You're invited regularly visit my site to see our changing garden. Every time I take a walk through our families' garden, even if it is the second or third time on the same day, I notice something different. It might be a happy accident of nature or a newly blooming flower, a beautiful combination, a great fragrance. Walking through the garden and stopping to look is always an adventure full of surprises.

Visitors find it hard to believe we don't use chemical fertilizers, or pesticides. I do add compost to most gardens yearly, as nature intended.

November 1, 2009

Fall Foliage

Although, the leaves have not reached their peak and the gardens are in shambles, the views are mesmerizing.

An orange swamp maple, burgundy forsythia foliage and red Japanese maple	Witch hazel’s bright orange plumage
the woodland path	The path to the tennis court

As I walked around the gardens, I noticed hosta leaves in different stages of color. Along the driveway they are a bright orange, clashing brightly with the red burning bush and the purple monkshood. Along the top of the woodland path hosta have turned orange as well, but along the bottom of the path they are only beginning to change color.

Orange hosta leaves, purple monkshood and red burning bush clash together beautifully.	hosta and hellibores

hosta at the bottom of the woodland path

Flowers in soft colors such as the ‘Sheffield’ mums are more jarring at this time of year than the neon orange of the tree leaves.

Salmon pink ‘Sheffield’ mums

Colchicum have been sending up flowers for six weeks now. Thankfully, they don’t know when to stop. A single bulb can send up nine or more flowers.

Colchicum among the pachysandra.	Colchicum ‘Waterlily’

Colchicum blooming in sweet alyssum

Frost is a late and the salad greens, peppers and dahlias are still ripe for picking.

A view of the vegetable garden

October 9, 2009

This time of year the exuberance of the gardens growth is starting to collapse back on itself. Spotted leaves and insect bites are evident but what is truly worth noting is the beauty among the ruins.

Even as the gardens are showing their wear, new blooms continue to open daily—monkshood, Japanese anemone, dahlias, fall crocus, pineapple sage, ‘Sheffield’ mums and many others. The list is long. Their optimism is to be admired. Don’t they know frost is lurking in the shadows about to pounce? Yet, the flowers continue to dance in the sun.  The leaves have started their turn and berries are ripening and a new planting of salad greens is ready for picking.