you have to realize the plant grew over the top of its cage, all the way back down to the ground and is starting up again! It's got to be at least 7 feet tall. Yes, it's producing commensurate amounts of tomatoes, too. They're delicious, but way more than we can eat. All this from the tiny, yellowish, bedraggled little plant the roofer told Joe we might want to replace back in June. Remember June? Cool, wet? Then July - so blasted hot, but still pretty wet. That's when it took off, although we didn't get much in the way of tomatoes until very late in August. We kept it covered through Thursday morning's frost, and it's still got tons of green tomatoes on it. Not going to fry them up, though - too tiny for all that work.
I'm happy to report the new rose loves its new home. It's growing just like the old one did, with one huge branch sticking out from the rest of the bush. It's getting lots of blooms, too. Joe and I agree
I didn't need to buy quite so many wave petunias, but who knew they'd grow quite so fast? They didn't go in the ground until after July 4... I have 3 wiegela bushes there - really I do! I keep pulling the petunias off of them so they still get some light and air. That won't be a problem once they get bigger, but for now it's an issue. But I really like the color, so will plant more next year - but probably not quite so many.
The garden changes its look so over the course of the growing season. Now the purples and yellows dominate, especially the Russian Sage and Black-Eyed Susans. I have just a few too many of the latter... A dear friend we lost about a year and a half ago shared one of his with me. It's a bit different than most, as it has many tiny flowers on each stem, instead of one big 
one. To call it self-seeding would be an understatement. I've been pulling the things out of every nook of the garden all year. I don't really mind - they pull up easily, unlike that horrible ground cover - but I let a few too many of them go this year and they've all but taken over! In prior years, they've topped out at around 3 feet. This year, one is nearly as tall as I am! It grew behind some gayfeather, and I left it, thinking it would be nice when the gayfeather was done. Well, it certainly blooms well, but it's so big it blocks the path to the back side of the garden. And it's a bee magnet - usually something to cheer about these days - but it attracts so many, that, together with the Autumn Joy Sedum next to it, I'm in fear of being stung every time I shove my way through! It's going to have to go next year. I may move it out front, where I have room to let it grow, but it just can't stay where it is. I think I'll get rid of my goldenrod out front and replace it with this. Should be a much better fit than the goldenrod. Have a few other things to shuffle around, too. It's never done! One great thing I've noticed this year comes from my putting in more perennials in the last few years - I don't have to do nearly as much weeding. Hooray! To say the year's been sufficiently wet until recently would be an understatement. Other than the new perennials and the annuals, I didn't water this garden AT ALL until two weeks ago. We never even put the soaker hoses down. I only remember one other summer as wet as this one, and we didn't have much in the way of gardens then. Of course, the last month has been as ry as June was wet, so we're watering now so we store up good moisture for winter. Yup, there it is, that dreaded word. Man, if anyone deserves a nice long fall, it's us! I still have lots to do and am rapidly running out of time. Can't do much in the evenings anymore as it gets dark so much earlier.
We finally got the patio sealed 2 weeks ago. We hadn't had the right combination of dry weather, comfortable temps and time before. It wasn't hard to do, although it did take 2 coats. A few days later, I got grass seed down, so it should have a good chance to get going before, well, you know.
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