It is Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day and although it has been a very hot and dry summer Thomas Affleck is never bothered very much. He is into his second bloom season and doing very well. Some roses are sending out a few blossoms, but they  dry up rapidly.

The Coral Drift  rose is making a midsummer comeback but Paprika is not.

Fire Light is one of my  three  hydrangeas which include Lime Light and Angel Blush. Fire Light and Lime Light do not  get their  colors until late in  the season, but they are beautiful and pollinator attracting as  soon as they bloom. You can also see that a red Knock Out and  (if you look really hard) a fading  Zaide rose, and a blooming honeysuckle vine in this spot.

It has not been a good year for the daylilies but the black-eyed Susans have not minded the head. Neither have the pink anemones, ‘Robutissima’ which have just started to bloom on the left.

This Joe Pye weed grows on one side of my garden. On  the other side of the garden is a Joe Pye weed with variegated foliage. Both of them attract bees and other insects.

Because our garden was on a Garden Tour this summer I bought a couple of trays of  white Wave petunias in the spring. I planted most of them in 6 pots, and put three petunia pots at each end of the hugel wall. Then  I had two little petunia plants left over and stuck them on the bank of the hugel. The potted petunias did really well. I watered them daily and occasionally gave them a liquid fertilizer. The other petunias grew slowly in the soil. But about a week ago the potted petunias really started to fail, while the petunias in the hugel bed are doing great. Does that show the value of good soil? Or does it mean I didn’t take good enough  care of my potted plants? Sigh.

I love lobelia. I never grew lobelia before we moved to Greenfield. Now it is one of my favorite flowers. It does spread and I will have two or three to  give away  this fall. Needless to say, this is another pollinator plant.

Here are some of the Zinnias in my so-called Cutting Bed. There are some Cosmos as well. My garden is really buzzing at this time of the year.

We added this Swamp Hibiscus moscheutos this spring. Even though it has been dryer than usual, it has thrived in a barely damp spot and produced several blossoms. It sits next to a tall elderberry bush – and will grow quite tall itself. Needless to say, it attracts pollinators, too.

I thank Carol over at May Dreams Gardens for creating Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.  All of us garden bloggers have been able to share our garden  across our great land, but in foreign countries as well.