You Grow Girl™

Yo!~~

I know that people love to go on weekend trips to view the glorious Autumn foliage, and the ghods know how hard Mama Nature works on exciting our hearts and soothing our senses with acres of it.

Me? I'm easy. There's enough color in our yard to get me through the season.

The Aliens have either died back or gone into hibernation, so once again I can spend time outside, keeping an eye on the resident flora and fauna.
The fish have taken up their Winter residence in a lovely large tank nicknamed "Miami", which doubles as a humidifier in our basement. The lemon-scented geranium, papyrus, cymbidium and bocopa maritima that love living outside in the Sun in the Summer are sulking in various windows inside and I think I'll just leave the blow-up green Alien from Halloween tied up at the 10ft. level in the Red Maple. I hope she doesn't mind holding onto some Xmas lights when it's time to light up the night for the carolers.

I have to confess that the Brugmansia, a gift from Laurelynn at Logee's, didn't much like the last month outside and so it's in my personal Horticultural ICU....my friend Jenny's house. Jenny is a true PlantsWoman and saved her pitying looks for the plant instead of withering me.

The color contrasts are my favorites....the bright red cotoneaster berries with a backdrop of willow, screaming red barberry leaves against the shadowy juniper, the yellows of the birch leaves as a canopy over the side yard. I'm ridiculously fond of mums, and their soft heaps of lavender, orange and white are a nice constant to the daily changes all around.

There's always one plant every year that thinks it needs a bit more attention and does something foolish to get it. This year it's the white birch near the house. It's decided to produce the largest catkins I've ever seen. They're more like cigar-sausages than anything else.....hehehe.

Two holdouts who are refusing to admit how late in the year it is are the Clematis, still in bloom ferghodsake, and the Anti-Cancer Gargoyle, who, although he's supposed to be fierce on my behalf, has apparently got the ivy too intimidated to change color and drop its' leaves.

The ivy on the house is finally thick enough for fulfill one of my fantasies about "how things ought to be". The birds fly in and out of it all day, flirting, fighting, just having a good time. Nice to know the ivy has something to do besides hold the house up.

Most soothing to the eyes, in my opinion, are the redbud leaves mixing with the ornamental crabapple. I need all the soothing I can get as I wage the daily battle to keep the squirrels from digging up all the Spring bulbs an hour after I plant them.

Keep warm, stay safe...and thanks to whoever put the two unidentified black fish into the front pond...they are also over-Wintering in Miami.

--Karen--