An October Walk In The Garden, Photos By Amy

The garden is winding down, but yesterday was a beautiful autumn day.  I watched two Monarch butterflies sail past me, flying over the roof of the house heading south.  Amy and I took advantage of the beautiful day to walk around in the garden and I gave her the camera as I often do.  Here are some of the things she saw.  An American copper  butterfly  could still find a Clara Curtis mum to drink a little nectar.

The summer sweet has turned a brilliant yellow.  A Grandpa Ott morning glory  is wound around its branches. The colors are gorgeous.  I never thought morning glories would winter over here. This one self seeds with abandon!  This clinging vine no matter how lovely has nearly achieved weed status!

The shapes, colors and textures of the top of Ed's stone wall make an interesting picture.  All too soon the plants will fade into the background and the walls will be the dominant feature in our garden.

It was surprising to see this woolly bear caterpillar atop a Chinese forget-me-not plant.  I wonder if those sticky seed pods will stick to him like they do to me?  These rust and black caterpillars bring back fond childhood memories for all of us.  It's always a delight to catch sight of one and this fall there have been many.

This spring the toad lily got frosted hard. I really wondered if it would be back, but here it is blooming in October.  It's flowers may be small, but they make up for it with their intricate pattern and lovely colors so perfect for a close up!

A stroll over to the hazelnut bush caused me to squeal with delight and surprise.  In all the years since we planted the hazelnuts we have picked at most 5  tiny nuts.  This year the bush is  covered with the intriguing papery husks that contain the hazelnuts inside.  You can see next year's catkins are already in place.

We got a basket and picked the nuts that we could easily reach. There are even more still on the bush.

It was wonderful fun to harvest this unexpected treasure.  Beautiful weather, flowers, stones, butterflies, fall colors and hazelnuts.  Who could ask for more than that!

Autumn Asters, My Fall Favorites

The time after the Autumn equinox, after some light frost, but before the leaves on the trees really begin to change is perhaps my favorite time of year.  Purple New England asters against the yellow of goldenrod and other yellow fall blooming flowers are a vision of gorgeous color in the garden and in the surrounding countryside.  This year many of the flowers  were knocked to the ground by heavy rain, but their beauty is not to be denied.  They may be down, but the mounds of flowers are still a purple delight.

I'm not the only one who appreciates these flowers.  They swarm with bees and other pollinators now that many other flowers have gone to seed or been killed by the frost.

This exuberant billow of October Sky asters, tumbles into the garden path nearly closing the east entrance to the stone square.   Its habit is not unlike the billows of New York asters that line the ditches along our country roads.  Fields of bright yellow golden rod accented with  shades of purple asters are a feast for the eyes.  For me every aster that grows in the garden is  a delight.  It would be impossible to have too many!  The single spot  of orange on these asters is a small butterfly.  Although I may have seen this kind of small brightly colored butterfly before, I did not recognize it.

I could not have been more delighted when this American Copper butterfly, Lycanea phlaeas stayed put long enough for me to take this picture.  It made it possible for me to make sure just who this small but striking butterfly might be.  When I read that the host plants for this butterfly are sheep sorrel, Rumex acetosella and curly dock, R.crispus, I wondered why I haven't seen more of these little beauties.  Both of those plants are weeds that flourish here.  The sheep sorrel is one of our worst weeds that we struggle with constantly, occasionally winning a battle, but never the war.  Somehow it's comforting that something beautiful comes of the nasty, annoying,  pernicious, @*#$!, weeds.  I'm sure sheep sorrel will always be here. We can never have too many asters or striking butterflies.