November blooms

Are you tired of my flowers yet? I think their days are numbered. We have had several mornings where the thermometer read in the 20's. However, last Friday I went out in a small flurry of snowflakes and took the first two photos below. The rest were taken today. I have to enjoy them while I can!!

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.

sun lovers

The tall bearded iris are blooming. This white one is one of my favorites - it has the sweetest scent.

I think the yellow ones are very pretty also. The purples aren't far behind.

Wild geranium again.

Another geranium - Johnson Blue. These get a little more leggy than the pinky wild geranium (which just seem to form big clumps), but I love the color.

A close up of mountain bluet - centaurea. These are the coolest blooms!

Chives are blooming nicely. My French teacher told me she takes the flowers and sprinkles them on salads - they have a wonderful oniony flavor. I had never done that before, but she's right - they're yummy!

False indigo - I love this bushy plant.

And this is probably the last shot of my tulips for this year - they are fading fast! This is "Sorbet" again - I really like the coloring of this one.

keeping busy

Okay, I'm beginning to see the problem with doing a garden blog. When you actually have time to blog, there is nothing happening in the garden - and when the garden is going full steam ahead, you are BUSY!

If the wind dies down a little tomorrow, I'll have to try and get more photos - but have False Solomon's Seal, Solomon's Seal, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, centaurea (above - mountain bluet), Johnson Blue geranium, false indigo, and a handful of other things blooming. The tall bearded iris is almost ready to pop open and the peony buds are showing color. Fun!

I have 2 gardens left to weed and mulch - and then I can start over again. I noticed on my little walk-around today that I have trees and weeds growing in the "done" gardens already.

Went and bought potting soil today - so there is hope that I'll get containers at least started sometime soon - not sure why that's so hard to get at this year.
Just finished "Obsession" by Karen Robards - I like her books - kind of lightweight, but good. I honestly didn't know the punchline on this one until I got there - love when that happens! It had a waiting list, so dropped it off today after I finished it and picked up 3 more. Perfect summer day for me: walk dogs and garden in the morning while it's cool, swim once the water warms up, and sit in the shade with a good book in the heat of the day - heaven!