Garden Bloggers Bloom Day meets Skywatch Friday

Despite the fact that I managed to think it was Wednesday when it was actually Thursday, I do know it is has been a beautiful October so far. Yesterday, however, we had the first tremour of frost here on the mountain--not enough to be a killing frost, but enough to remind the plants in our gardens of what's coming.

There is still a surprising amount of bloom happening in my garden. I decided to combine some of the blooms into collages because it's easier on my readers than putting up umpteen individual photos and making a loooonnggg post. Above, delicate blue nigella flower and foliage; the well named wallflower 'Pastel Patchwork'; Nepeta and tradescantia flowers; the still dazzling 'Sungold' buddleia.

The bees continue to be very glad about the asters and related flowers: top, 'Alma Potchske' and 'Purple Dome'; bottom, gallardia and a New England aster bathes in the sunlight.

Brilliant red cardinal flower serves up a huge punch of colour; the soft white flowers of eupatorium 'Chocolate', and the glassy berries of arrowwood viburnum 'Chicago Lustre'.

Oh, those echinaceas, rudbeckias, and more asters! A veritable rainbow: 'Secret Desire', 'Green Jewel' and 'Flamethrower' echinaceas; a bee feasting on a common rudbeckia; and the dainty flowers of aster 'Lady in Black'.

Lots of hot pink and magenta providing a little warmth against those cool mornings: a persicaria (name unknown); sedum 'October Daphne'; bee in 'Hansa' rugosa rose; a cluster of 'Martin Frobisher' Explorer roses, and one valiant annual poppy...

Now, to put the Skywatch in this post...unsettled weather in recent days has made for some spectacular skyscapes. Thunderstorms, hail, humidity, galeforce winds...such is the nature of October in the Annapolis Valley. Now, if I can just keep my days straightened out...

Wordless Wednesday: A Little Farm Humour around the Annapolis Valley

Other People's Gardens: Flora's seaside dream

Since I haven't had a chance to do one of these posts for a while, how about a visit to one of those wonderful, perfect gardens: You know the kind I mean, Other People's Gardens. To my mind, everyone else's garden IS perfect, and a teaching exercise, and a joy. This time, we're going to my friend Flora's garden, not far from Yarmouth, NS.

Flora's garden is sort of like mine in that it is challenged by living near the sea--wind and salt spray are a fact of life in Sandford. Her back garden is surrounded by a fence that acts as something of a windbreak, although if things were as wild this weekend at her place as at ours, she'd need a fence 20 feet high to buffet the wind.

This garden is steadily evoloving and growing and changing with each year. Flora swears every year that she's not buying/accepting any new plants this year, but none of us believe her...and all of us help to feed her habit. She enjoys a mixture of old fashioned garden varieties as well as newer ones, and is quick to share with others. I now have a young Deutzia 'Codsall Pink' compliments of Flora.

I love to watch Flora's garden changing with the seasons. From the eruption of the bulbs every spring, to the blooming of her many roses and other flowering shrubs, to the changing of foliage colour in the trees, this is a garden with the art of 4-season interest totally mastered.

Some areas of the garden shimmer with cool pastels in perenials, grasses, and shrubs like the beautiful rose cascading beside the barn.

Other areas are warm with rich hot colours in helenium, astilbe, phlox and foxgloves.

From Flora, I learned that we can move plants regularly til we find a place that really suits them. She laughingly says they get bored looking at the same sights all the time, and appreciate a change. I use this for an explanation when I decide to move plants. Works every time.

This garden has something fascinating to look at everywhere you look, from low-growing heucheras and hostas to the tall, elegant lilies.

Lilies do very well in Flora's garden. Well, everything seems to do very well in her garden.

The fountain sings its soothing song all day, a perfect counterpoint to the birdsong and the bees feasting in blooms around the garden.

It's entirely possible that I am slightly jealous over this wonderful blue hydrangea. It's a beauty, as is the pink one, and the huge, enthusiastic whiteflowered climbing hydrangea.

Cascades of roses tumble from shrubs and ramblers all around the back garden.

Flora's garden is a little warmer than mine, so she has some things come into bloom a couple of weeks earlier than I do, like her various tall phloxes...

But like in my garden, the cool sea air means that blooms also last much longer. Her aconitums are magnificent.

Flora's garden is a rich mixture of flower colours and shapes, foliage textures and sizes. It's a living, joyful place, and one of my favourite gardens. It's a garden of joy, which is just what a garden should be--and its bounty has been shared around most of the county, and beyond. For after all, gardens are best when they are shared with other gardeners, aren't they?

Wordless Wednesday: 'The Bee-loud Glade', October edition

Textures in Autumn

Walking around the garden today, I was struck yet again by the variety of flower and foliage textures and sizes. There are plants with huge flowers, like this 'Josephine' clematis...

And those with petite, delicate flowers such as the 'Dallas Blues' switchgrass and the Brazilian vervain, better known as Verbena bonariensis.

This annual verbena is truly popular, showing up more regularly in 4 or 6-packs of transplants (for those who want a little speedier performance) as well as in seed packages. V. bonariensis is a great bee and butterfly plant, and gives a wonderful airy effect in the garden.

The sturdy Japanese anemone contrasts wonderfully with another switchgrass, 'Cheyenne Sky'.

A little festive decor: ornamental gourds and a pumpkin contrast with the last of the annuals and a container of decorative kale.

Sturdy and steady Virginia creeper is beginning to display its fall finery. I need to do some serious pruning of this plant, as it may knock down the arbour one of these days! Or perhaps, it's holding it up.

From the delicate foliage and flowers of the heather (right panel), to the sturdier and larger flowers of the foxglove (top left), the amusing beadlike flowers of variegated Obedient plant (Physostegia, bottom left), to the striking and wonderful blossoms of 'Cloudy' aconite (centre), there is a huge variety still going strong here.

A sedum's flowerhead is composed of many delicate, petite star-shaped flowers. This one is 'Mediovariegatum'.

Buddleia are similar: a collection of tiny florets make up the larger, showy flowerhead. This is my alltime favourite buddleia, 'Sungold.' I have two of them this year, and am hoping at least one will overwinter decently.

We all know I love asters, echinaceas, rudbeckias, chrysanthemums of all sizes and colours. I love the breathy, delightful petite beauty of 'Lady in Black' calico aster...

The jawdropping spectacle that is 'Hot Papaya' echinacea, definitely a star in my books...

And everything in between! Someday, I'd like to do a bed of only members of the compositae family...with a huge variety of textures as well as colours...but for the time being, we have the joy of Picasa to make a virtual garden.

The October Country...

"I saw old Autumn in the misty morn/ Stand, shadowless like Silence, listening to Silence." ~ Thomas Hood.

"There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October." ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

"My lonely spirit thrills to see the frosty asters like smoke upon the hills." ~ Bliss Carman


"Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits." ~Samuel Butler

"Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter."~ Carol Bishop Hipps

"Summer ends, and autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always, and a full moon every night." ~Hal Borland

"Every green thing loves to die in bright colours." ~Henry Ward Beecher

"There ought to be gardens for all months in the year, in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season." ~Sir Francis Bacon

"Heat lingers As days are still long; Early mornings are cool while autumn is still young."~ Po Chu-i.

"The stillness of October gold /went out like beauty from a face." ~ Edward A. Robinson

"May we make wise choices in how and what we harvest, may earth's weather turn kinder, may there be enough food for all creatures..."

"...may the diminishing light in our daytime skies be met by an increasing compassion and tolerance in our hearts." ~ Kathleen Jenks.