Every year around this time there comes the day when I look out my front door and mutter, “I hate my garden, I hate my garden.”

My garden on a better day.

One year I had lots of yarrow, pink and red and yellow, but by August it was all past its prime and looked scruffy. My masses of purple larkspur had stopped blooming and the foliage was turning brown. Yes, I could have pulled them, but I wanted some of the seeds to ripen and self-sow for next year, so I had to let them stand. More scruffiness. The Joe Pye weed was fading to the palest salmon-pink, the foliage of lavatera (my favorite annual) was dying in the heat, the roses were still in siesta, and everything just looked so…gray. I need a yard full of gaudy zinnias, I thought. But by this time their foliage would have already succumbed to powdery mildew and would be looking gray as well. August is hard.

Moreover, the volunteer seedlings that had looked like a serendipitous bonanza in June have now grown up and are making it amply clear that they’re in the wrong place and are clamoring to be moved. There are phlox that are inching their way towards magenta pink and they’re blooming alongside the red KnockOut ™ rose. Ouch!

In the past, I would just dig the offenders up and move them, no matter what the temperature or time of day. I recall transplanting astilbes one hot summer afternoon when I just couldn’t bear looking at them, knowing their location was wrong, wrong, wrong. (I wouldn’t do that now, not because I know better—I knew better then—but I’m older and lazier now. Besides, my knees hurt and it’s sometimes hard to kneel.)

So I’m pondering the changes for next year—maybe get a half-dozen pink cannas with big blackish leaves to make a dramatic statement along my front fence. And what about a pair of matching hydrangeas as well? That would add substance.

I’ve already made two important decisions. Those phlox will definitely have to go (on a day when my knees aren’t hurting). And today I got ruthless with a plant that is one of the most amazing species on the planet—Oenothera biennis which—I kid you not—moves from bud to open flower in a matter of seconds every summer night around 8:30. I always want to have a couple of these yellow-blooming wonders around, but this year I had four, and two of them were blocking views of other plants. It broke my heart to uproot these 5-foot giants, but the garden looks better now. I can see the arching sprays of my ‘Morning Light’ miscanthus, for example. What’s more, I could do it while standing.

—Carolyn Ulrich