A seedy time of year

As the cold rolls in and the snow becomes a pesky regular, the plants go to sleep and start planning for a new growing season. Especially the weeds, which have mastered the art of growing without any care from gardeners and the like. Here is a small sample of our milkweed patch:

African Violets

Over the summer, I had rescued a few African Violets from someone who no longer needed them. Two were very small and perished waiting for me to act. I eventually re-potted the lone survivor and forgot all about it except to water it once in a while.

When the cold set in, I dragged it indoors and left it in a corner. Yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to see two pretty blooms on a tender stalk!

Mystery of the Munching Marauders

The thieves gobbling up my hosta leaves, roses and all other juicy buds, caught sneaking around today in broad daylight:

A Garden in Retrospect: Hibiscus and Roses of Sharon

 

A Garden in Retrospect: Majestic Roses

A Garden in Retrospect: Dahlias and Lilies

I love the multi-colors!

A photo at dusk, with the flash on:

The most resilient lily this year, braving intense heat and thriving just on the occasional rain shower:

Inspiring forms and colors:

Not sure if this was by design or the effect of wildlife chewing on it:

The best way to highlight a wall is to plant flowers along it!

A Garden in Retrospect: Sunflowers

As the cold rolls in (delayed by the recent heat waves), this is a first in a short series of posts on my garden through this past season. Let's start with the sunflowers!

These two emerged from an assorted seed packet my kids planted in a large canvas bag:

And these are two close-up perspectives of a bloom on a tall stalk (more than seven feet high), germinated at the kids' school:

This fellow was hiding on a short stalk between all the lilies:

Compost bin + rain = ?

A frog! This fellow decided to park in the bin for weeks, using the submerged trash bag to rest when not swimming. I assume the mosquitoes breeding in the water took care of lunch, dinner and an afternoon snack... he even got some weedy grass to grow in his "pond"!

The king of Lepidoptera

After several years of putting up with our wild (i.e. not intentionally planted) milkweed patch, I finally saw a Monarch butterfly flitting about them yesterday! And just in time too, since I had made up my mind a day earlier to pull out the milkweed so the day-lilies became visible again...

The butterfly spent some quality time in the milkweed and butterfly bushes. I wanted to stay longer and watch the show, but had to back up the car and get to work...

All jasmines on deck!

One of the jasmines we bought a couple of years ago is finally going bananas on our deck despite the persistent heat wave and intermittent watering:

Portrait of a backyard?

Our first new Frida Kahlo floribunda rose bloom! I bought this for its interesting color:

The first lilies

A few lilies have opened up in a sea of buds:

Cannot wait for all those colorful day-lilies to show their true colors :-)

A nested hypothesis

A juvenile finch (is it a house finch or a purple finch?) just days before it flew away. There are now two such nests atop our front door:

The Monarch of all Weeds

Hoping to see some Monarch butterflies at my Milkweed Row. I don't think there have been many these past few years! Could the interspersed day-lilies be scaring them away?

A Profusion of Peonies

Love these large blooms with their heavy scent and deer tolerance!

Bugged by weeds

I was pulling out weeds from the cracks in my driveway when I stopped after seeing this beautiful sight:

I pulled out my cell phone instead, and snapped a quick picture. Not that the ladybug was in any hurry to leave!

I left the weed alone, to fight another day.

For your irises only

Myriad iris blooms, brilliant but ephemeral: