The Flowers last hurrahs!

The cosmos and the Morning Glories out on the Wagon Wheel far from the house are having a majestic display right now.

I find that interesting as I haven't watered these plants in ages, only enough to get them started!

However I planted them near the leach field so I think they are flourishing on the moisture in that soil?

 

I have a riot of colors and the vines have grown onto the Orange Cosmos and dead Bachelor's Buttons that are still standing.

The 4 o'clocks are producing seeds like crazy right now. I take a bucket and shake their little black seeds right into the bucket for collection.

These flowers open in the evening with a heavenly scent. The hummingbirds love them. I have white, yellow, pink and this bright color. They close after the morning sun hits them and sometimes on a cloudy day, they will stay open most of the day.

I have Orange Cosmos, and a few bicolored cosmos flowers which are giving up their last hurrahs also. However, I finally figured out how to collect their seeds so I will have a huge mass of them next year!

The bees are still busy on the open blossoms. These flowers will blossom until the first frost.

The Nasturtiums make me smile as their vines creep onto the porch. I turn them so they don't crawl up to the door. Their blossoms are never ending and the leaves and blossoms are a tasty treat to just munch on or add to salads.

I even stuck a sweet potato in the ground that was sprouting [a store purchase]. It has the most beautiful purple leaves! I think I'll use some next year to add interest to my planters, they have a gorgeous color.

The coleus plants are all in buckets so I can move them easily. The one below with the sign marks Morris's place of rest between the pines.

I just thought it would be fun to have lights across these brightly colored plants now that the days are shorter.

This fake spider has resided in my succulent pie pan for ages. Kids get a great kick out of it and the little tiny hedgehogs that are placed around the plants.

I like fun critters in my garden...Oh!
Not the horse or mules though!

Now you can see how close to the house they are.  We love it that way. 

Here is the pallet garden and the shaded wildflower garden in the side yard. Messy looking, but full of beauty.
Next year the pallet garden will go all the way to the house so I don't have to mow that tiny square between the LP tank and the house.

Hopefully, this was not too much to bear in photos. But this is what keeps me hopping all year long. In the summer I tend the plants and in the winter I plan the plantings!

I have a lot of perennials to split and move, but I will have to wait until we actually get rain to dig in the rock hard ground.

I'm going to lay a tarp out on another section of the old veggie garden and mix it with flowers and perhaps some veggies next year. It will have to be small enough so I can weed it and hand cultivate it as I cannot run a tiller.

Enjoy these days with your flowers and take lots of photos to take you through the winter!

My Garden Piggy! She is

always so Happy!

Flowers

There are a few flowers I grow because they bring me particular joy and they are really quite easy to care for.
That would be Zinnias and 4 O'clocks.

It is the 4 O'clock that brings me the most joy because of their sweet evening scents that they wrap the house in. In the morning, I can enjoy them before the sun closes them up for the day. My grandmother grew them in her small garden. Before summer's end, we'd collect the little black seeds before they dropped and save them for the next summer.

Now these flowers come in multiple colors. Pink, white, yellow, and a bright red. If you collect the seeds for several years, the flowers will start to become multicolored as they cross pollinate. 

Their scent is heavenly. did I say that already?

I noticed that one of the plants on the west side of the house has bright red blossoms that are tinged with a yellow edges. 

The Zinnias that I tossed into the dirt and raked about are going gung ho. They aren't as tall as I've seen them in the past but I heard other flower gardeners say the same about some of their plants. 

I will collect seeds from the Zinnias this year.

Most of these Zinnia seeds came from a seed exchange with Aurora. So I have her to thank for the beautiful array of colors.

I collect several vases of them each day and fill a section of my countertop with a mix of vases and jars to hold them.

This is the time of summer that I am the happiest with a riot of colors to see and enjoy. 

In my wildflower garden which was just a patch of bare dirt in the middle of the yard, I have Bachelor's Buttons and a variety of pink flowers, along with some sunflowers that are getting ready to blossom. 

In front of the house on the east side, the few sunflowers I planted are blossoming. I planted some of the tall ones and some ones that are only supposed to get to 2 feet tall. 

One of the shorter ones just budding out!

I didn't have much luck with the red sunflowers, but I see a short one budding on the porch garden.

The goldfinches are happy as are the bees. Today I took out a chair and just watched the fun while sitting in the shade.

slow down...

So while talking to some of my CrossFit friends one of the other gals turned to me and said.

"Well, maybe this is a sign you should slow down a bit."
So I thought about that for a moment.

She was right. I had been taking on everything with a whirlwind mindset. Summer had been busy with projects that had me going in several different directions at once.

This would be a forced slow down. So I mulled things over in my mind. The winter hay was ordered to be delivered. The yard was under control, I'd taken more than one truckload of junk to the dump this summer. Rebuilt the fence in the woods, and had been taking Rich on the average of 3 to 4 days a week to appointments or PT. I visit MIL in the home at least 3 times a week too.

I was ready for a breather of sorts.

But I argued with myself that winter is for that. The slow down part, right? Who was I kidding. I loved winter especially snow when I could use my snowshoes.

Time to take a breather. Well indeed, that is easy but after 5 days I don't really like the 'sitting' around.  Getting in and out of the car took some effort and was pretty uncomfortable.

I've done a lot of stretching and walking outside on the flat. I just cannot sit still unless I am reading a good book.

I've revised my lists of to do and re-organized it. Next week will be very busy with multiple appointments and drives to Madison. At least Rich's physical therapy will be in town.

Frankly I got pretty bored watching TV. The CSI program Rich is watching now has the same theme as all of the other shows. I can ID what show is coming by the theme music being used as an introduction. Interesting that the music is old rock and roll from my teen years. Oh well, it keeps Rich busy and by good luck I found this program had 15 yrs of episodes.

I'm waiting for The Last Ocean: A Journey Through Memory and Forgetting  to arrive. I was able to read the first 40 pages and was fascinated. I found a used book of poems by Mary Oliver also. Her poetry is incredible. I am not one to just casually read poetry.

In the mean time, I am watching the goldfinches dine on my sunflowers outside the kitchen window. The humming birds are dipping into the 4 o'clocks and sipping nectar from the feeder.
I miss the morning chatter of all of the other summer birds.
That makes me sad.
I guess that is the one reason I don't care for Autumn. The birds leave and it gets too quiet outside.

Slow down.
Well by this morning after days of being 'slower', I feel much better. Amazing as to how the body can heal itself. I'm going to give a nod to CrossFit and working out as to one of the reasons I am feeling better much faster.

I will however have to make sure that feeling good doesn't mean I will go out and start pounding posts or lifting heavy things.
Perhaps it means I can go out for a walk to the woods to check on the fences and pastures.

While I was practicing ... slowing down a bit... I messed around with the Incendia fractals program and came up with some Digital Art which I haven't done in such a long time.

Here is to stopping and smelling the 4 o'clocks and admiring the day.

Memories of back ... then.

I went to the garden to pick some Zinnias for my in house bouquets the other night. I stopped to look over my 4 o'clocks which were opening because it was evening.

I glanced down at the bright happy flowers of the 4 o'clocks and then noticed that they were beginning to produce seeds.

I knelt down next to them and began to search for the little black seeds that I told my sons were flower 'hand-grenades'.  Well, that is what they look like.

As I started to pick and search in between the flowers I was reminded of doing this with my boys while waiting for their school bus to arrive to pick them up in the morning.
And how I sat near the flowers and waited for them to depart from the bus on the corner down the street.
The memories of them being so young washed over me.

It really hadn't felt as if it were so long ago. Yet it was.
I held in my hands the seeds of memories.

I don't think I can ever gather 4 o'clock seeds without thinking of my sons, the first days of school, and school buses.

Indeed it was a very pleasant memory.