Green Thumb Sunday 10/26/2008 - The Catbird Seat

There is a small nursery that I pass on my way to work every morning. It took me a while before I finally stopped by, mostly because small nurseries usually don't have that much to see. This one proved to be an exception. I found several good steppable plants at the beginning and kept meaning to go back with my camera. You know what they say, better late than never. :)

They have a pretty goo.d collection of succulents, which I may have to revisit when I redo my succulent bird feeder next year.
There are still quite a few plants that are blooming, and among them I found...
My beloved 'Bishop of Llandoff' dahlia. I had just planted one in North Carolina before we moved and it broke my heart to leave it behind. Can you believe that I didn't walk out with one? Believe me, I regret it now. ;)
See who I found at home amongst the plants?
And finally, more evidence that fall is finally here. :) Happy Green Thumb Sunday!

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

It can't ever be easy

We went to my favorite lunchtime getaway today to take some pictures for my book. The Catbird Seat is a nursery that is only a few miles away from my work. I have a whole bunch of pictures to post for Green Thumb Sunday tomorrow but today I thought I'd focus on this. My grandpa loved owls and collected anything that he could find with an owl on it. He was also an avid gardener though he was mostly into vegetables. When I saw this owl statue I had to have it to put out in my garden so that I could think of him when I saw it.


We also had a little drama this morning because the battery in the car died and we had to get it jumped. The people in the nursery were extremely nice and backed their 1-Ton landscaping truck up to jump it for us. In the meantime the lady gave Quickbeam a decorative gourd to keep her busy while the grownups worked. Thank goodness she's at the age where she can still be distracted by things like that. ;)

Rain

It rained really hard for most of the morning today. I got soaked going out for lunchtime, and was generally sleepy all day from the gloomy light coming in from outside. It is a good thing it rained of course, because we are still behind in rainfall for the year. I truly like it when it rains, but I'd rather be at home and not needing to go out when it happens. I like especially being able to take naps on rainy days, because there isn't much that makes me sleepier. It also feels so cozy being inside my warm house when it's cold and rainy outside. If I can put on a pot of soup I feel even better. :)

Fall-ish

It has been chilly and dark for the last few mornings that I have left for work. I get to see the moon rising over the cotton fields, and the dew on the grass. There is a slight change in coloration on the mountains as I go home in the evenings. I can't wait for fires in the fireplace, hot chocolate and wrapping up on the couch to read. I also love bonfires outside, roasting marshmallows and making big pots of chili. My 'Arabian Nights' Dahlia is still faithfully plugging away and has flowers on it. I hope that I do a better job next year of keeping up with all of the happenings going on in my garden, this year has been too exhausting. On the brighter side, when I fed the fish tonight, look what happened:

That's right, fish actually showed up! Okay, it's a first for me so I'm excited. As I was walking over to check out the happenings in the pond a frog hopped off of the lilypad into the water. I tried to get a picture of it but it refused to cooperate.

Southern Charm

I'm at a fairly restless stage in the garden. I've taken pictures of my existing plants about fifty times each. I do have a Japanese Anemone (shown above) in the front that has a bud on it, and I've been waiting on the edge of my seat for it to open. Otherwise everything feels like more of the same. I am very blessed to still have roses everywhere, and other plants blooming, but it feels repetitive to take pictures of the same plants with minor differences in shading and conformation. So here is my 'Southern Charm' verbascum which hasn't been featured too often.

I had thought it was done for the year but it sent up another flower stalk. I love the color and shape of the flowers. I placed an order from High Country Gardens for some tulip bulbs and of course had to add a few other things also. Other than that, the only excitement in the garden is that the horsetail is escaping its enclosure by the pond. It is showing up in some very odd places.

And though I've posted tons of pictures of it so far this year, Joseph's Coat is still going crazy.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Sigh....

While I was out weeding in the garden today I noticed the neat reflections of the papyrus and palm umbrella in the pond. It's a glorious fall day today, complete with clear blue sky, bright sun and a slightly cool breeze blowing. Notice though what isn't in the picture of my pond. That's right, FISH. I have a 30 gallon pond and four pretty good sized goldfish in it. I almost never see them...maybe a flash of white every now and then. It frustrates me, because in my pond I had before the fish would swarm up at feeding time and I loved to see them, as shown below.

Now I don't know if it's because I don't spend a lot of time sitting outside by the pond or I just had the back luck to get very shy fish. Maybe now that I have a bit more time to spend with gardening and such now that Quickbeam is getting bigger and starting to play, I might get to see them more.

End-of-Year Sales

We passed by Home Depot today to get some replacement air filters for our furnace. Of course I had to look at the plants on clearance for the end of year sale. I ended up picking out this Yarrow plant. I thought that the color on it was absolutely beautiful and can't wait to see it bloom for reals next year. We also passed through Across the Pond to get some fish food. For some reason Home Depot seems to have about everything else that you would need for a pond EXCEPT fish food. Since my boys were out we had to make a special trip.

Poke Salad

One of the most easily recognized weeds that I know of is Poke Salad. It grows across the Southeast, although I don't know the rest of its range. I had Quickbeam out for a walk yesterday as it was starting to get dark. The road that leads into our subdivision deadends into a weedy birm leading in to the cotton field. I noticed that I could actually tell what quite a few of them were and took this picture which only shows the outline. We used to eat fried poke stalks and poke greens when I was growing up. Birds would eat their dark purple berries and then leave very vivid evidence all over cars and clothes on the line. I don't think I've had any poke since I left home as a teenager, but it brought back a lot of memories to see the plant.

Green Thumb Sunday 10/12/08

Today was another beautiful autumn day. The sky is bright blue and there are puffy white clouds everywhere. The seedhead for my Joe Pye Weed is featured above. A shot of the treeline in the backyard is featured below.

There are still a bunch of flowers blooming, but most of them are the regulars that I have been featuring for a while. So I figured I'd try to find some things a little different to post about. I got some pond maintenance done finally today which is a good thing. The water lily had taken it over and the poor fish barely had any water surface left.
So today I pulled out the lily and gave it a very big haircut. I also got rid of the bamboo spout because it hasn't worked very well and keeps getting plugged up. So I took the hose and tucked it under the rocks so it can spit directly into the water. The whole pond thing is going to have to get retooled next year so I'm not going to try for anything more elaborate right now. I do love the look of the alyssum spilling over the side.
Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

The Cotton Field

The field behind my house is a great place to get pictures of sunsets. Last night we went out for our evening walk and the sun was starting to set. The clouds were dark grey but had tinges of rose color on them and it was beautiful. As I was going through the opening in the fence I remembered that I am in the South and looked down for snakes. As if to reward my diligence there was a very small snake that slithered off into the weeds on the side of the path. We're hoping against hope that it stays undeveloped. They had cotton planted for the last two years but left it fallow this year. They might be just letting it rest, but I've heard rumors that it was sold and if so they are probably going to develop it. So I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Green Thumb Sunday 10/5/08

I took my daughter out for a stroll this afternoon and brought along the camera as usual. As soon as we stepped out on the front doorstep I heard the heavy buzzing of bees. They were all over the bushes in the front of the house. I caught this one frequenting my Elle rose and this one with my mum.

Toad Lily

I have been faithfully checking the toad lily every time I walk out the front door. Finally today it has opened up and the reward is well worth the wait. I have been looking around trying to find the plant tag or receipt from when I planted it so that I would know the variety, but alas it has been lost in the clutter of both my house and my e-mail in-box. But as they say, a rose by any other name...

Double Take

I was out poking around my flower beds tonight and found this Gingersnap rose bloom. It appears to have a double bud on one flower. Looks pretty neat. :)