Here are some of the lovely Cone Flowers, Echinacea spp., blooming in my garden right now. While many plants are literally melting away in the heat, these tough perennials are comign into their own. They show best when it's nice and hot outside...

Echinacea 'Mama Mia'

Echinacea 'Summer Sky'

Echinacea 'Summer Sun'

Echinacea 'Tangerine Dream'

Interestingly, many of these new varieties of cone flower have the most wonderful fragrance, which you don't get in the species or older cultivars. It's always a unexpected surprise to walk by them and get a waft of their sweet scent.

Nature is smart...when you build a garden, wildlife moves in. As I've been adding to my new garden, more little creatures have started to visit me. One thing you'll notice when you start adding more plants to your garden is the presence of dragonflies and damselflies. My yard is always full of them mid-morning...I'll look to the left and to the right, to my neighbors yards...no dragonflies. My yard...full of them. It's so fun to watch. Butterflies and bees have discovered the Echinacea, basil flowers, salvias and more. Hummingbirds are enjoying the Tecoma stans. And of course, the squirrels are enjoying the tomatoes and the birds feast on the strawberries. Look, you just gotta share, lol.

Last night I saw my first exciting nocturnal visitor...a bat! He/she few right over my head in the driveway at about 9pm. It looked like it could have been a Pallid bat, but no way to know for sure. Yay bats!

Pallid Bat, Photo courtesy NPS

I'll be posting a series of photos of plants that are beating the heat in my summer garden. With the hottest June on record just past and no end in sight for the 103+ temps it's good to know which plants can take the heat and still look beautiful in the garden.

Here is a lovely Pride of Barbados, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, I keep in a large container on the front porch. It gets scalding hot Western sun in the afternoon. But it's beautiful!

Still harvesting off my spring planted 'Sapho' plants...

Pulled these beauties off one plant today. Even though they are still producing a small amount of new fruit, I decided to go ahead and pull out the plants and put the new plants in for fall harvest. Even if the plants still look ok through summer, I find that I never get a really good harvest in the fall off of spring-planted tomatoes. Best to go ahead and plant new ones. If you have your fall transplants, get them in the ground ASAP!

Summer Tomato Planting Tip:  The brutal heat and sun this time of year can scortch new tomato transplants. It helps to cover new transplants with some shade cloth or frost cloth (row cover) for a few days until plants get acclimated. You'll also need to water daily until plants root and start to grow.

Ok..are these babies cute are what??? Here they are about a week old...

Little Cochin...hopefully a Blue, but probably a Black

Little Polish...White Crested Black, or may end up Speckled

Little Polish #2...Looks like she will be a Silver/Blue! (yay)

Up in Columbus Ohio for a few days for OFA. I'll be hunting down all the coolest new plant varieties for next year or year after. Will also look for any other fun new products. Pictures to come!

If you live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area this is your LAST WEEKEND to get fall tomatoes in the ground. Best to get it done by the 15th. North Haven Gardens has a great selection of Heirlooms and Hybrids in stock right now. It's also still a good time to plant transplants of eggplant, peppers and okra; Plant seeds direct in the garden for winter squash, cantaloupe, watermelon, Southern peas, small pumpkins and okra. It might be hot, but it's always time to plant something in the veggie garden!

Summer Tomato Planting Tip:  The brutal heat and sun this time of year can scortch new tomato transplants. It helps to cover new transplants with some shade cloth or frost cloth (row cover) for a few days until plants get acclimated. You'll also need to water daily until plants root and start to grow.

Soooo...I got a call from the post office this morning that I had baby chicks waiting for me. WHAT??? This was a back order from 6 months ago that I'd cancelled a while back. For whatever reason, they shipped the chicks anyway. Yikes!! Well, what do you do...you can't ship them back...So, I ran back at lunch to pick them up and then set up a new brooder for them right quick.

I'll be raising these three little babies for a while. Two are Polish hens and I'm not sure what the other one is just yet (Just figured out it's probably a Cochin, either blue or black...which I MUST have! lol). I really only have room for one more chicken...two more would be pushing it. But, it's going to be really hard not to get attached to these little munchkins. So, I may have a couple of specialty breeds that will need a new home in a bit...I'll keep you posted!