If you live in Oklahoma or anywhere surrounding, it's time to deadhead the roses one last time.  I like to think of it as their final haircut before season's end.  I trimmed the lovely 'Sophy's Rose' yesterday, and, like a minor miracle, she has already unfurled new rusty-red foliage. It's approximately two months before the first freeze, so if you do this little chore now, you'll have another month of bright blooms.  Even if the roses have begun making hips, you can still cut these off, and it won't hurt the plant.  The same holds true for other shrubs too like spirea (especially if you got overzealous with the torch while eliminating Bermuda grass from the gravel paths). Don't wait much longer, or you will damage these doyennes of the mixed herbaceous border, because, come frost, they will retain the tender foliage of youth.  Instead, after another blooming month, let...

They drape over walls and into pathways softening hard surfaces and rectangular beds and borders while drawing the eye of the viewer downward to where they often live. Their small leaves and bright stems mingle with other perennials like broad-leaved hostas, providing change in texture and form. They cover the unsightly bare legs of heat stressed shrubs like roses and nandinas. With their tiny blossoms, they charm as they wind through taller perennials. They provide a backdrop of infinitesimal beauty. How often though do you think about them?  Consider the lilies you may, but what about the "little ones?"  They are working hard to garner your attention.

My contribution for Gardening Gone Wild's August photo contest is above.  David Perry, who is the judge this month, told us to get down on our knees while shooting.  For the past two years, David has been a huge influence on my photography.  I regularly read his blog, and I consider him a good friend.  He is a generous teacher, and I want to share one paragraph he wrote about this month's assignment: "Watch any great preschool teacher and you will see someone who spends much of the day on her/his knees. Kids don’t respond well to adults that tower over them and talk down to them. They respond to grown-ups who are willing to come down to their level, meet them eye-to-eye. And strangely enough, the world down there at kid level looks vastly different from the grown-up world above. You want to understand kids and get along with them, you...

Dear Carol, Mary Ann and all of our gardening friends, I know we normally do our letters on Sunday, but tonight is my first chance to write.  I have the Back-to-School Blues which are composed of meetings, supply runs and uniform shopping.  Bear starts back on Wednesday, and the other two returned to school last week.   Hard to believe I have a junior, a freshman and a 5th grader (who is smarter than me, by the way). We have tomatoes!!!  With the lower temperatures in the 90s, the tomato blossoms have turned into lots of little green tomatoes.  There should be enough time left for them to ripen.  We had three inches of rain last week, and it is supposed to rain tonight.  I will need to watch for blossom end rot, which happens when water is inconsistent. Today's harvest was two small eggplants, five green beans from the pole...