maire-aine,

Where are you?

I stopped growning garden phlox because of it's propensity for powdery mildew, which is a major problem here in the humid South. The phlox inevitably spread it to other plants that are not quite so vulnerable otherwise. It is a beautiful summer plant, however, and has such a long season that it kept color in the garden during the heat doldrums of July, before the dahlias really took off, and after many other things in the garden stopped blooming until cooler temps in fall returned.

After doing some searching of images, I think maeve nailed it. I'm pretty sure it is slug damage. I mulched the pots with shredded leaves, and think I am realizing that they harbored small slugs or even slug eggs. When I dumped out some of the pots with cool season veggies that I had also mulched with leaves, I found slugs clinging to the sides of the pots beneath the soil line.

While researching the tomato damage, I solved a mystery. For years, I had thought often mottled tomatoes with white corky spots in the flesh were an indication of weather conditions. Turns out the culprit was stink bugs, which I often saw in my veggie garden, but didn't think they caused problems. Stinkbug damaged tomatoes

I'm also wondering if it is time to cut hydrangea blooms to dry. Never done it. The websites all give descriptors of what the blooms will look like, and say "late summer." I've never figured out when "late summer" is here, compared to what most plant descriptions say.    So many flowering plants that are said to be mid-summer bloomers bloom here in mid-May to to mid-June, before summer is even officially here.   "Late summer" bloomers are usually finished by the 2nd or 3rd week of July. Asiatic lilies finished here 2 weeks ago, and the orientals are starting to bloom. Echinacea is past it's first prime, and late daylilies are blooming.

Gonna miss my sun loving dahlias and tall salvias, and the tithonia.