Goodbye to the Growing Season

 

We are in our peak Fall color season here in the hills with trees all dressed in  golden, orange and scarlet leaves  Traffic has been fairly heavy here near the State Park system with cars filled with people admiring the colors. They will not be lasting long with the rains and winds knocking them off as fast as they have turned.

Two Maple trees at the corner of the yard always turn the prettiest flaming red. They have had their pictures taken many times by passerby's. One day a group of young people came into the yard and just set and took pictures like the yard belonged to them.
Maybe since I live beside the State Park these foreign admires thought it was all state land. I just went out and told them hello and left them snapping pictures.

In the garden the Japanese Anemones are finishing  their blooming.

 
I am always so glad each year that I have the Anemones in the garden because they start blooming as my other flowers are waning before Fall.

Marguerite with its double petals is heavy with bloom this fall.

The tiny blooms on the Helenium were loaded but even they are now about done.

The Sunshine Yellow Lantana and Black Potato vines will soon be put away in the basement.
I have been cleaning up some of the flower beds that are finished and collecting seeds that I will sow into the trial bed before winter.
I have collected a lot of tall phlox and coneflower seeds to sow.

The Cherry Swizzle Zinnia’a are still going strong and I want to keep some of their seeds after the frost takes them.

Verbena and petunias have been cleaned out of the window boxes.
They were looking so terrible that I just yanked them out but I left the geraniums in them. The weather here has been making me think that I will not have time to plant pansies. It has been showing all the signs like we are going to get another early winter so I am thinking what is the use.

This was the first time that I have grown Narturtium’s, and although the red blooms on this variety was pretty I had trouble with the vines turning yellow, so I must have been doing something that they did not like. Regardless I have decided that I am just not a fan of them. I did not try them in a salad… has any of you tried eating the blooms?

The Red Asters that were grown from seed are just beautiful, so I will be planting them again and more of them next year. They are making a bright splash where they were planted. Too bad they are annuals.
Should I try to over winter them in the basement this winter to see if they will come back?

The white blooms of the Chocolate Snakeroot amongst the dark foliage of the Wine and Roses Weigela looks so pretty.
I welcome their white blooms in the Fall but they are seeding and coming up in several spots in the flower beds so they are invasive here.

Some of the rose bushes are getting that last bloom on before winter.

I have started cleaning off some of the flowerbeds so the leaves can be raked and mulched up. As I am cleaning them off I am wondering why summer and now fall has been speeding on by so fast.
I always get sad this time of the year as the daylight hours shorten
and the flowers are cleaned out. I need sunlight gardeners! LOL!
No really I do, because I have a Vitamin D deficiency which goes along with the Fibromyalgia and the doctor has me on Vitamin D3 pills.  So hey,  maybe the vitamins will help with the SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) that hits me each fall and winter.

The Fairy’s and Gnomes have been put away for another season.
When I start cleaning up the garden décor and stacking it into the little red wagon to take it to the shed I always have more to put into the wagon in the Fall than I put out in the spring seems.
I tell myself that I have just got to quit buying the stuff but by spring it is all forgotten as I drag it back out to place in the beds once more and with the joy of getting to garden again and seeing new Spring blooms.
Everyone enjoy your fall  colors.  And for us up north enjoy every colorful bloom that is still in the garden before it all turns white.

Happy Gardening,

Lona