Autumn

Though it is officially fall, it doesn't feel like it yet, but there are signs.  This cottonwood leaf floated by on the lake this morning.

Before I took all of your advice last year, not to pull up plants I couldn't identify, I plucked all of these umbrella like plants in the patio bed, certain they were weeds.  Well, look what they turned out to be.  Every shade of flower from fuchsia to coral and pink.  I have no clue what they are, but will remember them next year.

One last clematis blossom for the year.

Okay, my distaste for large blossomed flowers has been swayed.  I now like the cannas and the other ones are growing on me.  I'm still trying to smile at the hibiscus.

These have popped up all around this last week of summer.  Spider lilies or fairy lilies perhaps? A nice surprise nonetheless.

Mrs. Mantis, in prayer and laden with eggs, will lay them soon; I wish she could over-winter under bark, but I guess that is the way things happen.

We have had the city house for nearly a year now - have seen the gardens throughout the year. Though the garden has peaked, it has been a good year of growing.  

I planted potato vines that cascaded over the eight foot drop from the patio to the bottom yard.  The chartreuse was spectacular.   I learned that some of the coleus I planted grew too tall for this bed as it shaded out other plants and somewhat obscured the lake view. I really had nowhere to plant new things and will fit in some small bulbs and seed the beds in the spring. 

 All in all, it was a good year in the garden. I am not looking forward to that first freeze and will miss all the color, but will try to find interesting things in the winter garden.

Daffodils

  

Just had to let you know that my daffodils are up about four inches. Spring is coming!

Finally Tulips

Just wanted to show my tulips off this year. Cause it will be the last time. I have battled the deer since they started coming up. The deer would bite the new shoots and rip the bulb from the ground. I would have to stick them back in the hole. So, I covered the entire area around my goldfish pond with a plastic netting. You guessed it. The tulips grew up through the netting which wasn't very pretty when I had to pull the tulips through it and the deer started munching them again. I'd raise the netting. Then, I got some stakes that supposedly irritates the deer's little noses with something or other and they still were noshing. After some granules were scattered around the area, the tulips were finally up. Next year will be all daffodils and narcissus. I've had it.

My dino didn't even scare the deer away.

Here's Boo begging for a tickle. He is a good boy and very vocal; decides he needs to pose for me.

Spring Whispered In Her Ear

"Spring whispered in her ear," is a partial lyric from an old Laura Nyro song titled Upstairs By A Chinese Lamp. It is a song from one of her earlier albums. Laura was a genius and as well, a singer/songwriter/musician. Well, today spring did whisper in my ear. It's Here! Hurrah!

These little jonquils are the naturalizing kind that spread their little bulbettes around and come back every year more plentiful. I picked up one lying on the tiny grave of an indian child in an old indian cemetery. I brought the bulb home and stuck it in a flower bed and it has spread throughout the area. You can see whole fields of them around here and the little beauties are the first harbingers of spring. I think they are jonquils as the dictionary said the daffodils are bigger. Nevertheless, both are from the narcissus family.

I cracked open an egg and placed them in it. I have also used cracked egg halves to start seedlings in the original egg carton. Just put in some peat moss and seeds, keep them watered in a sunny window and plant outside later. I crunch the eggshells up and sprinkle them around the seedling. It is a very cute and green way to garden in the SPRING!