Is anyone else making diagrams and plant/seed wish lists yet? With temperatures in the teens the last couple mornings, I've been daydreaming a lot about my garden. Luckily it's seed catalog time! They are tempting pieces of eye candy. Actually more than tempting. Downright convincing. After deciding that my garden is greatly lacking in one of the most important elements, fragrance, I starting flipping through them.
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I have decided to add the following fragrant annuals:
1. Old Fashioned Vining Petunia - Evening fragrance.
2. Sweet Alyssum - I think I have a packet of Carpet of Snow that I never used. Nice for edging and filler around other plants.
3. Nicotiana sylvestris - Fragrant in the evening. Large! Planting near porch to enjoy the fragrance at night. Hoping to entice some beautiful moths as well!
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There are so many plants to choose from. It was almost impossible to finally decide on just these three. My perennials, veggies, fruits, and shrubs take up most of my gardens, but I do have certain areas I try to keep open for annuals. I think these three fragrant annuals will help to fill out those areas quite nicely. I've never grown these before, so experimenting with them will be a lot of fun.

American Holly

Final Harvests

Most likely the last of the bell peppers and almost the last of the jalapenos. There are a few more out there about half way grown. If frost keeps holding out, they still have a chance.The final container potatoes of the season.The Caroline Raspberries are just putting out another large flush of berries. Some should be ripening tomorrow. There are tons on the plants, but I'm not sure if they'll have enough time to ripen. I think October 15th is pretty close to our average first frost date around here, so they are really pushing it. It'll be nice to get one more sweet treat from the garden before the real cold sets in.

I just walked past the window a few moments ago and saw another hummingbird. I don't recall ever seeing one this late in the season before. It was a wonderful, morning treat. Oh, and today is the day! GARLIC PLANTING! Or as I would like to think of it, getting a jump on next season. Time to enjoy some cool Fall air and get my hands dirty.

Harvested the last two potato containers. The potatoes that never died. I planted them back in March or April, and they just kept of going. I think I put 2-3 seed potatoes in each 12" container. Between the two containers, we got around 15 good-sized potatoes. Enough for two meals for the family. I'm definitely going back to only growing potatoes in containers next year. They always yield so much more. And the kids love dumping them out. I have to admit, I do too!

Hummingbird! 8:20am! Trying to fuel up on geraniums and bluebeard this morning. I thought I had seen the last of them for the season. Stay warm my friend. It's in the 40s right now. Brr.

I've never seen anything like this before. If you click on the above picture, I believe it will enlarge it. My two Pink Delight butterfly bushes along my backyard were swarming with monarchs. Swarming! There must have been 40 or 50 on just these two bushes. I've never seen so many in one spot before.
Migration is a beautiful thing.

Over the season I complained about this horribly ugly aster. How I need to move it because it's so tall, turns completely brown, and never looks good. Well, once the drought and heat waves finally passed, and the rains kept coming, she put on a ton of new growth. Quite quickly. She's never looked so good. And the best part...I never thought I'd see this. A bit of sunshine on a rainy day.If it's not aphids, it's the milkweed bugs...
The tomatoes are starting to decline. Spots. Dying leaves. Cracking fruit from all the rain. Starting to look pretty sad. A sure sign that the season is coming to an end.
Just outside of the above picture, to the right, is my Stupice tomato. It has easily produced the most tomatoes this summer, and is by far the worst off. Time to get pulled.
The Pink Delight butterfly bush and Fireworks goldenrod are blooming like crazy in all this rain, but it has left them bent over.
The Oklahoma red zinnia are really laying low, but the Caroline raspberries are loving the huge amounts of rain we have been getting over the last few weeks.

Yeah. I just got back from my local Lowe's and they had Acapulco Orange and Acapulco Purple agastache on sale. $3.33 each. I purchased my Acapulco Salmon and Pink a few seasons ago at almost $8 or $9 for just one plant from High Country Gardens. I love it and always wished I had more. Now I do!
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Now where to put them....

Today's harvest. Lucky Cross, Stupice (one), and a few Sun Gold tomatoes. Caroline raspberries. Oregon Sugar Pod peas that I forgot were out there. They have full-sized peas in the pods since they were picked passed their prime. I thought the peas would be hard a lack sweetness since they grew so large. The pods were alright, but the peas inside were quite delicious. I have to remember just to plant shelling peas in the future. We just seem to enjoy them more. Oh, and the brown clumps in the bowl are dried zinnia heads. I am saving some of the seed from my Oklahoma red for next season. These are blooming machines with NO mildew. Tropical Milkweed is again releasing seeds. I saved a few for next season.
Graham Thomas rose. It's been a bad year for roses so far. Only a few blooms in the beginning of the season. Then long periods of drought hit. Then flooding rains. Now that the weather has moderated, all the roses are putting out new buds and flowers are starting to finally starting to open.
Perhaps a week or so before Irene's rains hit, I cut back my blackberries to about 4 feet tall so the laterals would put on more growth. I tossed the prunings into a heap and went inside. An hour or so later I thought, "what a waste". I went out and cut the branches into 8 inch sections. Removed the lower sets of leaves, and tossed them into this container full of used potato soil....from my potato containers. It's been a few weeks and it looks like some of them are hanging on despite flooding rains and neglect. Others, on the left, haven't faired so well.
I had some left over green coated tension wire, so I finally gave my Major Wheeler honeysuckle a place to climb. It was rambling through my azaleas and on the ground. I really want it to travel up along my light post. The green color is barely noticeable from a short distance, so I think the honeysuckle will look quite nice blooming there next season.
Happy Gardening!