Feed the birds

We enjoy our bird feeders.  Apparently we are not the only ones.  This beautiful red shouldered hawk decided he might find a snack if he staked out the feeders.  First the feeders in the back yard.

Looking looking looking


Then the bird feeder in the front yard.

We never witnessed him catching one of the song birds that frequent the feeders.  Needless to say they were noticibly absent.
It was fun to watch him and imagine what he must be thinking.

Disaster in the Experimental Garden

We have maintained a small water garden with gold fish for ~20 years.  The gold fish reproduce and it is not uncommon for us to have >50, all sizes, ages, and colors.  They live through the NC winter thanks to a depth of 18" in the middle.  And can be seen even on cold days slowly swimming.












We also have a wide variety of frogs and toads. 
















Last summer the pickerel and water lillies took over the garden and we removed them because the pond was full of roots and plants.  The plan is to start again next spring with new plants. 

One day last week, disaster stuck when nature took over the fish pond.  Harry walked outside to find a beautiful large Great Blue Heron feasting on the gold fish.  It was to his advantage that the plants have been removed and the water was cold and they fish cannot move quickly.

Results:

Empty, baren water garden/fishless pond.

Next spring we will again invest in gold fish and new plants.  The expense of gold fish (>6 for $1.00) will be worth the pleasure of watching them survive. 

As for the Heron, hopefully he will not visit again any time soon.  We love the Herons and love seeing them, just NIMBY.

Experimental Garden October Bloom Report

Aw Fall is in the air.  Still having temps in the 80s and dry as a bone.  They say this will dilute our fall color but that is yet to be seen.  So far in the Experimental Garden we have a dogwood [Cornus florida] giving us color.

The buds on the dogwood are promises of blooms to come.

The colorful dogwood seeds have been eaten by birds or have fallen.

We still have our marigolds and begonias - give thanks for the annuals that keep on giving.

 If you look fast you may see the honey bee on the pink begonia.  It took many trys to catch her because she was so intent on collecting pollen.  There are not a lot of opportunities this time of year.

Annual Salvia

You may have guessed I am not very good on names of flowers.  This one I call Fred's flower as it was given to me by my friend who passed on many years ago.  It pops up different places in the experimental garden and we always welcome it.  [Cockscomb, Celosia]

This Sedum continues to change color but it is still lovely.

This Sedum was given to me by my daughter when she moved (three moves ago) and it is getting ready to bloom.  The leaves are changing color.  Love those late bloomers.  Daughter probably knows the name of it [Should be Dragon's Blood Sedum - D], check out her blog here.

Mum and beagle should not be used in the same sentence. 

One last hopeful, brocolli, hopefully it will bloom one day soon.
Hope spring eternal in the heart of a gardener.  I read that somewhere.  Oh yeah, it is on a stepping stone in the experimental garden, covered with weeds right now.

September Bloom in Experimental Garden

I love hot summer weather and it is a good thing because North Carolina has just completed the hottest summer on record. 

 

Bees are still coming to the garlic chives.

thank goodness for those volunteer morning glories that are giving us such beautiful color and we do not even have to water them.  Good thing because we are in a drought.

Sedum is changing color.

And the polinators are hard at work gathering the late pollen.

Good ole begonias continue to give us colorful blooms.    

 

The last of the peppers are struggling in the hot dry weather.

Gotta love my banana trees that my daughter (check out her blog here)   gave me several years ago.  They survive our winters and come back every year.  Even if they have not bloomed for us yet.  

 

Now I am collecting milkweed pods and hope to grow some in my garden next year.

Then we will have more blooms for our favorite pollinators, the girls honey bees and the butterflies.  

 

Garden gone wild

We decided to add some plants to our fish pond last spring.  We chose two water lilies and one purple blooming pickerelweed.  Note the last four letters in the name!

Good new:  the purple blooms attract butterflies.  They cannot stay away from them.  While we enjoyed watching the butterflies on the blooms, we could not help but notice that the pickerWEED was taking over the fish pond.  It was HUGE, and did not stop growing. 

We decided to put an early end to the plant before the first frost killed it and we were left with a HUGE soggie plant. 

To put things in perspective this is the pot the plant came in when we bought it.

Who could have guessed?  They could have posted a disclaimer on it ...let the buyer beware.

As we lifted, pulled, tugged the plant from the fish pond the water level fell several inches.  The pickerWEED filled the wheel barrel. 

The water lillies still fill the fish pond but the gold fish and frogs were so happy to be able to swim again.  We will tackle the water lilly removal later. 

August Bloom in Experiemental Garden

There are insects all over my flowers like these Silver Spotted Skippers (Epargyreus clarus) on Pickerel Weed ( Pontederia cordata)













Even Honey Bees











Golden Rod sneaked into my butterfly garden and we tried to weed it out for two summers.  Now we just welcome it, like this female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus)

Male (yellow) and female (black) Easter Tiger Swallowtails on Black Night Buddleia

A country woman told me that this Sedum blooming signifies the end of summer.  She must not have known it is 99 degrees.