Only the tough…

It’s the time when the leaves are starting to fall, mainly poplar leaves but enough so that the familiar crunch was underfoot as I walked my yard this morning. With the dry comes the deer, some of my hosta have been munched to look like stalks of a odd grass, it is part of my gardening life though so cest’ la vie!  The true tough characters of the plants in my gardens shine at this time of year.  It’s dry as bone here we’ve even been under wildfire warnings because of the lack of rain, low humidity and wind. So to see anything blooming is impressive to me!

My pollinator garden is a mass of mostly green right now, there are a few blooms scattered about, a few daises, some basil, some boneset and this flower that is planted solely for sentimental reasons.  This delicate little pink flower is from my grandma’s garden, passed to me via my mom.  It’s a perennial begonia that I love, it’s happily spreading here in this bed, mixed among ferns, miniature hosta and milkweeds.  I treasure this flower as it reminds me of two women that I love and deeply admire!  My grandma has long since passed and I miss her very much, yet when I’m out among my flowers weeding or walking I can still feel her with me.  My mom is very much alive and is still gardening with a passion that she passed on to me.  I’ve learned more from her about how to be a gardener than any books I’ve ever read.  The respect for nature and the love of all things wild was given to me by her.  She I am sure doubted how much attention I paid to the garden club meetings and sales that she towed me to when I was a little and even as a teen, but it appears that osmosis works better than she knew.  I owe her much, for if I hadn’t been blessed with the knowledge and understanding of plants and nature that she gifted to me, I would have missed so much!

My butterfly bushes are still blooming, though they need tending to very badly.  I need to deadhead and stake up some branches that have fallen over into the surrounding plants.  I’m hoping that this weekend will be favorable to some much needed gardening!  The process of deadheading, weeding and leaf mulching will be starting if this beautiful weather holds.

My Asters are blooming their proverbial heads off and they are gorgeous!  This is something that I really want more of in my gardens!  They really are super easy to grow, perform every year and as a bonus the deer don’t eat them!

Another hard worker are these lovely almost blue perennial ageratum, each year they comes back and each year they bloom regardless of the weather.  Granted the leaves are a bit shriveled right now because of the lack of rain, yet here it is, lovely as ever. 

My transplanted sedums are doing pretty good all things considered and behind them, I noticed some firecracker goldenrod getting ready to bloom. Since I thought I’d lost all of that, I’m pretty happy to see it back there.

Finally there’s the pond and it’s thriving!  The annual water lettuce spread nicely this year (maybe a bit too much lol) but it’s provided shade for the fish and hiding places for the frogs that are heard but not seen.  The fish seem to be exceptionally happy in their new home and have been eating like piranha this year!  We’ve designed a new leaf net for the fall, you can see the line already in place and I suspect we will be putting the net over it pretty soon.  Last year between the wind and lack of landscaping too much leaf matter got into the pond even for the monster skimmer to handle, didn’t want to repeat that!
I’m ready for fall I think, ready for the leaves to change color, the temperatures to cool and for some rains to come and soften the ground.  I’ve still got some trees and shrubs in a holding bed that really need to be planted!