A Backyard Flower Walk

We've finally had some rain with milder temperatures, which has revitalized some of the things in our yard. Even though leaves are starting to change, there are still flowers putting on a show. Here are some I found on a walk around the backyard.

The vincas in the flower boxes have died,
 but the ones planted in the ground are still thriving.

After looking sick all summer with no blooms, the daliah is reviving.

The mums are starting to bloom. These flowers were here when we moved in and are slowly dying off. However, there are still enough of them for a nice display.

Instead of planting lantana in a pot, we planted it in the ground this year, and it is doing much better.

I got the seeds for this Peruvian zinnia in a seed exchange. I only had one seedling survive, but it has grown into a large plant.

Most of the spirea blooms are spent, but a few are still making a show.

The first blooms of this new rose plant got eaten by a critter, so we put a cage around it. However, it seems determined not to be fenced in. :)

The anemone has very nice fall blooms, but unfortunately, it is invasive and has taken over other plants. This is not typical for this plant, so I wonder if we didn't get the variety we thought we did. 

Mums are starting to bloom in another part of the yard.
 I rescued this bunch from a trash can a couple of years ago. 

If you look closely, you can see the proboscis of this silver-spotted skipper butterfly inserted into the butterfly bush bloom.

And because I love to see pollinators, here's another picture of one. Notice the pollen sacs on the honeybee's legs.

In the three years since I planted this iris from my aunt,
it has bloomed in both the spring and fall.

Until next time...

Pretty Stuff

 or Nature just keeps giving

Just a quick note to say all is well here with a few pictures from around the yard.

Black-eyed Susan

Skipper Butterfly

.Clouded sulfur butterfly. Check out the green eyes.

Moss rose.

Remember the zinnia that the rabbits were munching on?

They made a comeback. However, there were others that didn't make it.

The pears are getting ripe.

And we actually have some apples this year! However, they aren't quite ripe yet.

Until next time...

Aimless puttering

Today was my day off and I had several things that I wanted to get done around the house. However, it wasn't Ward's day off and he seemed to have an entire day of important meetings. What did that mean to me? Anything in the kitchen was too loud. Vacuuming - too loud. Computer work - hard to concentrate on my things while listening to his meetings. So what did I do? Played a few computer games and wandered around from shady spot to shady spot in the yard doing a bit of clean up. Along the way, I took a few pictures to share. 

We are seeing a lot of rabbits this year. This is one of the younger ones.

The day lily blooms are very pretty. However, the leaves all turn to brown as soon as it gets too hot. Ours are moving into the browning stage, but we still have some blooms.

Despite the fact that I pulled up all of the coneflowers two years ago because of disease, some of them have come back and the insects are enjoying them. If you look closely you'll see the bee's pollen covered legs as well as a busy proboscis.

Our little fig tree is growing. We may actually get a dozen or so figs from it this year. That's at least a 200% increase from previous years.

Little skipper butterflies are everwhere.

Some cicadas come out every 17 years and some of them come out every year like this green-eyed cousin to the red-eyed Brood X that invaded earlier this summer.

Another skipper on comos.

The Black-eyed Susan bloomed this week. Something eats the petals of them as well as the cone flowers' petals. BTW, Black-eyed Susan is the state flower of Maryland.

Spirea

Caladium and vinca. These are planted in front of Ward's shop in a planter, made by his dad, from an old hot water heater .