Trees

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October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came.
The Chestnuts, Oaks and Maples,
And leaves of every name.

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The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

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The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses maple
In scarlet looked their best.

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All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.

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The leaves are changing early this year.

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Views from my yard yesterday and today, poem is “October’s Party” by George Cooper.

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Fall Garden

These are (probably) some of the last photos I’ll be posting of my garden this year. I have already dumped a lot of pots and cleaned out some areas of the garden (I hate to pull out still-blooming plants though, so I usually just leave them all until the frost knocks them down). Most of the flower beds still look good — even though poplar leaves are falling by the thousands all over everything right now. As always, click on any of the photos to view larger versions.

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“Hearts-a-burstin” (Euonymus spp.) are native and plentiful in the woods here. This one in the Secret Garden is a small tree about 8 feet tall and is filled with fruit right now.

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Foliage plants in the secret garden, including Coleus, ‘Iron Cross’ Oxalis, Dichondra “Silver Falls”, hosta and Japanese Forest Grass.

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Profusion Zinnias just keep blooming and blooming in the creekside bed. These were started in summer from seeds I saved last fall.

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Morning Glory ‘Heavenly Blue’
I’ll probably be pulling seedlings of these for the next ten years. They sure covered an arch and the fence nicely though, and are filled with flowers.

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Plumes of Purple Fountain Grass

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Purple Shamrocks Oxalis have been blooming since spring. The bulbs I planted last year have spread this year and this is fast becoming one of my favorite plants. I’ve stuck it here and there throughout my garden.

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(Mouseover photos for descriptions, click to enlarge)

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Rainy Holiday

We went out to the houseboat during the Labor Day holiday weekend, and after no rain for months, of course it rained! I’m not complaining though, we desperately needed it. It started coming down early Sunday evening and rained steadily for almost 40 hours. After that, it tapered off to showers and drizzle and a cloudy and cooler day today. Tropical Storm Lee brought around 8 inches of rain to our area. We had a few torrential downpours, but for the most part, it was just nice steady rain. We were so dry that it didn’t cause a lot of flooding here, the ground just soaked it up. We did have a power outage that lasted four hours yesterday due to a tree falling on the line, but that was it. My garden sure likes all the rain, and everything is so green and lush looking now that I’m not even going to complain about all the plants that flopped due to the storm.

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The heavy rain didn’t stop a hundred boats and jet skis from zooming back and forth in front of the houseboat a million times, creating huge waves and so much motion I could barely stand even after we came home. Water skiers, tubers and joyriders, the lake is more than ten thousand acres and the houseboats are only allowed on a small part of that, why can’t you all go out to the open water to go in circles all day? :-) But I digress…anyway, even with the rain, it was still a nice holiday weekend, and a welcome change for our drought-stricken area.

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A Shady Spot

This is a shady spot in the woods behind the gazebo, it’s a new favorite place to sit and watch the birds… lately though, it’s too hot to stay for long, even in the shade of the trees.

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Bench in the woods at gazebo pathway

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