LOVE your pics, Leslie!! That butterfly bush is HUGE (hi, sweet kitty!). :) Mine is just now budding up.

Your mums are so beautiful. Mom has buds on hers, too. Mine are stubborn and will probably wait until fall. REALLY love that orange one, WOW! And I agree - I love how they bloom in that dome shape!

Awww, cute little froggie! With clover (or Oxalis or whatever it's called), I've found most people either love it, or they hate it. I have it growing in different places throughout the yard (didn't plant it, of course) and in several pots. It never seems to interfere with any of my plants, but it's not for the tidy gardner! LOL

Brenda

Thanks Brenda for your sweet complements on my pics:) That clover is all over, it offends me, LOL* It's growing up through the mini roses and the roses bite me to try to pull it out and I can't get the roots and if I do I pull out some of the feeder roots from the roses too. I brought it over from the rental we had in a pot, sure wish I'd left that pot behind, the plant in it died the first summer here.

The mums bloomed last fall and died down and came back this spring, the pumpkin and pink ones, the purple pretty much bloom from spring through to Dec. They may be a different kind but I'm hoping that when I pruned down the other two they'll grow like this purple one does, you think?? What kind of shape do yours grow in? Tall and leggy or rounded?

That Australian Tree Fern was doing really well until we jumped up to 102 also, you can see how the frond browned up. Oh well, each year it gets a little larger.

My Choc Coleus is doing really well in the shade garden too, getting upwards of 2' now and about a foot wide:)

Got any new pics Brenda?

The 2 mums I have - one of which I split, repotted, and gave half to Mom - are both the leggy type, and I have to pinch them back quite a bit throughout the year or else they really flop come autumn. But a marguerite, which I also gave to Mom, as well as some of HER plants, are the rounded kind. They remind me of fantastical gazing balls! LOL

I can't wait to get another Coleus this year! Last year, I bought mine rather late in the year, so I didn't get to enjoy it for very long.

I'll take some pics within the next few days. The weather has been SO wonderful, but the plants are confused; we had that heat and wind and now this cool humidity.

We also had a HUGE tree limb break on May 23rd, and it was dangling over the yard by one piece of bark. If it had come down by itself, MANY of my plants would have been damaged quite a bit. DH and a neighbor finally took it down yesterday, so my plants are ready for their closeups once again! And I (and my kitty!) can now walk safely in the yard without fear of death or dismemberment. LOL

Brenda

You know that didn't occur to me, maybe the purple is a cushion mum and the others are mums:) The pumpkin colored one and the pink one are now taller than the fountain they're beside. Still going to cut them differently next year and see if I can get a different growth out of them. I didn't know they were also a full sun plant. Hmmm.

Look forward to some pics from you.

Sorry it took me so long to post pics! Some of these aren't that great, because I was taking them before the sun was on the plants. The flash doesn't really show the true coloring.

This is an Echinopsis given to me by DH's grandma. This is a bloom stem....not porn. LOL It just keeps growing, and I can't wait to see the bloom on it!

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This is some yarrow I grew from seed, in front of feverfew, as well as another batch of yarrow in the back left. I'm rather disappointed in the color of the yarrow blooms, as I was hoping to get some with other pastel shades to bring some excitement to this area. Ah, well, what can you do? :) I guess some of the seedlings I gave Mom have some color, so all is not lost!

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My Veronica spicata getting ready to bloom. This is only half the plant; the wind put the other half off to the right. :D

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One of my favorite Salvias to date, a patens I got during my last shopping spree! The blooms on this baby are over an inch long! And the blue color is a LOT deeper in person, without flash from a camera to wash it out.

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Tiny blooms from my S. viscosa. They're small, but they're so pretty up close - with dark blotching on the bottom lips - and the bloom stems are pretty tall.

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My little, newly purchased 'Blue Hawaii' Colocasia (taro) sent out this big leaf during the last heat spell. It's patiently waiting for more heat before sending out more. :)

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My Sedum gathering, with assorted succulents, oregano, mint...basically, attention deficit stuff. LOL

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And FINALLY (sorry for all the pics!!), my blue dawn flower finds me worthy of blooms this year. Just starting out, but I hope she cranks out more of them the warmer it gets.

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Thanks for looking!

Brenda