Need More Orange! :)

Fall is all about Color!! It's all the yellows, reds, and oranges, with a few greens, cinnamons, and browns mixed in! :)

As I study my yard, I see I have plenty of yellow, with the three birch trees in front and the tulip tree in back! :)

I have lively red in my new maple tree, and alot of red and brick red in many of the shrubs around the front and back yard! :)

But other than the pumpkins on the front deck, orange is sadly lacking! I do have a young witch hazel that shows orange in it's leaves, for a week or two, but once they've dropped, there isn't a whole lot of orange to be seen! :)

So I'll be keeping my eyes open for plants that display orange leaves, flowers, or berries for added fall color, because looking around it's plain to see we need more orange!! :)

A Well Groomed Bed! :)

For me, fashioning flower beds is another part of feathering my nest! Eventually I hope to have the entire yard weeded, planted, and barked, at the same time! I love to be drawn from one part of the yard to another, and have it all flow together like good music! :)

I've finally gotten the south-side flower bed squared away for the winter! It's all weeded, planted, and barked! It's an accomplishment given that it's the length of the home, roughly 6' wide, and it's been the busiest summer I can remember us having! It's been like pulling teeth to fit in time for my beloved yard work! :)

But, alas, this bed is finally done for now! :) This winter I will be starting some delphiniums from seed, in hopes of adding them to this bed! I also have a spot to fill on one end, where a young start died, so I will be shopping for a replacement, come spring! And as any true gardener knows, no flower bed is ever really done! There's always changes, improvements, and ongoing work to be done! :)

Oh how I love a well groomed bed! I'm already feeling excited about seeing the plants grow and come alive with color, come spring and summer! :)

Fall's First Frost! :)

Our first frost came early this year. It was pretty to see eveything frosted in white this morning, before the sun came out! :)

Even More surprising, is that I experimented and found a way of adding another photo to this post!! I'm feeling hopeful that I may be able to enjoy sending multiple photos again! I have to go about it differently than I did before! :)

Now if I can just find time to do more than a quick blog post! :) grin

I still have alot of outside planting and yard work to do before the ground freezes, so I'm in a race against time! :)

Will talk later! :)

Happy Halloween! :)

I love the festivity of this time of year! On the first of the month, the decorations come out, and the fun begins! :)
I currently have alot of "do's" on my list, and since my blog responses have been quiet, I may slow down the entries on this blog, a bit! If we don't "talk" for awhile, I want to wish you all a festive October, and a Happy Halloween!! :)

Argiope Aurantia Aura! :)

One of Autumn's activities is the often unnoticed busy work of spiders laying their eggs! :) I was spellbound by this female and her handywork! Look how she suspended her egg sac with her silvery, silky web strands! It looks like the most comfortable crib any offspring could desire! :) I could almost sense her happy aura over bringing life into our world! :)
These black and yellow garden spiders are good to have in the yard and garden, so they always bring a smile when I chance to see them! :) Now that she's chosen one of our flower beds, to have her babies in, perhaps I will be seeing more of them in the future! :)

Cranberry Cravings! :)

Since blueberries and cranberries require the same acidic soil, and since a small patch of cranberries don't require a bog to be harvested, - I decided to plant cranberry plants at the base of our blueberry plants! :) This way we will have two crops in the space of one! :)
I ordered mature plants from Cranberry Creations, in Maine, so these cranberry plants literally traveled from coast to coast! :) We were thrilled to see them looking so healthy and bearing ripe fruit when they arrived!! :)
Today I snuggled them into their prepaired soil, in the garden, beneath the blueberry bushes, and saw that the berries were ripe and ready to harvest! Then came the cranberry cravings, and the thought, "Why wait?!" :) So I picked them all and cooked them as a side dish for our evening meal!! :) Delicious!!!! :)
It's fun to think that we can look forward to this little treat, right from our own garden, in upcoming years!! :)
Right now I'm wishing we had a field full of them!! :)