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Showing posts from October, 2014

Autumn Colors

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The Yellow Garden, with a glowing yellow-foliaged silver maple as a yellow backdrop.  Things really look like autumn around here: leaves turning colors (and some trees completely having lost their leaves already) and mums in bloom. We haven't gotten frost yet so the annual flowers are still going, but they don't look as vigorous as they did six weeks ago. Here are a few scenes from my gardens: The tiny trees in the West Island, which I planted this year, are dwarfed by the same maple as in the previous photo. I can't wait to see which of the new flowering and evergreen trees and shrubs will make it through the winter, and what they will look like in 5-10 years when they have reached a good size. Orange mums and marigolds blaze in the corner by our front porch. The North Border still have lots of zinnias, cosmos and petunias blooming, but they're starting to look a bit more scraggly than they did back in August. It's nice to still have some flowers to see from my kit

A New Google Earth Aerial Photo!

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The newest Google Earth aerial photo of our property, taken in June 2014. Click for greater detail. I've been waiting for over a year, hoping since last fall that Google Earth would soon have a new aerial photograph of our property, and I finally noticed one has been added! The last photo had been taken in September 2012, and we have made some significant changes to our gardens and added several new areas since then. I could hardly wait to see what the changes would look like from the air, and the new photo clearly shows all the major changes we've made this year and last year. The previous photo, taken in September 2012. The changes can be seen if you compare the two photos: The Kitchen Garden and chicken pen, lower left, hadn't been laid out yet, although the lumber for these was waiting on the edge of the driveway in September 2012. The Kitchen Garden. The Gazebo, bottom right, wasn't in place until Spring 2013. The Gazebo, in the distance. The new West Island and No

Booksale Fever! New & Old Garden Books for Winter Reading

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My stack of 21 garden books that I found at the booksale. Good winter reading! Last Thursday afternoon my husband and I drove to the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines (the largest and capital city of Iowa), to attend the Planned Parenthood Booksale , a twice-annual sale of used and donated books that is one of the largest used booksales in the United States. I have been attending this sale since my parents took me as a child (over 30 years of attending now), and I love buying used books, so it's one of my longtime, favorite traditions. Waiting in line for the sale to begin, the rush inside when the doors open, then seeing the books all arranged on tables just waiting for you to peruse them: heaven! The sale has over 400,000 items (!!) and this year it had an even larger selection of garden books than usual. I always rush to the garden book tables first, and it takes me almost a hour to look through just that subject (even when I'm trying to hurry, lest someone else snag the

Autumn's Surprise Posy

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I was walking around my Pond Gardens yesterday and happened to see that my dianthus 'Sweetness' are blooming again, despite the fact that they are an early summer-blooming perennial: A few tiny blooms can be seen on the dianthus edging the four L-shaped gardens beds around my pond. (They're easier to see close-up. Note: the left bench blew over in one of the windy storms we had a few days ago.) The phlox 'Bright Eyes' are about done too, although I'm happy that they still have a few flowers on them, since they've been blooming since late June! Here's what the dianthus looked like at their peak in early June, with 'Prairie Breeze' Buck roses (I grew the 200 or so dianthus from seed in 2012 and they are still going strong, despite my clay soil): June 2014. What a lovely time of year! A closeup of June's magnificence. Anyway, I was quite delighted to find even a fraction of their earlier blooms repeating this late in the year, and the fragrance

An Autumn Scene

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This sugar maple tree at the southwest edge of our property was so beautiful the other day that I had to take a few snapshots of it. The colors were nearly at their peak, and rain and wind hadn't yet ripped off the leaves and mashed them into a wet mush on the ground (which usually happens right when the leaves are looking their finest in the Midwest). I installed the tree bench several years ago, and it's a lovely spot to sit and look out across the fields (planted this year in soybeans, which are turning yellow at harvest time). It's an especially nice vantage point from which to watch the sun set in the west. In the summer, the leaves provide cool shade at midday, and in the fall, it's a warm place to sit in late afternoon, while munching on an apple from the nearby apple tree. It's unfortunate that such scenes are so fleeting, but like flowers, summertime and youth, they can be breathtakingly beautiful while they last, and lovely to hold in your mind after they

Harvesting the Basil for Delicious Pesto

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One of our basil patches, in a photo from a month ago. I finally finished harvesting some basil to freeze for use over the winter. A packet of basil seeds can yield more than you know what to do with in August and September, but there's nothing like enjoying pesto in January, when fresh basil costs $4.00 for a few leaves. Frost is around the corner, so it's time to harvest some to put by for colder days. I picked the leaves over two evenings. The first time was about an hour before sunset, and I was stung on my finger by a bumblebee that had secreted itself under a leaf (ow!). I leave the flowers on just for the bees, so I can't blame them, but it still hurt. So the next evening, I waited until after it was dark to cut a large shrub at the base and brought it to my front steps to pick the leaves off by the front porch light. That was almost worse, as a number of disgusting slugs had taken up residence on the underside of some of the leaves because night had fallen. I didn&#