More on the garden

This is the time of year when things start really looking scraggly and untended. Lots of things are past their prime, and very few are coming into it. I'm trying, I really am!


For one thing, I did it again with the sunflowers. Last year one of my biggest notes to myself was not to plant sunflowers in different places around the garden. They grow up big and then look totally messy when scattered around. And then of course what do I do? Same thing. Many of them didn't make it (I've got some critter that really has been chomping down on the leaves of many of my plants -- salad I guess), but there are still sunflowers in way too many places. I do like the color of this guy, however.

For the future: cosmos in planters don't work. Just a bit too tall. I didn't thin the ones in the aluminum planter enough, and then it just completely got terrible -- skinny tall scraggly things. Ripped out and replaced with geraniums (really! me! geraniums!) and some little annual on sale with a trailing habit that I don't even remember the name of.




I like the tickseed that I picked up on a whim. Originally, the plan was to use it to fix the problem in the "peony bed" where the mums are out of control scraggly and ugly -- to plant something in front to hide the scraggle. But there's no room in front, and so I decided to use it to add some contrast to the geranium sea. There's still a big hole where the bleeding hearts were to the right. Need to fix that. And the Rudebekia on the left would be great if it was actually growing upright, and the leaves weren't mildewy.


Zinnias are effective color in pots. In the ground they're snaking around and getting eaten by those bugs. But the ones in planters are doing really well. I keep moving them around.

This post has been really random. Maybe next time I can focus on something more specific and/or thematic...