Fall Colors

It has been a busy summer and fall, mainly due to demands at work. Gardening and blogging (and housecleaning and camping and reading and...) have all been cut back a bit this fall because of work. Ah well, at least I have the job to keep me busy to pay for the gardening.

Throughout September and October I have snuck outside now and then and snapped a few pictures of Autumn Beauty. Here are some of my favorite scenes from this Fall.

I took them over several weeks, and unfortunately don't have dates to identify when each one was taken. It would be nice to have written that down, because it would be a good indicator of what was blooming when. Certainly I can write down a few thoughts and comments from this Fall, things that I hope I remember next year to help ensure a great looking Fall in the garden.

My first thought as I think through these pictures is that I need to tie up the sunflowers more securely next year. One of the squirrels discovered Ian's big sunflower next to the deck stairs landing, and by leaping onto the flowers to munch the seeds, he knocked the whole plant over even though it was tied up to the deck railing. It was a beautiful flower, and still looked pretty nice mostly lying on its side on a shrub, but it would have been better if it was staked more securely in the first place.

Another thought is that the Sedum Matrona falls apart in the middle and doesn't look very good right now. I think if it were tied up similarly with my secret peony trick, it would look much better into the later months of Fall.

In the picture above of the row of alyssum with the marigold at the end, it all looks pretty good. That was a couple weeks ago. Now that it's getting a bit colder and darker, the marigold is blacking off; the alyssum and dusty miller still look great. I gathered some seed of the alyssum this year and plan to start some next spring in my little bookshelf greenhouse and edge some other areas of the garden with it next year.

It's getting very thin now this time of year for plants that are still looking good. Annuals still going strong include petunias, alyssum, and dusty miller. Perennials include asters (purple dome and alma potschke), queen of the prairie, sedums, karl forrester, lambs ears, and gallardia. I do have a burning bush out there, but it has never, ever burned for me. I don't know why, it has plenty of sun, plenty of moisture... maybe it's the clay soil. I should look it up and see if there is something that can be done to help it along.

Our trees are also looking wonderful this year. All the moisture we had has really brought the fall colors out. The burgundy bell maples on the boulevard had a gorgeous burgundy color, the autumn blaze maples were beautiful red, the birches lovely gold, and the norway maple out front was absolutely amazing, almost a full rainbow from top to bottom of rust, red, orange, yellow, and green. I think we picked our trees well when we planted them here.

I did want to move the two pink flowering crabs this fall, and we didn't get that done. It's probably too late to do that now since they won't have time to settle in before winter. Maybe we should still do it this weekend, because they can't be moved in the spring. Hmm, I'll have to think about that. They sit in such damp spots right now that they barely grow. They live, but do not thrive, and I think if I move them up the hill a bit they will do much better.

Many more topics and things to do to talk about yet this fall. But for right now the color this fall has been great, and I am well pleased with my autumn garden.