I love my Veteran's Honor rose, it is a beautiful deep red color with velvety petals. Unfortunately I have a hard time getting a good picture of it that shows off its true color. Most of the time it will look dark pink instead of really and truly red, as shown below.
One of my favorite things about fall and winter is how the seedheads and skeletal remains of plants become the focus of interest instead of the flowers themselves. I was looking around today to see what was blooming and noticed the seedheads on my blanket flowers.
Joseph's Coat still had a few rogue blooms left on it. It has taken a break for the last couple of months and been putting on new growth. I finally had enough to tie it up to the trellis.
The water lily is still going gangbusters in the pond. The lilypads have pretty much taken it over. I'm going to have to pull it out soon and trim it back for the winter.
The sweet alyssum is still plugging along in the scree garden. It has spread quite a bit from when I planted it earlier this spring.
Today Quickbeam and I went along with my husband when he went out for a haircut. The place that he goes to is in the Providence shopping area here in town. While we were waiting for him we went for a walk to see what was going on in the area. We walked by a restaurant that had a fountain in the front and had some lantana planted by it. As we walked by there was a cloud of butterflies that took off from it. I went back to the car to get my camera so I could see if I could get some pictures.
Providence is in an area that is a bit more expensive than most of the places that we frequent, but Maw has been looking since we got here for a good place to get his hair cut. There is a barber shop there called Roosters, and it is a spot for men to go and get well...pampered isn't the word that I'm looking for but it's something like that. The place is really nice, it is set up to be like an old barber shop. The guys can get a haircut and a shave, as well as massages and manicures etc. After you get your hair cut the lady barbers will give a neck massage. Needless to say he is sold on it and goes there whenever he needs a hair cut. Makes me want to get MY hair cut there. :)
The weather has been so pleasant in the evenings that we have been sitting on the back porch more. We watch the sun setting and the bats start to come out and flit through the sky. There is a big field behind our house and it makes us feel almost like we're living further out in the country than we are. I feel so much at peace lately, and so blessed in my life. There is something gut-wrenching about moving, picking up and leaving all that is familiar to you and starting over again. We got a new house and a new job and some new friends, but it still takes a long time before it really feels *right*. It's been odd lately...I haven't been wanting to buy things because I have everything that I need. I haven't even been buying that many books anymore, because I don't have much spare time to read and have a full bookcase, most of which I haven't read. I haven't even been wanting to buy more plants or start more garden beds and would rather maintain the ones that I have and let them grow in.
This morning when I walked out the door to go to work I was surprised at how cool it was. It was about 55 degrees, and the sky was clear. The stars and the crescent moon were bright and I realized that I haven't seen them in a long time. It is getting to be darker earlier, and the weather is nice enough that we can sit on the back porch for a while. I think we might have a bonfire in the fire pit this weekend and maybe cook up a pot of chili. There's an Apple Festival in Moulton this weekend and that sounds like it would be fun to go to. We are bad about making plans to do things and ending up staying around the house instead. We'll see what happens. :)
I have some plants that are still gamely blooming away, but you can tell that they are running out of steam. It has been a very long growing season here and it has started getting cooler at night so fall can't be too far away. My roses are still going crazy:
I still have lots of dahlias:
My new goldenrod is getting settled in:
And my gnome is getting settled into his new home:
When we were walking into the front door yesterday I noticed that some of the buds on the mums were starting to open up. In a week or so we are going to have a real show. :)
I still have a few rose blooms here and there and one of them is my Angel Face rose. I was pretty amazed that it came back, since it had dropped all of its leaves from Black Spot earlier this spring. I really, really enjoy gardening in late summer/early fall. I ordered some plants from High Country Gardens and they came in Thursday. So today Quickbeam and I went out to get some planting done. I got a Dwarf Goldenrod 'Golden Fleece', Ironweed and New England Aster 'Purple Dome'. I also took the opportunity to clean up some of the other plants that needed to be trimmed back and staked. We got to get about half an hour of work done but it was getting so windy that we had to come back in. We are going to be getting some weather from Hurricane Ike today so we'll be mostly inside-bound.
Yesterday was a really nice day. I took Quickbeam out when I got home from work and we did some gardening. I moved some plants around in my scree garden, and did some weeding. I started trying to do battle with the primroses in the front flower bed. We went to Bennett's on Sunday because they finally got in some Japanese Anemones. I got one last fall but it died in a late frost this year. I've been waiting impatiently for it ever since. I got the plants I ordered from High Country Gardens in today, so I'll be planting them this weekend. I need to sit down and put some more thought into the layout that I want to do first though.
We woke up this morning to a heavy fog and a layer of dew on everything. It's been a rough couple of weeks and we're looking forward to a bit of a fresh start on things.
Today was the first day back at work after Labor Day and our trip last week. It also marks the end of my assignment with the IT group at work. I have been working for a couple of hours at my regular job, and then going to another building to work with our software implementation team. I have to say that I enjoyed the novelty of being able to stay in my office and actually stay focused on my work. I would rather do one job really well than to do two jobs half-assed, which is what it felt like I was doing. So I was very happy today. The picture above is from my succulent bird feeder. The plants in it are starting to get more established. Since they didn't have many roots the dirt has been washing out of it so I need to add more and respace out the plants.
I pulled the name for my blog out of thin air when I started it. When we first got here and went to Across the Pond I saw some goblin garden statues and fell in love with them. Unfortunately we always had a more pressing financial priority and I was never able to get one. A couple of weeks ago when I took my camera along I decided that I would at least take a picture for my blog header.