Blooms in Winter...

I'm enjoying the daughters of the Pelargonium that, last year, got too big to continue to be a houseplant… I'd blogged quite a bit about it over the Spring/Summer/Fall, how she'd been planted outside for her last hoorah… but of course I couldn't just leave things alone, I took a few cuttings & now have 2 very nice young girls for my efforts…

The Mother Plant

Yes, that's Mama planted outside, and she was the daughter of a plant at my Mom's house, so I guess that makes my Mom's plant (still living outside in Southern California) a Grandma-plant now.

The Daughters… one of which is blooming quite nicely (note the snow outside)...

To give you an idea of scale, those pots are about 7" across on the outer edges of the rims, the blooming one is over 10" tall… the girls are growing up fast!!

Outside its mostly just white… at least for a few more months… yes, we had a White Christmas!

Keep warm!  If you live where it's warm enjoy your gardens… as for me, I'm enjoying the break :)

One heck of a Storm!!

On Saturday the tiny bit of snow we'd had previously had been long gone… then in the wee hours of the morning Sunday it started snowing…

…and it kept snowing…

…now Sunday evening & its still Snowing!!...

Monday morning… the snow has stopped...

In a 24 hour period we got about a foot of snow… Jeff ran the snow blower 3 times for this storm, twice Sunday & again on Monday morning...

Later Monday morning, the Sun is Shining & we have a beautiful, white & sparkly world!!

The picture above shows where the deer have been making their way through my yard into my woods…

Snow!!

Yep, finally a reasonable amount of snow… kinda late in coming this year!

I've always liked the way the decorative grasses look in the snow...

Check out PPPE!!

I've continued to blog about the local critters, but on my GAVOT blog…  check there to learn about the adventures of Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater (PPPE)…

Part 1 - The Great (nobby) Pumpkin (follow link to full story…)

Part 2 - Hawkeye comes to Investigate (follow link to the continuing saga of PPPE…)

Fattening up the Tree Rats!!

Let's face it, I live in Minnesota, I have woods behind my house…. Squirrels are a given!

Lately the Squirrels have been ravenous, eating up plain beef suet (they don't usually go for this stuff) as well as my husband's warty pumpkin that we have out on the porch…  we wouldn't mind the pumpkin if they'd just wait until after Halloween...

It's no use fighting them, but to keep them from eating everything in sight I've been putting out corn… here are some pics I shot the other day of a couple squirrels pigging out on the deck… Enjoy!!

This chubby guy was more bold than most, he didn't seem to be too bothered by hubby & I having our noses to the windows...

There's another guy out there… check out the planter on the rail...

Look for the bushy tail sticking up in the green planter on the right….

The trees in the woods are all bare now… since we've had a bit of a drought all the critters in the area are more ravenous than usual… I don't mind since growing season is over - as long as they don't do permanent damage.

In this pic you can see them both pretty well… some enterprising squirrel had buried some corn in the planter on the rail, hard to say if it was the guy eating it or not - finders keepers!

Peeking out to say "Hi"

I was having a hectic week this last week… and on one of the more hectic days I glanced over toward the path to my front door, to my surprise this is what I saw:

One very late post-season Day Lily!!  Her sunny little face put a smile on mine!!

Thank You Lord Jesus for sending this little friend to cheer & encourage me!

More Color!!

Just when you think all the pretty colors are done more colors burst onto the scene!!

View looking out from the front porch… the tall Grasses are getting colorful & fuzzy, the Day Lilies are turning gold… and the neighbor's tree (a dark maple) has turned a beautiful orange!

Here's a better shot of the neighbor's Maple Tree...

Looking back at the porch… the Sedum is still beautiful, the Aster is loaded with purple blooms, and the Spirea have their fall colors bursting forth...

Spirea Leaves...

Spirea Closeup...

My relatively recent Scabiosa is still putting out some blooms.

Aster still blooming...

Jacob's Ladder still blooming...

Pelargonium leaves are turning an interesting shade of red...

Phlox is still blooming...

My new little Maple is finally changing color… this is the tree that's replacing the one the bunnies destroyed last year.

A little color still remains...

It was a pretty day today, nice enough for a walk outside without a jacket (it won't last long)… though the color here is way past "peak" there are still some nice trees around… you'll notice the lawns are all brown - most people here don't bother with Sprinkler systems because we usually don't need them to stay green most of the time, not this year!

The tree above is in a park a couple blocks from home, even it has a brown lawn...

I went out of my way to get a picture of the tree above… it especially looks pretty with the blue sky in the background!

Back to my own yard, and I'm still finding some pretty colors, but on a smaller scale… like my little Day Lilies (which have finally stopped blooming).

The leaves on my Honeysuckle are colorful...

Leaves on my Spirea (medium sized variety)...

More Spirea leaves…

That's it… not a whole lot to write about in the gardens these days…

Moving deeper into Autumn...

The leaves are nearly gone from my Oak Trees now, they are still littering the gardens where they'll stay until Spring.

My Asters continue to bloom and (on warm days) get visited by the local bees.

My Sedum is still beautiful… I'm still amazed by her this year...

Most of my Phlox still have some blooms...

This one Beardtongue is still going like gangbusters!!

The blooms on my Decorative Grasses are starting to get "fuzzy"...

My Kalanchoe is turning fall colors, she's almost in camouflage in this photo...

A closeup of my Kalanchoe… I thought her leaves looked a bit like orange roses… very pretty, even if it does mean she's dying :(…  She's an annual I've had for many years & she just got too big to be indoors anymore...

I'm not crying too much for my Kalanchoe because her 2 daughters (clippings I planted & moved inside) are growing strong!!