Same Plant in Sun & Shade

The Northern Sea Oats (Casmanthium latifolium)
growing in sun &

a much looser plant in shade

It is a somewhat love/hate relationship with this plant.

You can see  the large seed heads & witness the baby plants under the main one

In the right place, a charming colony providing plenty of material for indoor arrangements.

In the wrong place, an annoying nuisance constantly having to weed out the seedlings.

One solution is to cut off the seed heads before they mature 

Sunshine in the Rain

Even though it seems to have been raining for a month
Yellow is like sunshine in the garden

The tall yellow flowers are
Rudbeckia laciniata 'Herbstsonne'

These 6ft tall American natives cultivated by Europeans are better behaved in the garden  than the species which can run around out of control. 
Not that there's anything wrong with that , in my book, if you have the room! 
'Herbstsonne' or Autumn Sun make nice neat clumps which are easily divided for sharing or the Pitt County Arboretum plant sale. Nelda, my friend & neighbour from my previous place gave me a start of this years ago. 

Tomatoes

The non stop growing 'Sungold' tomato in the front veggie garden.

Sungold tomato tree

Cherokee Purple on it's own root

Since this is my experiment it is very unscientific. I grafted two Cherokee Purple tomatoes on to Sungold rootstock. Planted the grafted plants a couple of weeks after the "real thing" 

 Pulled off all the very misshapen Cherokee Purple fruit on both grafted and own root plants.
I have no idea of yields. My husband said I should weigh all produce, well that's him but not me.
However, here is some evidence.

Cherokee Purple grafted on to Sungold

Cherokee Purple grafted on to Sungold

All the plants have ghastly  looking lower leaves but seem to grow out of it. Maybe they are adults now

A Froggy Day

Here is a lovely stained glass frog made by my friend Kathy's husband David
It is in the Rosemary by the pond

I noticed a trio of the real thing resting near by.

The Two Sides of David

Phlox paniculata 'David'
tall & looking beautiful this morning

Pink & Orange

An unlikely color combination is validated in nature by the coneflowers.
In the circle the magenta garden phlox 
& the orange flowers of blackberry lily continue the theme 

Blackberry Lily (Belamcanda chinensis)
the seed structures  resemble blackberries
My original seeds came from Monticello
Thomas Jefferson grew these exotic plants

Phlox paniculata
native to the eastern USA has many cultivars
Here with the foliage of Bronze Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
& Echinacea purpurea

Purple & White

The species Gaura lindheimeri & 
Verbena bonariensis
at the curb

I like that these wands of flowers
stick out into the street
hopefully causing drivers to slow down

Gaura flowers are a bit bedraggled by the rain
but my neighbour friend Mary
 calls these fairy flowers.

Dicentra scandens

Here's a plant that really appreciates
 the almost 8 inches of rain we have had in June

Growing on a trellis at the wood shed with Clematis armandii

A delicate looking vine but quite vigorous
when given enough water.
In my garden it usually fades away in summer
but this year it is very happy