag for those. But more on the cement block stuff later ...

What didn't do so well were the Stokes aster (stokesia laevis ‘peachies pick’) , they went in on July 21 and never looked happy. Not sure if I was supposed to dead head or what. Next to them is the Anenome. It was planted July 16, and was doing fine, then just as it looked like it was going to bloom started to really fade. Why? What did I do wrong! Another failed experiment was the borage. It came up everywhere, but just kind of snaked around in a kind of pain in the ass way. Really big stems. Ho hum.