We've cut back, trimmed and hauled out of the garden soil some of the plants that have enjoyed their time in the sun. We've had a real deficit of rain this summer and it has had its impact. Area farmers in the Ottawa Valley and beyond are seeing the results of lack of irrigation on their crops. And we're seeing a far less problematical environmental stress in our gardens. We're able to water our garden containers and pots with the use of watering pails, but are being asked to conserve water, so lawn watering isn't a great idea.

We decided to winnow out even more of the sunflowers; they're thirsty since their size alone make them more aggressive than other, more modest-sized garden plants. They've more or less had their glory days in any event. We have left a few of the larger of the sunflowers in place so the goldfinches who visit daily won't be disappointed. But freeing up the beds and borders from their presence gives other plants more of a chance.

And it certainly looks a lot more orderly and visually pleasing now that they've outgrown themselves to return the garden to its usual more aesthetically overall pleasing presentation. Now, we can actually see the other plants, they're no longer hidden behind the pushy foliage of the sunflowers.

It was time to yank the poppies, and in the process harvest their seedheads and sprinkle them back into the garden where they will be glad to reappear come spring. These are the annual California type poppies, we have no need to worry about the perennials that just require cutting back after flowering, with the assurance that they'll return for next summer's bloom period.

Shasta daisies were cut back and in their place Black-eyed Susans in abundance have appeared, and the bee's balm has replaced the previous flowering crop of mountain bluet. Coreopsis and Echinacea are brightening the late summer gardens, and we've nothing, as usual, to complain of considering the presence of the garden urns resplendent still with ipomea, begonias, petunias, geraniums, lobelia, and so much else, gladdening our eyes with the vision of their fresh loveliness.

We had a plenitude of rain this week, three full days of unrelenting rainfall, for quite an accumulation and that should give fresh spark to the gardens, let alone agricultural fields. The woodland ravine next to our street has been delighted to welcome the rain, and it has been fairly well absorbed, despite the volume of the rain that came pelting down and how it swelled the creek into a turbulent flow, there are no significant puddles of water sitting around on the forest floor.