Turn, turn, turn

Our foliage season won't attract any "leaf peepers" like some parts of the country, but I do enjoy seeing the trees change colors.

And not just the trees. Besides these witchhazels turning yellow, the winterberry bushes are dropping their leaves and revealing their red fruit. Ditto the crabapples.

The one witchhazel that predates the other four blooms in the fall. Have I done a "what's it good for" posting for witchhazel yet? I will do so and mention the differences between these two varieties.

While picking up sticks, I noticed this "growth". It's called giraffe spots fungus (Peniophora albobadia). A species of crust fungus that grows as flat, spreading patches on decaying wood, it acts as a plant pathogen for stone fruit. Good thing I'm not growing any stone fruit.

It has been dry lately, but rains on Thursday produced a very bright double rainbow. By the time I parked the car, only this single was left.

While untangling some tomato cages I once used to fence in the raspberry bed, I pondered how my "enthusiasms" change over time. I used to grow a lot of vegetables, then more ornamentals, now natives, although I am no longer 100% native. Ditto organic gardening, now relying on herbicides to keep the weeds at bay, except around food plants.

Similarly, I went through a raw milk stage, turning it into yogurt, ice cream, and cheese, until I was done with that. In a previous lifetime, I baked all the family's bread, quit that, dabbled in it, quit it again, and now am kept busy with my sourdough starter. After a hiatus, I'm concocting winter soups to freeze again.

Seasons change, enthusiasms change, and that's okay. It keeps life fresh. Happy Halloween!

What's it good for - ninebark

Ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius) is a suckering shrub native to North America. It's easy to grow and maintain, produces pollinator-attracting flowers in the spring that give way to "inflated seed capsules" that many birds feed on. The mature branches exfoliate to reveal several layers of inner bark (hence the name); birds use strips of bark for nests. So it is not a useless beauty.

Except for mine.

While doing some research for this post, I discovered that while the cultivars of ninebark don't sucker as much as the straight species, they are not very hardy, nor are they as beneficial to wildlife. Oops!

I have tried my luck with 'Amber Jubilee' which has been mostly a failure (despite descriptions that say it should be easy to grow); there is still one standing (a replacement that didn't quite look like the others), but it looks a bit peaked. This past spring I replaced a couple of dead 'Amber Jubilee' specimens with 'Ginger Wine'; they are doing well... so far.

I chose ninebark primarily for its foliage, but 'Ginger Wine' also has better disease resistance. Maybe I will get lucky with its longevity. If those two shrubs are still thriving next spring, I may replace the sad-looking 'Amber Jubilee' with a third 'Ginger Wine'.

Going forward, I will have to pay attention to whether my ninebarks' blossoms attract pollinators, whether the birds eat the seeds, and whether the birds use the bark for nesting material. Sounds like an excuse to just sit and stare at some attractive bushes in the yard.

'Amber Jubilee' ninebark, spring

'Amber Jubilee' ninebark, blossoms

'Ginger Wine' ninebark, blossoms

'Ginger Wine' ninebark, spring

'Ginger Wine' ninebark, autumn

Frost on the rooftops

Looking back on previous October blog posts, I see why it seems like autumn events feel delayed - it is because they ARE! The leaves on trees don't seem to be turning but just drying up and dropping. Even my oak tree that usually clings tenaciously to its leaves until spring has dropped most its leaves. WTH?

Sometimes I get so busy with yard and garden maintenance that I forget to actually *look* at what is growing. Today I strolled around the yard, observing mostly how the weeds are winning again (still?) The new 'Fluffly' western arborvitae is looking good, though, better than its predecessor.

We've had a couple of frosty nights - not enough to damage the tomato plant but frost nonetheless - so maybe the plants will get the hint and act like the end is near.

The frost ain't on the pumpkin

The weather continues to confound. Here it is, almost halfway through October, and we are having 80+ degree days. The leaves on trees are just beginning to turn. One neighborhood I walk the dog through has iris blooming and a tree of some sort blossoming. Crazy.

It's been dry, so we took advantage of the weather and went for a walk in the woods. I like to look for mushrooms this time of year, not to pick but to admire. We spotted the usual culprits, but then near the end of our little hike we found these clusters of Jack o' Lantern mushrooms at the base of dead trees.

They are good for dyeing yarn, but I didn't pick any. For one thing, we were in a nature preserve where one takes only memories (and photographs). For another, these are highly poisonous and should be handled only with gloved hands.

I've been so busy lately that about the only thing I have done outside is mow. Hummingbirds still visit the pineapple sage, while bluebirds feast on the Virginia creeper berries. The seasons do change, just not as fast as they used to.

Soggy

We received more rain this week. Despite the rain garden, the backyard gets soggy, too soggy to comfortably mow. I'll give it a go tomorrow. Maybe. And/or mulch some more.

I've learned to not plant anything in the fall, as by now I'm losing interest in the yard and garden. So I'm happy to see the spring-planted annual pineapple sage start blooming in September. It's amazing how large it gets. The one on the left has a six-foot span, the one on the right is about four feet wide. (Dog for comparison.)

The goldenrod on the south side of the house is about done, while the shorter one on the north side is peaking. The insects *love* it. My SO dug up a clump of it for his yard and is having a similar experience.

The yellow jackets are loving my compost pile. Clio the dog sometimes sits out there, snapping at the flying insects. She has been stung before, but doesn't learn her lesson. I, on the other hand, know to add to the pile early in the day, before the activity starts. Yellow jackets get testy as their food sources die off in the fall.

(These posts get rather boring this time of year, but I don't want to get out of the habit of writing. So please bear with me as we enter the dormant season. Thanks!)

Visitors

I'm taking advantage of this gorgeous weekend to get some outdoor work done, now that the rain has paused, and observed these visitors:

Orange sulphur butterfly
(Colias eurytheme)

Praying mantis

Sometimes you just need to keep your eyes open.

Inside, one of my houseplants is blooming.

Parlor palm
(Chamaedorea elegans)

Again, it helps to pay attention.

Otherwise, it has been another week of mulching and mowing. Today I even trimmed the yard. All the Halloween flamingos are out, including the new skeleton ones.

I see that one of my elderly neighbors (and by "elderly", I mean older than me) now has a scooter to help him get around the yard. There are days when I am about ready to give up on the house but I don't want to abandon the yard - it's not done yet! (Will it ever be done?) I guess once I can no longer take care of the yard myself, I will consider moving. But not yet. Not yet.

Be careful what you wish for

At the end of my last post I mentioned that we needed rain. And rain we got - 4" in the past couple of days. Today was dry, so I mowed and unplugged some downspouts, just in time for more rain over the next three days.

The rain garden is FULL and parts of the backyard soggy. I haven't been able to do much of anything out there, so not much to report.

My next door neighbor goes all out with her seasonal outdoor decor. My efforts are mostly limited to changing flamingos. I do usually purchase a "hardy" mum for the front porch, though. And one could consider the spider webs on said porch to be Halloween decor?

I am pleased about how the coleus looks this year. Sometimes it gets leggy or bedraggled, but this year it looks *great*.

And that is about it for this week.

Up close and personal

While spraying the weeds, I came across this guy, not in the milkweed "forest" but on one solo volunteer outside the "meadow". I worried that he might be too late for the trip to Mexico, but late monarch caterpillars are part of the "super generation" that not only migrates thousands of miles but lives for months instead of weeks. Alas, it was gone the next day, presumably eaten by a bird. :-(

Then while weeding the meadow, I noticed clusters of red milkweed beetles. When I got too close, they began to scatter. Not sure why, as they taste terrible (according to AI) so are not prey. You'd think they would be more confrontational over being disturbed.

The container plants on the deck are now getting more sun, provoking them to bloom more. I repotted the fuchsia with plans to try to winter them over indoors. The question is whether to do so in the garage where they will be dormant or try to keep them inside the house and maintain them like active houseplants.

This geranium has been overwintered inside the house but looked ragged... until I repotted it. Right now the whole plant looks great. If I overwinter outdoor plants in the house, I should provide them with more light.

The pineapple sage is starting to bloom. It provides late summer nectar for the hummingbirds. In fact, I see a hummer feeding on the blossoms RIGHT NOW.

I've been remiss about some of the weeds and they are going to seed (BAD, BAD GARDENER!) One type of so-called weed sending fluffy seeds hither and yon turned out to not be a weed after all but wild aster. It's very prolific and the goldfinch like the seeds, so I guess I'll stop pulling it.

Most of my labor these days is weeding and mulching. I'm still picking tomatoes and strawberries, but I gave up on the green beans. The grass continues to grow, so there is mowing and trimming as well. The temps are in the 70's, sometimes 80's, so it is still summerlike but not so oppressive. We could use more rain, though.

Like a mullet

Friday night we received 1.75" of welcome rain, which means it is a good time to pull weeds. While bending over a garden bed, I think about my older brothers who love to travel. I'd rather be weeding my garden than waiting for a connection in an airport.

Today I worked on the beds out front, which often leaves me disgruntled because they just don't look very attractive despite all the money I spent having the yard redesigned. Over the course of next summer I plan to move almost all the natives in the front to the back. Then the summer after, I'll replant the front with more standard shrubs, etc. The description that comes to mind is "Business in the front, party in the back."

I have no memory of planting goldenrod on the south side of the house, but there it is, big and beautiful. Now there appears to be a new variety, one that is fuzzy looking and shorter. Hairy goldenrod? I *know* I did not plant it, but goldenrod is rather opportunistic when it comes to bare ground. With the variety I *did* plant on the north side of the house, I now seem to have three kinds of goldenrod. The more, the merrier, at least as far as the pollinators go.

Speaking of pollinators, my SO planted Mexican sunflowers this summer. They have proven to be quite the butterfly and bee magnet. I meant to plant some myself but didn't get around to it. Next year for sure!

We stopped at Lowe's the other day for more mulch and spotted this plant: Echibeckia?!? I consulted AI about this new hybrid. It produces pretty blooms over a long period of time and is sterile, so will not reseed itself. It can be grown as a perennial in USDA zones 6-9 (I'm 5B, so I would be paying $16.98 for a single annual) and attracts beneficial insects.

Don't plant this!

Wait - WHAT?!? I challenged AI about this plant's ability to attract pollinators. And it admitted I was right. Here are the drawbacks of coneflower/rudbeckia cultivars (direct quotes from AI):

• Sterility: Echibeckia is a sterile hybrid. Because it does not set seed, it provides zero food for birds like finches, who heavily rely on the late-season seed heads of native Echinacea and Rudbeckia. 
•  Altered Flower Anatomy: Many popular cultivars (like the Summerina Glow series) feature double-petaled or highly modified densely packed structures. This makes it physically difficult for bees and butterflies to access what little pollen or nectar might be available. 
• Lack of Co-Evolution: True native pollinators evolved alongside straight species (like Echinacea purpurea or Rudbeckia fulgida). Man-made hybrids prioritize aesthetics—like massive blooms, unusual colors, and extended shelf-life—often at the direct expense of nutrient quality

So don't buy this plant!

Inside, I noticed that my aloe vera plant has produced babies, also known as "pups" or "offsets". Four of them... so far. I'm a little surprised since the mother plant is not that big. I'll leave them for now, but I really don't want *more* houseplants.

Outside (thankfully) is this BIG spider that I assume is a funnel spider. I noticed it when it came out to kill a fly caught in its web. I like spiders... as long that they are not in the house!

Maybe it is time to hunt up some Osage orange balls.

Signs of autumn

In a few days, the high temperatures will hit 90+ again, but in the meantime I am going to pretend that autumn is on its way. The yard looks like it agrees, as summer blooms become less vibrant and the fall ones start to come into their own.

Wasps seem to outnumber the bees, at least on the goldenrod. I plan to use the flowers from this plant to dye yarn, so I'll need to harvest early in the day and shake off any bugs that are hiding out. Don't worry - there will be plenty left for the insects.

The fruit on the flowering crabs and winterberry is turning.

And in anticipation of Halloween, new flamingos have been added to the collection.

Under the "out and about" category, my SO and son and I visited the local botanical conservatory this week. I don't usually go there in the summer - and now I know why: it's HOT in there on a sunny day! The tropical and desert displays feel like more of a respite during the winter months, but I wanted to see their pueblo garden display. Of particular interest were methods for conserving water: buried ollas and waffle beds. The "three sisters" - corn, beans, and squash - were planted together, another age-old gardening trick. And then there were those ever-popular southwest colors - terra cotta adobe and blue doors.

It's difficult to leave a garden of any kind without purchasing a memento, in this case three living stone plants. I wanted something that would not outgrow the pot for many years, and these "buttons" look like they fit the bill. Hopefully, I won't kill them. (The foliage and flowers in the photos are artificial.)

This year there seems to be a plethora of articles on deadheading and seed-saving coneflowers. The advice does not compute, as indicated by the comments that accompany the posts, most of which lean toward the "leave the seeds for the birds" and "coneflowers will reseed themselves" variety. Yes, the fading flowers are not very pretty but the goldfinch feeding on them are.

Bag by bag, bit by bit

I decided the beds in the backyard needed mulch. In the past, I have shoveled big piles of it, but that takes forever. Now my MO is to purchase six bags at a time. I'm keeping count, as next year I may have Lowe's deliver a pallet of bags at the beginning of the season. That would be easier on my SO, who does the heavy lifting at the store.

Regarding the arches, I decided instead of cutting them in half, I could just remove some of the middle bits so that they can straddle the fence. Executing that idea is a bit of a challenge tool-wise and muscle-wise. I may solicit some assistance from my SO since I am using his tools and he has more upper body strength.

Besides mulching and mowing, I haven't done a lot in the yard this past week. Something was accomplished inside, though: a new tankless reverse osmosis device. The contractors not only installed it and replaced the garbage disposal but also re-routed the plumbing under the kitchen sink so that I still have plenty of room for the usual junk that goes there.

It's that time of the year when the coneflower starts to fade and the goldenrod begins to come on. The pineapple sage plants are HUGE but they don't bloom until the last minute, a gift to the hummingbirds. Blue jays are back from wherever they summer. I have to keep reminding myself that it is still August because it feels like change is in the air.

Plans start to come together

I'm one of those people who is good at dreaming up ideas, not so good at actually implementing them. So when any of my crazy plans actually start to come together, I get very excited.

Something I have wanted for a while are arches over the gates. Fancy ones are very expensive (and then the welds break). I finally caught onto what other gardeners know to use: cattle panels. They are 16' x 50" and flexible and strong. My daughter transported them from Tractor Supply to my house. Today I wrestled them into position, sort of. I *think* I want to cut them in half lengthwise. Maybe.

Another idea involves defining paths through the larger beds in the backyard. There is a prototype of one between the rain garden and the chokeberry shrubs. Yesterday my daughter and I cleared some of the yard waste from the back of the yard and took it to the biosolids site. Today I took some mulch and defined where I think the path could be in the that bed.

Around the oak tree...

...through the shrubs...

...pass the arborvitae.

Looking back

This summer was the summer of TOO - working in the yard was difficult because it was TOO cool in the spring, TOO hot in the summer, TOO dry, TOO wet, TOO sunny, TOO humid, TOO, TOO, TOO. Occasionally we'd have a perfect day for yardening, but then I frequently had something else I needed to do. I'm relatively satisfied with how I kept up, though there is always more to do.

I sent my lawncare company a note, asking if they use insecticide in their treatment. They didn't answer. Is that a yes? I may try another service next year.

Dog daze

School is starting, which makes it feel like summer is over, but the temperatures say otherwise. I'm sitting under the elm tree in the backyard, watching goldfinch in the coneflower, hummingbird at the pestemon, swallowtail on the Joe pye. It's rather quiet for a Sunday afternoon - no mowers or loud cars or blaring music. Almost like living in the middle of nowhere.

Why I grow everbearing strawberries

This week's tasks revolved around pruning and weeding and mulching. I'm starting to get a little tired of watering and mowing. At the same time, I am anxiously awaiting next summer, as I have plans, always more plans, for what to do with the yard. It's good to have something to look forward to.

By the way, my ear infection turned out to be a fungal thing. That explains why nothing seemed to be helping until the local ENT office provided me with the proper diagnosis and an rx for ear drops. Still not completely better, but progress. Could be worse.

Chatty AI

Recently, when I searched for a perennial that would do well with no morning sun or afternoon sun but about four hours of midday sun, yarrow was recommended. Then the search engine on my phone asked questions about my search results, which is something new to me. "We" chatted a bit over that before I bailed. (You don't have to politely end a "conversation" with AI - just rudely leave. So satisfying.)

My SO commented that his yarrow looks great but hasn't bloomed in years. So the next day I queried about that. The response was yarrow needs 6-8 hours of sun a day. I countered "But yesterday you said...." That elicited an apology and a clarification. Funny stuff.

Rudbeckia with a bit of ironweed

One thing AI seems inadequate for is identifying odd bugs. I haven't had any luck ID'ing these two. They both are very tiny.

However, common whitetail skimmers popped up after a text search, which is good because I can't get close enough for a photo. They seem to like the nodding onion.

Two adult mourning doves with their youngsters

My SO and I visited Fort Wayne Rocks, as I have a plan to create gravel paths through the larger beds so I can get into them, but I want to edge the paths with rocks to contain the gravel. I didn't order the rocks yet - need to clear out some yard waste first - but the price for a pallet of what I want is reasonable.

I mentioned my plan to my daughter and she flashed me some photos of what she would like to do with rocks. We both have flat yards, so nothing dramatic can be accomplished, but my idea is plain vanilla compared to hers.