Thanks everyone:) Hi Mary :) As far as Monarda is concerned I just belief M. didyma and most of it's cultivars are most susceptible to infection. Spraying plants with plain ol' water can aid in the prevention of the spores ability to germinate and often kills them, however it's hard to keep up trying to keep the leaves wet and doing so could also lead to other fungal issues that flourish with free moisture...especially at night or in humid climates, ect.; Botrytis, Downy Mildew, ect. Didn't even realize the Hollyhock flower was in that picture! Actually I only had a handful of about 30-40 Hollyhocks that looked worth a damn....the grasshoppers came in droves this year! The earwigs also did a fare share of destruction this year on these and several other plants as well. Today I noticed several earwigs hiding within the Yvonne's Salvia flowers and sunflowers...good grief! Tiffy, I'd be happy to save seeds for the M. fistulosa...this is just the common prairie species native to my home state of North Dakota as well as S. Dakota and Nebraska. I'm pretty sure it's also native to MB, SK, AB and ON. Seeds are ready to harvest in October. Might have to remind me when it's gets to be that time :)) Karen, Sure hope to bite into some tomatoes soon. My mouth waters every time I walk by LOL! I wonder how will I know when the Cherokee Green are ripe? I guess it will be by feel huh? Regarding fungal or bacterial infection of leaves; whatever it is if it's not severe you can remove and properly discard infected leaves....when dry...never wet. I'm sure you are already mulching beneath plants to prevent soil splashing :) Some more Hollyhocks that didn't look too bad. This giant red one had to come down after several days of rain/wind...my hummingbirds weren't too happy 'bout that LOL! It's ok though there's plenty others they visit....can't believe how much them go for the blue and purple larkspur! Here it was on July 8th...a monster ....again on the 14th... close up... Some hollyhocks in front on July 30th...

I love flagstone paths did you have to buy the stone or did you have them kicking around, I put a small one in early last year with the stone that used to edge our goldfish pool, took that out as it was getting a bit too much to look after. When your beds fill in it's going to look lovely. Annette

I still have the crop from last week: Crocus Hellebores Snowdrops Hyacinths with a few additions: Cornus Mas-2 different varieties. This is their first year blooming. Yeah! Forsythia Flowering Quince are just about to open A few daffs That's it at the moment.

Randy, Three batches of baby birds! Cool! Oddly, we haven't had any phoebes this year at all, which is not surprising, I guess, in a year when EVERYTHING has been odd. The rest of the bird population seems fairly normal, although we have more hummingbirds than usual and fewer bluebirds. We have had rufous hummingbirds in addition to the usual ruby-throated ones too. We often see rufous (and black-chinned hummers) during the migration only, but this year, the rufous have stuck around. Like you, we have a huge wasp population as well as tons of ants AND grasshoppers. I think this is the worst grasshopper year in 6 or 8 years. What's missing? No Colorado Potato Beetles (not that I'm complaining), no aphids, and spider mites only on the verbena bonariensis. TONS of brown stinkbugs and green stinkbugs, and they arrived in May instead of July. They're obviously my biggest garden problem. We're raising 17 keats (baby guineas) bought at the feed store to go with our three surviving males from our original batch of 24 almost a decade ago. Since keats generally don't hatch until late May or early June, these are still really small and we had to chase a 7' long snake out of the henhouse last night. Most years we lose all our keats to the darned snakes and I am determined not to let that happen this year. That's the bird and bug report here. Dawn