vickie, I think I have that perennial you are talking about, malva fastigiata. If I can remember, I will take a picture in the morning and post it. I think the common name is hollyhock malva. It comes in white too.

My yard needs mowing again.......but had company for two days so it will have to wait while I rest up.

Also need to start helping DH do some brush hogging. The weeds, especially thistles, are getting ahead of us. Of course, the neighbors south and west of us let theirs go, so we can't prevent their seeds from drifting over on us. I hate thistles!

I picked pole beans again and dug new potatoes to go with them...tasted really good.

We can use rain again. It is hard to believe after that 5 inches we got, but when that hot sun hits, the moisture disappears.

It's hard to keep up with mowing the yard this year. I have windrows after I mow. Wish there was more grass and less weeds in my lawn. Lots of plantain seed heads waving up above the grass right now.

I thought I was being lazy not keeping the weeds out of my gardens but I've realized that I've actually pulled more weeds than I normally do. It just LOOKS like I'm not pulling any. lol I'm battling centipede grass this year. I think that's what it is. It's really liking all this rain we've had and spreads fast.

I had just a few blooms left on my big bed of Rose Campion but decided to go ahead and dead head it so it won't go to seed. With every pod I cut off, I could hear little seeds raining down. I waited too long. They're sort of like poppies, lots of seeds per flower. I began pulling out stems instead of just cutting off the pods since that was quicker. I'm sure there must've been hundreds of seeds that fell but the rose campion is already so thick in there, I don't know where they could possibly sprout. I may have a trail of gray seedlings next spring going from that bed to my burn pile where I put all the flower stems.

The weather has been WONDERFUL for mid July. The 10 day forecast has lots of eighties and only one day when it's supposed to get up to 90 degrees here. I'd be perfectly happy if we skip the triple digits this year.

The watermelons that I planted late aren't growing very fast. They would likely do better if we had some hot sunny days.