Fabulous Fall

      The new fall weather is delightful.  It is a joy to be out in the garden without sweat salting on my glasses.  Lots of flowers are in, and harvests of tomatoes and beans are still going strong.  The following pictures are all from September 23, 2015.

Cosmos

Cosmos with Striping

Beautiful Speckled Zinnia

      The shot above is of Mexican Butterflyweed.  It does indeed attract butterflies  And aphids, yuck. If you look very closely at this picture, there is a Soldier Beetle on the flower, near the top.  He is sitting horizontally with his head to the left. Thanks to the soldier, this plant is probably aphid free.

      Grapes?  Don't I wish.  This is American Beauty Bush, which get these pretty little purple berries.  When the winter is cold and long, the birds will strip the bushes.  Natural bird seed.

     Last winter was long and hard.  Killed the canna lily bulbs.  But not the seed.  So the canna lilies are back in full force, and attract hummingbirds all day long.  I would like too find more attractive canna flowers, but this variety has been with us for a long, long time.

      These cherry tomatoes are probably Sweet 100's.  Here is a closer shot:

      These are Sungold Cherry Tomatoes.  Beautiful mixed in with red cherries and Chocolate Cherries.  This plant is a volunteer growing up into the Dr. Martin Lima beans.
       Well, that is enough for now.  Every plant shown is a volunteer.  It is nice to have free plants, but you need to pull them where they start to takeover.

A Light of its own

      Just after lunch today I looked out at the garden and saw this Gloriosa Daisy shining like a beacon through the shade of the Pin Oak tree.  This is the first shot of my new Nikon Coolpix camera.  The old one was having lens extension problems.  Hopefully I will be able to get back to some picture documentation for my blog.

    The gloriosa daisies have been a little prolific in their volunteer efforts this year.  Some of the plants have a definite orange tinge to the flower petals.

This plant has orange near the center

       And this last plant has far more orange/red to the flowers.  The flowers are about double the size of black eyed Susan, and are very light self seeders. So light,that I do not often offer them for adoption during my plant give aways.  Maybe next year will yield enough to give away.