Skywatch Friday plus Fall Blooms and a Critter October 24, 2014

Cloud formations at close to sundown for Skywatch Friday, hosted by Yogi, Sylvia, and Sandy-

Today I am also linking with-

Saturday's Critters hosted by Eileen

Today's Flowers hosted by Denise

I Heart Macro hosted by Laura

Macro Monday 2 hosted by Gemma and Mystical Magical Teacher

Some plants are blooming again because the fall rains have started.  Pink Panda strawberries-

Monarda punctata bracts look like blooms-

Fall color is also progressing, grape vines-

Nandina at a local park-

And now for a critter, for years I was catching these gigantic slugs and releasing them in my woods because I assumed they were banana slugs because of their 4-5" / 10-12cm size, only to find recently by finally looking them up that they were really Leopard slugs, which originated in Europe, but I found that they are also beneficial in that they eat other slugs and their eggs, so can reduce their populations.

My fall project this year to lower maintenance in my yard has been to remove fences, T-posts, and trellises from a long narrow bed used mainly to grow pole beans.  Voles had become so bad over the years in this bed that they even nipped most of my pole bean vines after I had wrapped them in aluminum foil, a strategy that has been working for many years, prompting me to eliminate this bed and please my husband, who has been frustrated over not being able to mow well in the narrow paths on each side.  Here is after removing all the hardware,  some mint plants in the foreground-

Here is after several days of mattocking out all the weeds plus recovering quite a few nails I used to protect bean roots from voles- I had formerly removed nails but hadn't gone as deep so many were still there.  This is the entire width of the area and is now seeded with No Mow grass seed, which has not come up yet-

Here is an area I rescued last spring from 7-8' / 2-3m tall overgrown gooseberry bushes, who knew they would spread with suckers and become thorny monsters with low yields?  I also eliminated an equally thorny and overgrown row of ornamental quince.

With No Mow grass planted-

I have learned to  eliminate a lot of plant snarls and blackberry tangles on our 2 acres by turning them into grass which can be mowed, the no chemical, no hard work way to control rampant berry and blackberry vines in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), that is no hard work after all the removal of overgrown vegetation is accomplished.  What are your gardening challenges?   Hannah

or cameras are macro

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