What's Blooming Now?

With just 4 days of Summer left we're blessed with glorious sunshine and a high temperature of 75ºF (23ºC) today. Fall is definitely in the air though, with night and morning temperatures feeling decidedly nippy. We've had some cool days too, with chilly winds, and a bit of rain.

The kids are back at school which means I'm back to subbing.

There's still plenty to do in the gardens. I have some passalongs to plant and 2 new roses we bought on sale yesterday. Apple and her sister brought me some plants from their gardens and we brought a few plants home from our son and DIL's garden this past weekend. Also on my to-do list is moving several plants, and there's still plenty of thinning to do. Oh, and I have some tulips bulbs to plant as well.

We still have some bright patches of color here and there. The containers, window boxes, and hanging baskets are still blooming..........some better than others.

This tall, late blooming Black-eyed Susan is Rudbeckia Triloba. It acts like a weed and I need to be ruthless pulling a lot of the seedlings, plus deadheading the plants as soon as they're finished blooming. However, it gives some very pretty late summer color, and looks great with my bright pink Aster.

I cut this Aster back early in the summer so that it wouldn't grow too tall and gangly. They tend to flop over and spread awkwardly if left alone.

It still gets quite tall and flops a little, but is neater than it would otherwise be. I like the silver Artemesia mixed with these 2 plants. That's another one that needs to be treated ruthlessly or it will take over.

I usually let plenty of these Black-eyed Susans grow on the back side of this garden, in between the Lilac bushes.

I'm loving this Sedum 'Neon' Stonecrop, and so are the bees!

I've admired Sedum in other people's gardens but this is the first year I've tried it in mine.

In the dish garden that our youngest daughter and her boyfriend gave me for my birthday there are 7 different Sedums, all short, except for Sedum 'Matrona'..another Stonecrop.

In this close-up you can see how the bees love it.

This tall pink flowered plant is called Physostegia Virginiana, or Obedient Plant.

Here's a closer view.

I love the pinkish purple color, and its late blooming habit, which gives the garden some welcome color this late in the season.

Mallow (Malva or Lavatera) is related to Hollyhocks, but is much shorter. It self sows liberally.

Snapdragons bloom into Fall, and are always a bright spot in the garden. I love these pink and white blooms.

These are dwarf Snapdragons in the pink garden. They bloomed early and then did nothing for a long time. They just recently began blooming again, finally giving us a nice show.

This Hosta flower has a lovely, sweet scent.

The white Rose of Sharon, planted last year, gave us only a few very small blooms that first year, but it's doing much better this year. The flowers are still not very large, but there are quite a few covering the shrub.

I've really enjoyed the long bloom time that this purple Verbena gives us.

With our family of barn cats, we rarely see squirrels, but I was lucky enough to catch this one with my camera when it visited our front porch. The baskets and containers are continuing to give us some nice color out there. We're still seeing a few juvenile hummingbirds, but sad to say, they'll soon be following their parents south to a warmer climate.

I planted these nasturtiums late, to add a bit of color around the side porch after I'd thinned out some perennials.

The Marigolds were planted with blue Ageratum in between, which worked well last year, but unfortunately they overtook the Ageratum this year and we're missing out on most of the pretty blue.

The roses are giving us a last burst of bloom. This tall pink single rose bush has been very pretty this summer, with more blooms than usual.

I've been very pleased with the Hydrangeas I planted in mid-July. They've grown well and born lots of blooms. The petunias are some that self-seeded from a few of last year's containers, which is why they're still looking good. I transplanted the seedlings into this garden.

Tuberous Begonias are always a favorite of mine.

I haven't mentioned everything that's blooming, but this is a good sampling of what we're enjoying in our late summer gardens.

JoAnne of "My Digital Eyes" has very generously given me this "Inspirational and Excellent Photography" award. Thank you so much for your kind words JoAnne! They're much appreciated.

This little lady is the newest addition to our barn kitty family. She's the fattest kitten I've ever seen! Tink, her mommy, is feeding her well.

We greatly enjoyed the visit with our son, DIL and grandsons this past weekend. I wish we lived closer so that we could see them more often, but we're blessed that they live in the same state, within a reasonable driving distance.

We had fun watching our first grader learning soccer skills on Saturday morning. He seems to really enjoy the game, and did well on the field. His little brother found a tree with some very interesting seed pods on the ground underneath it, and we had fun gathering those.

On Friday evening, shortly after we arrived, my husband surprised me with an EF100-300mm zoom lens for my camera! This man is full of surprises :) Just as he did with the camera, he surreptitiously asked our son to buy it for him. So now I have something new to learn. I'll do it in my spare time :)

Meanwhile, I hope you all have a lovely week.