Scarecrows and liatris added to Planters

Thanks for your visits the past week.  We have been out of town for 5 days, so that is why you have not heard from me.  I had a couple of posts scheduled.  I hope to get around to visiting everyone soon.

When I removed the hostas from the deck planters, I also removed some liatris (gay feather).  I put a couple in this whiskey barrel on the deck.

They go nicely with the Buddelia (butterfly bush in the background).

I cut off the ugly dahlia leaves from the garage urns this morning.  I was left with a lot of bare stalks, though there are new dahlia leaves coming out near all the spots I cut.  Still I needed something to fill in the bare spot--I went to the basement and brought out some scarecrows to fill in the space.

 This dahlia is way too tall and I plan to cut it shorter as soon as the big bud on top blooms.  It is the only bud I see and I want to know what color dahlia I have in this urn. I can't for the life of me remember.  I also stuck some liatris in this urn. Can you see it?  Here is a close up:

Here is the second urn flanking the garage door:

and the close up of the cute little scarecrow:



I also added a scarecrow to the porch planter.

  The pink Park Princess dahlias in this container  really looked bad, so I cut them all the way down to the soil.  I also had to remove a few Cordayline leaves as a fuzzy worm was eating them.  I picked off and stomped on 5 fuzzy worms crawling on the leaves.

See the sedum Autumn Joy at the bottom of the picture?  It's only the beginning of all the SAJ's I have in this front garden.  Take a look:

There are even more on the opposite side of the driveway.  Can you see the hint of pink? In  a few weeks it will be a mass of pink (and bees!) in this area.