My yard is so quiet now except for the clatter of the cicadas and the tiny twitter of the ruby-throated hummingbirds as they visit my feeders to tank up before their migration south.  The bluebird family visits less and less frequently to indulge in my mealworms, and I noticed today that Mr. and Mrs. BB’s feathers are starting to look a little bedraggled. I hope they’ll be back next year!

On a more cheerful note, some of my late-summer flowers are blooming!  Besides my hoary skullcap, the cardinal flowers (lobelia cardinalis) are a bright crimson, and my blue lobelia (lobelia siphilitica) is very popular with the bumblebees.

The cardinal flowers and blue lobelia are favorites of the bees. Look closely and you might see a bee on the blue lobelia!

Blue lobelia up close.

A new flower I tried this year, nodding onion, has decided to bloom after it sat all summer doing nothing and I had about given up on it!

Nodding onion. It’s hard to get a good picture because it keeps nodding!

The bees are still all over the few remaining blossoms of my joe pye, which is pretty much finished for the year after a hot, dry spell.

Joe pye with bee. This patch was a-buzz all summer!

My pokeberry “tree”. Birds LOVE pokeberries, and I have been nurturing this one all summer. They’re finally starting to ripen.

I’m still waiting, somewhat impatiently, for my three varieties of goldenrod to bloom, but they just aren’t quite there yet.  A few more late-bloomers have yet to put on their show, and I’m really looking forward to seeing them–more later!