Weeding on the Wild Side: October 2015

Saturday, October 31, 2015

November 2, 2015

Welcome to my blog, today I am linking with-

Orange You Glad It's Friday hosted by Marie

Skywatch Friday hosted by Yogi, Sandy, and Sylvia

Today's flowers hosted by Denise

Saturday's Critters hosted by Eileen

I'd Rather B' Birdin' hosted by Hootin' Anni

Macro Monday 2 hosted by Gemma and Mystical Magical Teacher

In a Vase on Monday hosted by Cathy

I'm enjoying all the activity of the hungry birds on my deck. Chickadees abound, here the Chestnut-Backed Chickadee, Poecile rufescens-

One of the surprises this fall is that the spring bloomer Mock Orange, Choisya ternata, is blooming again. I can't remember this happening before.

This would be a great fragrant flower for a moon garden-

It also makes a nice leafy inclusion in this week's In a Vase on Monday, join hostess Cathy on Rambling in the Garden to see what bloggers around the world are finding in their gardens to decorate a vase. This week my main flowers are a single cluster of the wonderful prolific Sea Foam rose, with a couple of added Reve d'Or flowers, some of the fantastic bloomer geranium 'Rozanne', some of the Mock Orange for flowers and foliage, some Petunia 'Laura Bush' still blooming, some heather Daboecia cantabrica 'Atropurpurea', and some sprigs of Berberis darwinii at the back. Taken on my kitchen counter we did ourselves a few years back. The sugar bowl was found at a garage sale, it will be a present for daughter #1. The tea cup is one that was my MIL's-

Different lighting-

Details of vase-

Taken on our bathroom counter we also did ourselves a few years back for different warmer lighting-

Different lighting-

Reve d'Or has such nice golden peachy colors-

Geranium 'Rozanne' is such a trouper-

And now for the edible garden news, I've been harvesting squash, beans, eggplants, tomatoes, and now the fall crops of Chinese radishes, like the super long Daikons, here with self-sown Swiss Chard and some peppers-

A typical fall/winter radish for soups, I can also cook the tops for greens. I let them go to seed in the spring and they come up by themselves in late summer and make nice 3-4" / 7-10cm roots-

My wonderful tomato and eggplant beds, I am growing beans on the deer fence this year and had to protect them with plastic sheets and bird netting. They did great, still coming, particularly runner beans.

Tomatoes in this late bed are still going strong, I'm reviving Baylor Paste that I hadn't grown for quite a few years, a wonderful pear-shaped sauce tomato-

I cut back all my rampant self-sown Borage in late summer and it is blooming still-

Don't forget to set your clocks back tonight (in USA)!

What's still growing for you? Or have frosts wiped out your garden. Hannah Some Silly Humor-

©Weeding on the Wild Side, all rights reserved. I enjoy reading your comments, and will visit your blog and leave comments there if possible, but I am not able to do so if google + is the only option. If you want me to visit your blog you could leave me your url, or email address.

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Orange You Glad it's In a Vase on Monday October 24, 2015

Today I am linking with-

Skywatch Friday hosted by Yogi, Sandy, and Sylvia

Today's Flowers hosted by Denise

Orange You Glad It's Friday hosted by Maria

Saturday's Critters hosted by Eileen

I'd Rather B' Birdin' hosted by Hootin' Anni

In a Vase on Monday hosted by Cathy

Macro Monday 2 hosted by Gemma and Mystical Magical Teacher

Those fall sunsets are really something-

I found some interesting fall foliage color changes on a Spirea 'Anthony Waterer', which I had cut back and it had a little bloom-

These were the start of this week's In a Vase on Monday, join hostess Cathy on Rambling in the Garden to see what bloggers around the world are finding in their gardens to decorate a vase.

This week's arrangement is in honor of my mother, born in October 1917. This is an early photo of her.

She was a missionary in Mexico for over 4 years, and it was there she met my father, and I and my older brother were born. They left because of my father's health problems including Malaria. The lidded bowl in the photo is from Mexico, my sister bought it there on a trip. This is my first arrangement, a rather sparse and simple one of Spirea sprigs and flower, a couple of Yarrow flowers, a Baby Blanket rose, some sprigs of Dogwood, and rose hips from the mini rose 'Little White Lies'.

Different lighting-

From above-

The pink Yarrow and Baby Blanket groundcover rose-

This Mother of Pearl pin was my mother's-

My sister gave me the ceramic box after a trip to Mexico-

As I walked around the yard some more, I realized there were more flowers I could add to the vase, my two dahlias now blooming, an Apricot Nectar rose, and a few Ghislaine de Feligonde roses-

The question seems to be, is less more? Or is variety the spice of life?

I like peachy sunset colors in flowers, Apricot Nectar is a wonderful rose with huge flowers-

Meanwhile out on the deck, the Chickadees, Nuthatches, Steller's Jays, and Juncos have been returning from their summer places, here's one of the blue bandits with his mask on, decked out in orange for pumpkin time, and always in stealth mode-

Fall is flitting on by, I hope the weather is treating you well! Hannah

I had a comment about problems with leaving a comment here. If you are having trouble commenting on my blog, you can send me an email at z8hannah8z@gmail.com to comment and let me know of your difficulties. Thanks! I looked up solutions on Blogger and apparently Wordpress has not updated their Open ID servers, so to comment on Blogspot blogs, you must select OpenID then enter your address, changing it to plain http://address instead of https://address.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Fall Colors for In a Vase on Monday October 17, 2015

Fall colors for In a Vase on Monday

Welcome to my blog, today I am linking with-

Today's Flowers hosted by Denise

Orange You Glad It's Friday hosted by Maria

Skywatch Friday hosted by Yogi, Sylvia and Sandi

Saturday's Critters hosted by Eileen

Macro Monday 2 hosted by Gemma and Mystical Magical Teacher

In a Vase on Monday hosted by Cathy of Rambling in the Garden

Those fall sunsets can make some nice silhouettes, I seem to have captured a bird-

My Blue Mist wildflower Coelstinum conoclinium came up very late and is blooming very late again, no danger it will take over the garden-

Here with a very small crab spider, sorry it is not sharper-

I enjoy growing the annual tame relative, Ageratum, started indoors-

The oranger of my two Dahlias is featured in my vase this week, answering the challenge of Cathy of Rambling in the Garden to fill a vase with plant material from my garden for her meme In a Vase on Monday.

I used a red glass mosaic vase for some shots, here you can also see Gaillardia 'Tokajer' blooming its first year and nearly continuously. The red foliage and berries of Berberis thunbergii 'Rosy Glow' can also be seen. Here my Swedish Dala horse has joined the flowers, commemorating my Swedish MIL, Martha, who was born in October, 1911, and almost came to America with her family on the Titanic, but took another ship.

Marta Magreta Gunhilde-

One of her great-grandsons looks a lot like her-

Also in the vase are some double Gaillardias, with a flash-

Then I thought about another mosaic glass vase and wanted to see what it would look like in it.

Which vase do you like better with the flowers? Fall has been cooler and the bean plants keep producing, especially the runner beans which like cool weather and make wonderful shellies. Yum!

Hannah A litle fall ambience-

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Plant Selections, In a Vase on Monday, October 11, 2015

Welcome to my blog, today I am linking with-

Today's Flowers hosted by Denise

Macro Monday 2 hosted by Gemma and Mystical Magical Teacher

In a Vase on Monday hosted by Cathy

I'm looking at some plant selections that I'm using in a bed by my driveway, it has some Lamb's Ears, for a nice silvery look,

and a few Echinacea plants, no longer blooming, from August, I am hoping for a bigger clump of them eventually-

Pink Panda strawberries make a random ground cover, they started blooming after some rain, and are blooming now-

I'm edging the bed with creeping Thyme, no longer blooming-

The back of the bed has 3 Spirea shrubs, they are favorites of mine since deer don't seem to bother them and they have been great at blooming every spring, no longer blooming-

Spirea 'Pink Ice' has frosty looking variegated leaves.

Spirea Fire Light fall color-

In another bed is my 16 year old Spirea Little Princess when blooming in spring-

I also have a native Spirea douglasii in another place, which has grown quite large and is covered in with long purple cones of flowers in summer-

In addition the driveway bed has 3 Sedums- a NOID variegated one,

and two Sedum Sunsparklers with darker leaves, no longer blooming- 'Jade Tuffet'-

and Cherry Tart-

They looked great in the nursery but the multitude of branches turned out to rather weak and tended to break off, so they are not as impressive in the ground, but hopefully they will do better when they grow next year.

Sedum spectabiles have been very reliable for me, these are totally untended and bloom every year in a bank by the driveway that is overrun with Lady's Mantle which suppresses all the weeds.

A new shrub that will take a few years to look like much is a burning bush, Euonymous alatus-

Even though it is small it managed to bloom, though I didn't see the flowers, but the seeds are hanging on-

My Dahlias finally started to bloom, so I'm using them for my In a Vase on Monday post. These are currently blooming fall flowers, hopefully they will be able to keep blooming for a nice long season. I'm enjoying taking Cathy's challenge to find something growing in my garden to put in a vase to decorate my home. The other flowers are Ageratum 'Dondo Blue', and I also used ribbon grass-

I also tried out one dahlia in a vase with some Elaeagnus 'Gilt Edge' to bring out the yellow in the flowers, it is blooming now and wafting a sweet vanilla fragrance in the garden