Moving Plants = Killing Plants

This is my new favorite flower of the week. It's the Cosmos Bright Lights that I grew from seed. Yay me! I love the vibrant orange color. I planted a whole pack of seeds but this is the only one that came up. And now, the bad news...

It turns out that the all the seeds I planted that actually bloomed were very random and what I ended up with is clusters of flowers, taller ones in front of shorter ones and bunches of stuff in some spots while other spots are just bare. This morning I decided to just start moving stuff to spread things out a bit and make it look more balanced. I moved this Cosmos, half of the white Cleome and the Rudbeckia Goldilocks that was being hidden behind the giant Zinna.

The picture above is the Cleome that I left in the same spot and below is the poor section of Cleome that I moved this morning. Somebody call a plant doctor!!I'm guessing this thing will die but I'll keep watering it and hope for the best. The Rudbeckia Goldilocks looks about as bad plus I completely broke one of the two stems on it.

One thing I'm noticing is that I suck at transplanting stuff. All the passalong plants have pretty much died. What am I doing wrong? I don't really have this problem with plants I buy.

Dear Seed Saving Experts, HELP!

This is my Coreopsis - is that a seed pod in this picture? There are lots of these on the plant but I have no clue what I'm looking at here.

Here is the big Rudbeckia - I'm pretty darn sure that this is where the seeds are on this one so I'll be looking on the internet to try to find out how to harvest the seeds. If you know, please share!Here's the purple Coneflower. This looks odd to me, more like it's just dead. How do I know if there are seeds here?
Speaking of seeds, below is my attempt to protect my freshly planted lettuce seeds. Within 1 hour of planting them it started raining, and raining, and raining. At some point I looked out the back door and there was water standing in the planter boxes, so I drug this freebie umbrella out of the basement. I have no clue if flooding them will keep them from germinating but I'll be watching them closely over the next few days. Go Bulls!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: My First One - YIKES

I wasn't going to do this because I'm so intimidated by the other gardener's bloom days but what the heck. Carol takes the time to organize this and she's been so great to me. So here goes.
Above and below: Pink Simplicity Hedge Roses. These were planted the first week in June. I'm very proud of them.
Below: Rudbekia - please disregard the big weed in the background unless you can tell me how to get rid of it.
Below: Phlox Laura - I bought this after Carol recommended I buy Tall Phlox. Carol - I'm still looking for the "Creme de Menthe" variety.Below: smaller Rudbeckia