The air feels like early fall today. It really cooled down in the past 24 hours. The crisp breeze foreshadows the season to come.
We’ve enjoyed a week of warm weather, lasting well into the evening, enjoying several meals on the patio. Today it’s 15 degrees cooler than predicted. As our days are shorten the pumpkin leaves are turning a tell-tale brown. Even my beloved cosmos are showing signs of decay. In California, warm weather continues well into October, but the growing season is definitely winding down.
It dawned on me today that the bounty of flowers we’ve enjoyed all summer will soon be a sweet memory. I decided to take pictures of each lusty bloom. Mother Nature is about to pull a blanket over the garden. Summer annuals will finish their cycle as they set seed and wither. Perennials go dormant. The Chinese Pistache treats us to an autumn show, with golden, red and amber leaves drifting to the ground below. The maple out back does a strip tease as well, but often in slow motion. Depending on the wind and the rain, our maple may hang on to the changing leaves for some time.
So to my lovely garden belles, arranged below in rainbow order, won’t you please take a bow?
Blooming Since July, Part of the 4th of July Trio
Carpet Roses at the bottom of the ramp
Garnet Penstemon rustling under the Magnolia
Dusty Pink Hydrangea, spectacular under the living room
Pink Vinca lives in a pot on the back steps
Sunflower: The first of the Season
Yellow Daylily fans out under the Magnolia tree
Yellow Four o’clock Flower re-seeded from last summer adds cheer to a shady side yard
Yellow Snapdragons, a hardy little annual
Male pumpkin flower, hopeful, even at this late date
Purple Bellflowers surround our patio
Dwarf Plumbago sits below the tall grass in a corner of the front yard
This bluish status was part of my red, white and blue display for July 4th.
English Lavender lines the bottom of the front deck and attracts lots of beneficial bees.
Sweet Alyssum completes the trio of red, white and blue 4th of July plants.
White Magnolia cradles a bee
Anemone run along the back rock wall. They’ve taken over that corner of the garden.
Wild Onion
A garden surprise this summer
Begonia always remind me of my mother
Are you curious what these blooms look like before they flower? Find out on Flower Buds: The Shape of Things to Come.
If you linked back for answers to the quiz: Who’s who or what’s what? the answers are:
a. 4 Hydrangea
b. 1 Allium Stellatum
c. 2 anemone
d. 3 Four o’clock
e. 5 Snapdragon
Gardening Nirvana 
Say it isn’t so, summer has really zoomed by. Your maple tree sounds rather saucey, ha ‘strip tease’. You really have a way of painting a picture, you might consider a novel at some point Alys…look at Rowling. I was in a garden just the other day with masses of Sweet Alyssum planted all along the walks and wondered how I missed the opportunity to include it in my yard because it was so fragrant, just awesome, I will remember to plan a big batch of it in the next garden.
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Thank you for your generous compliment. You made my day.
I wish I had one tenth of her talent. Rowling is amazing, isn’t she? I love her story and of course the Potter series. I read the first five aloud to my son, but have not read the final two. We read first, then watched the movies.
I love that honey smell of Alyssum and it’s fun, too, planting a flower that contains my name. It grows nicely in pots too.
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LOL, I didn’t see the forest thru the tree’s, there’s your lovely name right there! I’ll have a wack of it now 4sure. Dad use to read us a bed time story every night from the Childrens World Book Encyclopedia’s. I’m sure that’s why I love books so much. I even read to Jim now in the car, I like to make the mundane sound really dramatic, like stories from his golf magezines. I’m sure your son will remember those times long into his adulthood and his children (your grandkiddies) will benifit too.
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I loved being read to as a child, and loved reading to both of my boys, too. When my oldest was just two we would read at least three times a day. He could never get enough. As a result, I was incredibly well versed on trains and tractors. Feel free to ask me what a buffer is? 😉
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awwww, isn’t that so great. Everyone was learning something and bonding to boot. Is a buffer a persons occupation?
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Here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_%28rail_transport%29
It buffers the train as it comes into the station.
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“”””””
O-O
L
)o(
That’s a whistling conductor (he has a brushcut)
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I see it now! You’re so clever.
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Nice of you to say so, but dang, it all moved out of place. I guess it’s Picasso inspired.
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