Early signs in the yard seem to indicate that the flowers should be way out of hand this year. Many of the flowers that seemed to die in the middle of the summer (heliopsis and delphinium) have come back and appear to be doing well. There are also a few "newcomers" to the garden that I am going to watch and see if they turn into anything good. By far the biggest, and most pleasant surprise are my Brown-Eyed Susans. Up until the other day, I didn't know there were brown-eyed ones but the occurrence in the garden made me do a little "digging".
The story starts two years ago when a very tall and delicate version of black-eyed susan became a newcomer to the garden. I didn't plant it but knew it was a flower the minute I saw it coming up as I had seen it in a neighbor's yard. I transplanted it toward the front of the yard so it could be seen better and at the end of summer '07, I even harvested seeds in the hopes that I might grow more of them. Well, that never worked. The seeds never took but I still had my "original" plant.
This year, I was pleasantly surprised to see not only had the original plant from '07 had returned but there were also several more (over ten that I counted so far) that came up naturally as well. I grouped a few around the original plant and also planted one near another that took at the front of the yard.
These latter two, I will likely move again as, now that I look at photos from last year, they will grow to almost four feet high and block out a good part of the front garden. I love moving plants so I actually look forward to this. I've always wanted to re-work this area anyway.
The bulbs have produced some nice tulips and dafodils though several of the tulips have been eaten.
Another nice surprise are the seeds that I put in a couple weeks ago. I planted more of the brown-eyed susan seeds (this was before I realized so many had come up naturally) as well as coreopsis, hyssop and liatris spicata (Blazing Star). The Brown-Eyed Susans haven't taken and only a few of the hyssop are popping up. The coreopsis is going crazy (these are my wife's favorite). The biggest surprise is the Blazing Star. I planted it last year and nothing happened.
Below is a picture of the "mother plant". They are very attractive and pretty tough to kill. It will be nice to have more of them but I'll probably have a lot to give away as well.
I am pretty sure this is a keeper. I just hope I can figure out what it is, how to keep it alive for more than a year, or capture some seeds. Any thoughts? 
Another discovery while I was photographing the lilac in the garden was this. Anyone know what it is? It has these small yellowish football shaped flowers and looks pretty cool. I'd love to get it to propagate if I could but this is the only one I have right now.
The second one better end up being a flower. I just spent an hour painstakingly weeding around it so that it can grow higher and maybe bloom as a bunch. It's the stuff in the middle of the pic below. It has a stem and leaves similar to the phlox or even the dianthus (that I just learned about this week as well). I just can't tell. Any thoughts out there?
Maybe I'm just going to have to be more patient with this stuff but it's kind of hard to tend the garden not knowing. One thing we don't have to wait for is the clematis. It is in full bloom and looks great. The second one should be blooming by this weekend. 