Fall has arrived – and it finally feels more like fall, too. Glad we went to see some balloons last night because the launch didn’t happen today with gray and windy conditions. Hopefully they will be able to take flight tomorrow.
Lots of mums a poppin’ now.
I’m not sure why, but I have had great luck with taking those cheap $2 mums from the big box stores and putting them in the ground. They survive the winter and thrive. Maybe they have a different kind now because they never survived for me before.
I gave my petunias a massive haircut – pretty much to a stub – and stuck a mum in the pot as well. I didn’t realize how well they would match in bloom 😀
That was a fun surprise!
This year I did another really hard prune on my rhododendron. A lot of the growth was still at the tips, so I took more branches way down to hopefully force new growth at the bottom and it is working!
I’m not giving up on this plant.
Zinnias still going pretty strong.
The butterflies appear to have moved on, but the bees are still around. Speaking of bees, I moved some of my bee balm up here where the zinnias are. Hopefully those transplants take. They should since bee balm is a real spreader and divides well. Even my parents got bee balm for their garden from the same plant 😀 Gardening, the gift that keeps giving.
Potted hibiscus and a tiny marigold. And some weeds…
The balloon flowers keep going.
Appropriate for balloon festival weekend 😀 I’m so happy at how these are reblooming. I don’t know if the pink ones will, but who knows?
Finally the moonflower. I wait and wait for this one hoping that frost doesn’t come early and kill it before it flowers:
The blooms only last a day and sometimes I miss them. The ones out back have buds, so hopefully those will get a chance to open as well.
I planted a couple of Cimicifuga – or bugbane – a few years ago. I actually forgot that they bloomed! This is the back corner of the shade bed. I was surprised to see a flower spike:
Mixed in there is also some Virginia creeper, which is all over the place. I try to keep it off other plants, but it spreads so fast. It turns such a lovely fall color, which is why it gets to stay.
Now the sedum are in full color mode:
True sign of fall right there.
Hopefully we will get some decent riding in this weekend. Both John and I are swamped with work, so that has limited ride time a bit, but we will sneak in some.
Happy fall!
Your sedum is going great guns! Mine has a couple small heads of color, but the color isn’t as intense as yours. I guess the heat has something to do with that. I forgot to buy any mums this year, rats. Wonder if I should bother at this point…
I read an article the other day that said mums have become perennial so the growers probably have done something to them over the years.
I think I told you before that I had a sedum in a pot and it just looked sad all the time – gave it to my neighbor and she planted it in her front yard to so I see it every day anyway!
My “gardens” are funny right now. I have a knockout rose blooming in front and I put a huge mum out yesterday. The back patio still has all the summer flowers going. I did something different this year in that I fertilized all the pots once a month and these pots have bloomed like crazy. I hate to see them go. I decided over the weekend I’m going to let them go until frost or until they stop blooming, whichever comes first this year.
That moonflower is so beautiful! And your pruning experiments are giving me courage to be more adventurous in my pruning this fall. I really want to prune some of my plants back.