It Will Be A Cold Day!

With all this talk about our frosts and freezes you might think that the garden was history.  It's true some of the plants like this butterfly  weed have gone to seed.  Other more tender plants have blackened and died.  But a walk through the garden shows that plants do not give up so easily.

These Debutante Mums have been frosted and even frozen several times and they still look fantastic.  How wonderful it would be if all the hardy mums you read about were as tough as this beauty!

Catchfly is a plant that self seeds abundantly and has to be weeded out in the spring.  It must be the warm days that have it blooming again now.  Of course the hummingbirds that love it so much early in the summer have headed South weeks ago.

This is the first pink bud on the Emperor of China chrysanthemums. This plant gives late blooming a whole new meaning.  Frequently the flowers appear after the cold has changed the leaves to a dark burgundy.  So far the leaves are still green.  It's nice to have these flowers to look for after most of the others have given in to the weather.

 

Perhaps this pink gladiola flower is not a perfect specimen, but it was the most  surprising and exciting flower I found in the garden. It may not be hardy, but it is stubborn. These are not expected to withstand cold weather. Others in the same bed have gone limp and mushy.  A few days have passed since I took these pictures.   Perhaps a day or two later, some of the fragrant gladioli plants sent up flower stalks.  They looked kind of sickly and were kind of pale grey-green.  I cut them and brought them into the warm house.

Here they are today.  I don't know if these flowers will bloom , but their attempt is beautiful.  We are having a few days of warm windy and rainy weather.  Ed is stubborn too.  He stayed out there this morning doing his garden thing in the light rain.  When it seemed like the rain was serious, he put away his tools and came inside.  Later if the rain stops he will likely return  outside.  It will be a cold day when he gives up on the garden!  When the plants have gone dormant, he still has his stones.

Bee...autiful Garden Pictures, Photos By Ed

My sunflowers that come up from seed every year are currently one of the big attractions in the garden.  Their sunny yellow faces never fail to make me smile and the bees are delighted.

The heliotrope is putting out a second series of flowers.  I love these old fashioned flowers with their sweet vanilla cherry pie fragrance.  With the rain we have had the leaves looks great.  All this will be mine to enjoy until frost.
  

This bright orange butterfly weed has been gorgeous this year!   It seems to be very happy here and the butterflies find it so attractive.   I wouldn't say it clashes with the blue lobelia and the white phlox in the background, but it sure stands out!

The butterfly bush that grows at the base of Ed's stone wall is putting on a lovely display for a plant that I thought was dead earlier in the season.  Buddleia is always touch and go here.  I'm delighted to watch the butterflies and hummingbird moths enjoy this plant.  I love it's delicate fragrance myself.
  

After enjoying a perfect garden ripe tomato at lunch, I had to include Ed's photo of this beautiful set of tomatoes.

 To be sure there are some ugly garden pictures that could be taken here.  We have tons of weeds, squash with powdery mildew ... Perhaps I will post them sometime, but today I went with bee...autiful!

Hello Yellow?

As an avid butterfly enthusiast, I am a sucker for any plant that is supposed to attract butterflies. I especially love  Monarch butterflies in particular.  Because of this I'm always a soft touch when it comes to Aclepias. Never mind the fact that we have large area of regular milkweed, I still insist on buying other kinds.  I did get a pink A. curviceps that I love very much. But when you get into A. tuberosa, Butterfly weed, that things  don't exactly work out as hoped. This plant is called "Hello Yellow." HELLO!  This plant is ORANGE. It was shown completely  yellow in the van Bourgondien catalog. So far in my experience no matter what, when you buy butterfly weed you get orange. I once bought "Gay butterflies" in  a local nursery. The nursery man told me that he planted the mix, but I should expect to get orange. He was right. I got orange. Now I'm not a  big fan of the color orange, but for butterflies I make an exception. Like a kid who wants to continue to believe in Santa, I would still like to have this plant in yellow, but it's time to grow up and accept  the cold hard fact that Butterfly Weed is  orange.

At least the plant is doing great, and every notices it. Of course they do, it's the same color as the vest on a highway flagman.