Now You See the Black-eyed Susans, Now You Don't

I took a few pictures from my bedroom window early this morning before I went out to begin my fall clean up. Since I spent a lot of time early this summer removing tons of Black-eyed Susans, I wanted to remove the few that remained up front before they seeded all over the place.

I removed 5 wheelbarrow loads of them plus daylily foliage and some phlox.

Here is the area next to the main arbor after removal. You can see the green foliage up front, but the flowers are all gone.

Here is another view after I removed the Black-eyed Susans from the front of the border. I think it looks so much nicer without them. I like them in the back of this garden, but not so much up front.

Earlier this year I moved a bunch of colchium (sometimes called fall crocus) to this area under the smaller arbor. Their bloom has been quite disappointing. They were much nicer back in the rockwall garden--much larger. . . this year some insect has been eating the flower before it even opened. I will leave them one more year to see if they improve.

I am happy that my Mandevilla vine is still blooming. It has climbed all the way to the center top of this arbor! I really hope I can save it for next year!

I have a few very astute readers (especially you, Dianne! :) ) who may wonder what happened to the black-stemmed Elephant Ears that I had next to this arbor. I removed it today because it was really going downhill because of the cold nights. I cut it way back and put it on the deck where it is shielded from the harsh nighttime temperatures.
I will be storing it in the crawl space this winter, but it is a bit too early to put it there.

Tomorrow I will show you the last bloomers that are just beginning in my garden.