fall blooms - pt four

Another beautiful day - although quite a bit of wind this afternoon. We started taking the dock out this morning - and after two sections (out of nine), Mark asked if I still had the number I'd seen on a sign advertising dock removal. We have a ton of toys and all of the work that goes with them - and we ALWAYS do that work ourselves - so this was HUGE!!!! The guy came out about an hour later and had the rest of the dock out in about another hour. Boy, was that nice!! And easy!! It also made both Mark and me feel old, old, old - it would have taken us hours working together. sigh

I started moving my compost over the weekend and am over halfway done. It goes pretty fast once I start, so a few more hours and that job will be done. Then I have to shred a few more leaves that have fallen into the yard, and that job will be done too. I think we may be close to running out of jobs!!

But not yet - I still have all those lovely tulip bulbs to plant. And my dahlias are still in the gardens - blooming away - and I really hate to cut them back when they look so beautiful. But if I'm going to save them, I think I'd better do it soon. From what I've read, I need to cut them to about 6 inches - and then a week later I can dig them up, dry them, and store for the winter.

This was my first time planting dahlias, and I have been simply delighted with how gorgeous they are and how many blooms I've had. Very fun.

looking for Mr Sun

Another grey, rainy day. I need some sun!!!! I know we need the rain - a very dry summer means all of the gardens and trees and the lake are loving this rain. But I'm ready for a break.

I thought I would show you more of my tuberous begonias. They waited most of the summer to take off, but they are adding some nice spots of color in the gardens now.

more September blooms

Kind of a quiet, boring day here - we spent most of the day leveling a space for my new garden/storage shed. Hopefully, I'll have photos to share of the new shed within the next week. Tonight we went out for pizza with friends - a very fun evening of catching up.

Here are more photos of this weekend's blooms.


This is by far the best photo I have ever taken of spiderwort. Usually they come out looking very flat. This one is perfect (if I do say so myself!). About a month ago, I cut most of the spiderwort back, and now they are blooming again.

This is the wild coneflower that's been blooming all summer. This is a workhorse!!

The mountain bluet is blooming again also. I love these spidery blue blooms.

I have a snakeroot plant that has been moved many, many times. For the last few years, it hasn't been very happy and hasn't bloomed. So last fall, I moved it to yet another home. When I dug up the plant, it split into 3 plants. They all look healthy, but they are just now sending up these little flower stalks. I think they're the same variety as the ones I showed blooming a couple months ago - big, beautiful flower spikes. I'll give these another year here - hopefully, they'll bloom earlier and better next year. (If not, I do have a couple more places to try :) !)

Here's one of my dark snakeroot - I believe this one is "Brunette." It's just starting to bloom. Again, not terribly impressive. This one may not be getting as much moisture as it wants - it's right next to the river birch clump. Gosh, I hate to move these things all the time.

The physostegia - or obedient plant. This is a fun little plant that should keep increasing in number every year.

Turtlehead. Not a great photo - but look at all those blooms! I love these plants.

I think this is the last veronica in the garden still blooming.

Brown-eyed Susans are still going strong.

A tuberous begonia. These finally started blooming last week - way too long to wait for container plants!! I had some red and some yellow that did quite well this year, but the rest were only so-so. I may decide to not do these next year...

The white "David" phlox is still looking very pretty. Some of the other phlox have blooms, but they're coming to the end.

The Japanese anemone are still looking good.

Another shot - I just love these airy little blooms.

I just took some under-performing begonias out of a hanging planter by the streetside door, and put in these pansies. (And then the temps jumped into the 80's for a couple days - of course!!) I absolutely love this color.