Happy Friday!  Lots of stuff to report on this week. We were gone for 5 days and when we pulled into the driveway Tuesday night, I was surprised at how much the garden “plumped” up while we were away. It’s been a somewhat wet summer and that really is making things go crazy. Including weeds.

I had overwintered my passion flower indoors and brought it back outside earlier in the summer. It doesn’t seem quite as nice as last year and the blooms are different colored this year:

There was a white ring in the flowers last year. This is the only bloom on the plant so far.

Balloon flowers needing deadheading:

I should have taken a picture after I cleaned them up because they look nice LOL. The white ones are finally showing up:

In thinking about it, I think I have been calling them white even though they really are pink.

I don’t know if these are spreading or just getting bigger. There were originally 3 plants for all that growth above.

I love letting self-seeding plants grow and will then move them somewhere else. I was taking care of what I thought was a cardinal flower, but it’s this:

Not cardinal flower. I don’t know what it is and  just pulled it up. Sometimes I end up cultivating weeds 😀

Here is one of my shrubs that is in year three and leaping:

It’s a hydrangea called strawberry sundae or shortcake. Something like that anyway. The flowers are supposed to turn pink as they mature.

I have another hydrangea that is in its second year. It was a tiny little stem last year and I was pretty surprised to see some blooms on it this year:

It’s called Annabelle. This is about 4 times the size it was last year at this time. It will end up around 5 feet tall when it is fully grown. The flowers are huge and it has sturdy stems so they aren’t supposed to flop over in the rain. We’ll see.

Liatris plus garden ornament:

In front of the liatris are the agastache, which filled out a lot in the last week:

That black thing is a solar spot light. It works great, I have to say. It will pretty much last to dawn if it gets good sun.

On the other side of that light are my mini penstemon:

:

And of course another shot of the happy Cheyenne Spirit!

There are daylilies all over the place on the sides and back of the house:

One little foxglove sent out some flowers:

The Lysmichia are still standing at attention:

The bee balm popped open while we were gone:

This plant is a good 4+ feet tall. I saw a hummingbird flitting around it the last couple of days, too. Yay!!

Unfortunately, it is getting some powdery mildew on it. I started a daily organic neem oil spray on this and my peonies and hopefully that will stop it from spreading.

It’s like a mop head. Then the flowers will start to lose the petals in the middle and look like a monk 😀

If you crush the leaves of this plant, it smells like oregano.

Still more flowers to come that are getting ready to open!

This weekend we should be getting in a cupcake ride. Finally, jeez! Hope you all have a great weekend!