This spring and coming into summer has been about the perfect weather for a garden.  Lots of sun and afternoon rain.  Now a heat wave and the plants are soaking it up!

The daylilies have sprung to life.  I need to cull some of these because they spread like wildfire!

They actually do really well in the shade.  At least this old-fashioned one does.

My newest plant is the Hot Papaya echinacea.  How cool is this color?

I love it!  There is just the 1 bloom on this, but it is a young plant.  I am obsessed with the ruffed coneflowers.

My oldest friend is back.  I always say how I love certain plants in the garden, but more what I mean is the type of plant it is.  However, I do have a couple of plants which I am very fond of as ‘individuals’.  One is the yellow rose, obviously, as it has meaning outside of the garden.  The other one is this echinacea.

The razzmatazz.  It’s because I have had it for 8 years now.  I actually moved with this plant.  Dug it right out of the ground and carted it from Illinois to NY.

It’s like an old friend and has a personality.  Perennials can last a long time, but not really forever, and every year I check to see if this one will be back for another round.

Cheery galliardas.

One white swan coneflower has opened up.  The rest are getting ready.

You can’t see my garden sign anymore!

All these coneflowers are tall this year.  Almost everything is taller this year than in other years, with the exception of the butterfly bush and my heliopsis clematis – which normally are the huge plants in my garden. Go figure.

The sweet potato vines are doing well.

The actually had a couple of small light purple blooms on them, which was cool.  I didn’t know they flowered.  I hope more pop up so I can get a picture of them.

Those stubby plants are some nictotiana silvestris.  I tried growing these from seed last year and failed.  This year I managed to get about 6 to live (at least so far). They needed a lot of babying, which I am not so good about with indoor seedlings.  Hopefully they will grow big and tall like they are supposed to.  Better hurry up!