One of my front flower beds

Most of the spring flowers are finished blooming. Looking at this photo, I see my columbines, everlasting pea, aubrieta deltoids, forget me not, golden basket alyssum, bleeding hearts, snow in summer, iris, and perennial geranium....all finished for this year. There are some flowers that have yet to bloom, like my statice, echinacae, sedum, Globe thistle, hydrangea and Adam's needle (yucca). It is that  time of season when the garden is between blooms. So I picked up some cedar mulch this morning when I went out for groceries, and I have added it to my front flower beds to add interest. The bright dots of fuscia that you see by the planter (that is not doing as well as I would like) is Rose Campion. It is a prolific self-seeder, but can be kept under control and is a nice hit of colour for this in between stage. 

This plant is some kind of mallow, I believe. It  also spreads quickly by seed but can be very pretty for adding colour during this part of the summer. 

Monarda or bee balm

My Monarda is just beginning to bloom in the side yard. It is pretty but I love the crimson bee balm the best. When my local nursery has a sale on perennials this summer, I will try to buy some crimson. I had it once, but it disappeared over the years. I don't know where I picked up this purply pink colour. I have been trying to prune back my lupines and get some weeds pulled over the past couple of days, but my energy levels have not returned yet. 

I mentioned that I bought groceries this morning. I spent $100.82 and saved $68.00 with discounts, specials, coupons and price matching. One of my best buys was lean pork loin at $1.47 a pound. I sliced up 9 pork chops, two roasts and meat chunks for future stew/casserole/stir-fry.  I bought more frozen Oktoberfest sausage and beef steakettes for only $2 a package, and discounted split chicken breasts. I bought 4 more tins of "Flakes of chicken" and 2 tins of luncheon meat for long term storage in the pantry. With a coupon, I got a FREE box of All-Bran Cranberry clusters cereal. If I had only bought specials and discounts, I would have saved more than I spent; but; there were items on my shopping list that I paid full price for. Someday I may only need to buy the sale items, once I have built up my pantry some more. That is the way it should be. Have a great week-end everyone.