Sunday, October 29, 2017

The Garden In Fall

It's been awhile since I have done a garden post.  My last one was The Early August Garden when the garden was in full bloom and gorgeous!  Then I went on vacation, and all the bees and Asian beetles arrived, and I pretty much stopped working in the garden.  My least favorite time to work in the garden is late summer/early fall because the hornets/bees/Asian beetles make it miserable.  So I usually take a break (with the exception of watering), and come back to tidy up after the first frost.

Even though it snowed on Friday, we still haven't had a killing frost yet;  although the blooms have faded, there is still a lot of color in my garden.




The brown stems you see in the picture above is what is left of my Black Eyed Susans.  I was going to cut them down, but then I noticed the gold finches enjoying the seed,  and I didn't have the heart.  I will wait a few more weeks yet.

Almost all of my bushes have gorgeous, gorgeous berries on them, making up for the lack of flower color.

The bush below is a highlight in my garden for it provides four seasons of interest:  yellow flowers in spring, bright chartreuse foliage in summer, red foliage in the fall (not there yet!), and red berries in the winter.  The birds love to nest inside of it and eat the berries all winter long.


Here is a close up of the bright red berries on this bush.


This garden has a gorgeous river view in the background that can be seen all summer long, but is even more visible when the trees drop their leaves.

In addition to the bush above, this garden also holds other bushes that provide lots of fall interest.


One of the bushes has these lovely purple berries on it.


And the other is a Vibernum that produces these lovely pink flowers in the fall.


My southern retaining wall garden doesn't look anything like it did in early August, but it's still pretty because the annuals, though faded, are still blooming!


I have so much sedum in my garden.  The bees and butterflies love it.  It's the easiest plant on the planet to grow!


This is the front path leading up to my house.  When I returned home from vacation my hanging baskets were dead because I didn't have anyone come over to water them.  I just popped the dead plants out and replaced them with mums and they have been blooming beautifully ever since.



  Most of the trees in my yard have lost their leaves already, but I do have a few with a lot of color on them still;  like this Autumn Blaze Maple.



I have a Flowering Crab Apple Tree that is just dripping with red berries.  It is so heavy with berries that the branches are literally bending over.


And my husband and I were so surprised to spot these berries on our Star Magnolia tree for the first time since we planted it.


Another garden surprise was seeing one of our lilac bushes turn this beautiful yellow.  That has never happened before.


And finally, I wanted to show you a few pictures I took in Mid-August that I never got a chance to share.

I have a deep shade garden along my fence line where it can be difficult to grow anything.  But these unusual Cimicifuga plants seem to like it there.


And in late summer, this is what my garden pond looked like.  This is the one spot I still let the phlox grow.  I've been steadily removing it from most of my other gardens because it reseeds everywhere and gets mildew on it's leaves.  But in this sunny spot it does quite well, and it's a small garden, so I'm able to keep a handle on the reseeding problem.


A lot of you have this plant in your garden.  It's called Magic Lily because in the spring it produces thick green leaves, which then die back and disappear, but in the fall, these pretty flowers magically appear!


And finally, I wanted to show you what my garden looked like during the solar eclipse.  The lighting was so unusual!


And that will probably be the end of the garden posts for the year!  Although you always see bits and pieces of my garden when I do fashion photo shoots in my yard.  I will also do a winter garden post when we get a pretty snowfall.

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

22 comments:

  1. Your garden and home is gorgeous! I am so bad with plants and I was doing really well with one but my son keeps eating it lol
    I am following you on Instagram. Did you want to do the IG Challenge?


    xoxo Falasha
    Bite My Fashion


    Instagram| Bloglovin'| Facebook

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    1. Thanks Falasha! That's funny about your son eating a plant...a hope it's not toxic. I have a cat and I always have to check on the Internet what plants are toxic to cats before bringing it inside my home. I am open to the IG Challenge, but the link above does not work. And yes, I will follow you back if I'm not already.

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  2. You have such a beautiful garden! We have such a small space at the moment, still house hunting and trying to find a bigger place. I'd love to have something as big and colourful as your garden, these are beautiful photos and you can tell a lot of love goes into your garden! :)

    Hope you're having a lovely weekend! We are having a quiet one today dealing with sick toddlers.

    Away From The Blue Blog

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    1. Thanks so much, there are many days I wish I had a smaller home and garden. I think of downsizing quite often. So sorry to hear the kids are sick. We stayed home this weekend to get some things done around the house.

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  3. Your garden looks beautiful in every season. The photo in the eclipse light is stunning. Are you ever troubled by deer and if so, what do you do?

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    1. Yes, we live in the country, in fact, my husband just saw three deer standing in front of the shed last night. We never had deer in the yard when we had dogs. But when the dogs died of old age and we didn't get new dogs, the deer arrived. The deer can be so frustrating especially with certain plants like petunias or sunflowers. For the most part, I let the deer have a certain part of my yard that I don't take care of. It's way far from the house and they seem happy to just eat the phlox growing there. In the areas of my yard that I do maintain, I just try to avoid planting things they really enjoy (I know that can be hard because when they are hungry enough they'll eat anything). If there is something they seem fond of, I put some chicken wire around it till they move somewhere else. I know, deer and rabbits can be so frustrating!

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  4. WOW!!! Such a gorgeous garden and I am sure the trickling from the river and water feature make it sound so tranquil. Beautiful!!!

    Laura
    Black Coffee Beautiful

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    1. Thanks Laura, yes, the river and waterfall add a lot to my garden ambiance! I am lucky!

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  5. The gardens are looking pretty at the moment. Autumnal golds on the ground but we have the odd rose and and bank of fucsia's in flower. I am busy transplanting growing pansies for winter colour.

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    1. It sounds lovely Anna! You must live in a warm climate. Where I live, everything just dies for the winter. It's so sad not seeing any flowers again till spring.

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  6. Your garden positively glowed during the eclipse. Amazing golden color. Love the berry bushes, and how they are lovely every season. Beautiful space, Amy!

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    1. Thanks Leslie. It was so interesting seeing the garden during the eclipse. I'm glad I was home.

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  7. I am in love with your garden Amy. It is always beautiful.
    :) gwingal

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  8. Beautiful garden photos Amy. I'm not sure where you are but some of the plants look like they're in the Pacific Northwest part of the USA. I'm in Canada. I was intrigued by your photo of the Viburnum flowers. I have a Viburnum in my garden but the flowers are different. Your pink ones look like Hydrangea. Are you definite that your flowering bush is a viburnum?

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    1. That is funny that you should say that because we received so much rain this summer and last that the landscape has turned into the Pacific Northwest! But no, I live in Wisconsin. It's usually not this lush. You should have seen it this summer! And yes, it absolutely is a Viburnum, perhaps what's throwing you off is the color. It actually blooms white, but the color changes as the seasons changes. It starts off as white in August, then goes to a pink or chartreuse green, then in the winter the blooms stay, but they dry on the stem and turn brown. I have to cut the brown flowers off every spring!

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  9. Your garden looks like heaven to me - it's so beautiful!

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  10. A lovely garden - even at this time!

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  11. Congrats Amy! Your post is Featured at the #BloggingGrandmothersLinkParty that goes live later on tonight. See here: https://grammysgrid.com/blogging-grandmothers-link-party-22/

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    1. Thats awesome Dee! Thanks so much for the feature!

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