Wednesday, October 28, 2009

It's a Wrap...Almost

Where did summer go?!  It seems as though it was just getting started.  Fall is definitely here to stay with its crispy air.  Most of my gardens have been nipped into dormancy, and are waiting for me to properly settle them into hibernation.  I always have mixed emotions about fall.  I adore the colors and the smell in the air.  Yet I am saddened to think that for the next 6 months everything will be just so...naked.  But for now there are glorious displays of golds, oranges and bright reds waiting to be noticed around every new turn.

I took this picture of a Marmo maple (Acer freemanii) on November 11, 2008




And this one on October 27, 2009 of the same tree.  It's kind of hard to tell the difference!







My beautiful Japanese Whitespire Birch (Betula platyphylla japonica) in a riot of bright gold.  I took this on October 21, 2009 just before it started raining.  (Sorry about the blurring on some of the branches, it was quite windy when I took this!) It rained for 3 straight days and nights, with even more wind.  The show's over now for this tree, or rather it's been relocated, as 99% of its leaves are now scattered across my lawn.  It makes such a pretty carpet!





The Bidens (Bidens ferulifolia), and Lobelias (Lobelia erinus) are still holding their own.  Even though they've stopped producing new blooms, the foliage and existing blooms are still looking pretty fresh.







I've also got a few cute little Callie Rose (Calibrachoa) blooms hanging on.





I just happened to look down at the rocks along the edge of one of my flower beds as I was walking my yard.  It was just too perfect not to photograph; all of the colors were arranged better than I could have done myself!



My Crimson Pygmy Barberry (Barberis thunbergii'Atropurpurea nana') has begun to prepare for winter too.



I found this leaf stuck to one of my benches and thought it had a very interesting pattern.  Sort of makes you think of camouflage doesn't it?



And my snapdragons are among the season finalists every year.  I have no idea what variety they are, they didn't have any plant tags when I purchased them.  :(



They're so pretty, I just don't have the heart to cut them down.  They're really much brighter in person.  The blooms are so deep and bright that they almost hurt your eyes to look at them in the sun.  I've really had amazing luck with these guys.  This snapdragon basket was drowned nearly to death when we had flooding this past June.  The entire basket went completely limp within a few hours.  I brought it into my garage hoping that it would perk up.  Whenever the weather was dry, I optimistically set it back outside again.  Nothing doing, it stayed limp, the soil stayed soaked, and eventually the leaves got crispy, but stayed green.  I set it back outside again after a month, thinking that it was a goner.  It rained again (of course!), and you'll never believe it.  In a couple of days there were all of these miraculous, tiny leaf sets popping up all over the stems!  (I really wish I knew what variety they are!)  I cut away the stems that didn't show any new growth, and found that I had lost half of my basket.  The remaining half filled in so nicely, and the new growth was just as gorgeous as the original!  Snapdragons truly should be called a resurrection plant.  I am planning to clip the spent blooms from this plant once they freeze, and dry them out.  Next spring I'll plant them in hopes that these seeds will give me beautiful color for another year.  Cross your fingers for me...

~~Diana

2 comments:

Andora said...

Hi Diana,,thanks for visiting my blog....I love to meet new people and I am adding you to my blog list...by the way beautiful shots,and you really can't hardly tell the difference in those trees...

Diana said...

Hi and thanks for stopping by my corner of the web. I also love to meet new people, and I've added you to my list too!