Late Summer in the Garden

 By late summer most of my plants have finished blooming. We did plant a few new varieties in July that were still blooming in August. 

These lovely deep purple rose of sharon. 

And two new hydrangea plants-- they are this lovely white blossom that slowly turns pink as summer ends and fall approaches. 

 

And, of course, my endless summer hydrangeas are still going strong. Each week the blue gets a bit darker and more purple with hints of burgundy too. 

The white variety started showing its pink last week and I just love them!  

I have yet a third variety of hydrangea; it too is mostly white all summer but starts turning more pink and even rust looking by late summer. 

I was surprised to see my variety of roses still blooming here and there. I have the odd appearance of a day lily now and then too this year but I didn't get any photos of them. 

 

In just a week or two it's crazy to see the difference with the endless summer hydrangeas. I think it's neat that they are still producing new blooms when the older ones are such a deep purple 

 

 

Alec's vegetable garden has been going strong. He planted a few varieties of marigolds too and they seem to love the soil and lighting as they have exploded into color. So much so they choked out a few other things he had planted. 

 

the purple and white flowers you can see in the back of the garden died when the marigolds took over

 

 

We enjoyed potatoes fresh from his garden at the end of July along with some onions/chives, and parsley.

 

I don't typically like marigolds but I have been fascinated by these varieties he's planted.  

 

 

His one surviving tomato plant has exploded out of the garden and has SO many tomatoes all over it. I pick about a dozen each day.. sadly they only turned red a day or two before he left for college so he only got to eat one or two of them. But the rest of us are enjoying the fruits of his labor.  

Later in the season he sprinkled in some bean/pea seeds that are taking off and have wrapped themselves around the marigolds.

He also planted some sage, purple basil, peppers, and the parsley is still going strong too. 

pepper seeds he just tossed in are starting to grow; we'll see if they have enough time to produce before fall

purple basil

one of a couple bunches of parsley