While It Is raining

I sit on the front porch looking out at the world around me.  I sit and contemplate. What can I plant where? How can I add more drama to the abundance of nature? White. I need white with all this blue. Big drifts of the white anemone will bloom at the same time. I know just where I can get some.

I sit on the front porch while it is raining listening to the beat on the metal roof above. What can I plant where to add more drama to the abundance of nature? What needs to be organized in all this chaos?

More rain is coming. I will sit and contemplate.

The Captured Moment

Fall drizzles in at a steady pace. The first signs of color in the forest trees have intensified in the last 24 hours.

The blue asters swell in number on the wide sweep of hillside above the cozy cabin.

I take a picture because tomorrow it will be different. More blue asters. More color in the trees. Now it is beautiful. Then it will intensify.

The Sheffie Mums have begun to bloom at the beginning of October. They will continue well into the fall.

A moment in the garden is captured for the world to see.

The White Blue Wood Aster

Civilization comes slowly to the front bed. I don't pull all the weeds while the planted plants fill in. I only pull the undesirable ones.

That is how discoveries are made. It appears that I have a white Blue Wood Aster.

It is white compared to the blue. It is not even pale blue. It is white. It would not surprise me if some where out there there is a blue White Wood Aster.

I have an aster extravaganza going on and who knows what these asters are up to with each other.

There are three white species, two blue species and one purplish cultivar of aster that I know of. I may discover more yet. I have seen pale blue and pink variations of some and now an albino white Blue Wood Aster.

I look out from my front porch unto the land of asters.

Spectacular Chaos

It really is something to behold, this time of year.

I now have a favorite season.

A mountain top tall flower meadow is awash in blue, white and gold, then topped with magenta waves.

All this happens while the forest trees give the first tiny hint of fall.

It is a land of a million asters. Asters of every kind.

More is needed at this end, more spectacular chaos. In the meantime Uncle Ernie needs a new paint job.

It really is something to behold, this time of year.

I now have a favorite season.

Stalking The Pink Muhly

Out there in the tall flower meadow the Pink Muhly blooms.

The approach is slow. There are many things to see along the way.

The Pink Muhly is not the only grass in bloom. Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light' towers above the tall flower meadow and waves to the travelers passing along the scenic byway.

I have spotted the Pink Muhly close to the swelling buds of the Sheffie Mum.

It blooms in pink.

The Pink Muhly has been a slow grower for me, but it hangs in there getting a bit bigger each year. They came as tiny starts and we could say there is some competition close by. Right now it is more of a bit player while I wait for it to multiply. Maybe I'll find some in the discard rack one day.

The Feather Reed, Calamogrostis is faster. One pot has already been divided by ten. Next spring it will divide again and begin its march down the hill.

I stalk the tall flower meadow in the low light of early fall.

Nosing Through The Lush

Someone has been getting a bit chunky since they were scared in to sticking close to home. I still miss Crawford. He was my favorite. I have a feeling Miss Collar knows what happened. Shortly after that Collar was treed by something scary enough to make her cry out. She has been sleeping inside at night ever since.

I have been told twice now that in a much more suburban golf course community right on the edge of town where I work regularly there is a bold resident bobcat and frequent sightings of bears. An elk was photographed on the golf course recently. The neighborhood cats have been disappearing. I almost don't want to bond with the new kitties. Life in the wilderness is too risky.

There are rewards. I don't have a lawn to mow. I can plot out plans for the tall flower meadow like dividing the Feather Reed Grass come spring to add more repetition and structure to the chaos.

A garden evolves in the wilderness where everyone must learn to live with the native inhabitants.

Acclimatization

Miss Collar has not been cooperating in visiting next door to meet her new brother and sister so that they could get acquainted and become comfortable with each other. She has stuck very close to home since her own brother Crawford disappeared. Time is getting short before all the kitties will be living with me. Action was needed. Plan B was set into motion.

Now I am bringing the baby kitties to my place for the weekends when I am home. If Miss Collar wants to eat she has to get close to the new kitties. The after dinner siesta is about the only time Button is still enough to get a picture.

Same for Miss Dinah. She is a full size smaller than her brother but just as energetic. They are spending more and more time outside on their own within supervision distance. They really don't wander far. It seems a natural instinct for them to stick close for safety. Already they go on garden strolls and follow right along. At this small stage they are required to come in at night. I'd like to keep that permanent.

These city born kitties are proving much more people friendly and much more willing to consider a house their home.

Their indoor training with stuffed mice has been effective. They have made their first kills. I had no idea we had shrews up here. Add it to the list of varmints on this mountain. I only learned this summer we had the Least Weasel here. Bad thing is city born kitties then want to bring their new found toys in the house. That will need some work.

With minimal hissing Miss Collar is accepting the little intruders. There has been much nose to nose contact and side by side dining was accomplished on the second visit. Most important there have been no signs of aggression. Still she will show her displeasure and flee when she has seen enough.

The kitties are getting acclimated as I begin the semiannual process myself. The diagnosed low for the morning is 39 degrees. We are all going to die!!

I don't mind the cold. I don't mind the warm. It is the transition period from one to the other that my wrinkled, bony body has trouble with. I have no insulation to help ease the transition. The first couple of weeks are always a shock to the system.

It is worth it though for season changing scenes like this. My camera actually captured what my eyes saw when I walked up the driveway in the warm late afternoon sun.

Autumn is knocking at the door. We will all acclimatize.

The Theory Of More Planted*

Some weeding is needed to make room for my new Yucca filamentosa.

I pretty much need a blank slate to be able to get the spacing I want. I did find the Creeping Raspberry, Rubus calycinoides that was transplanted to this slope in the spring in all that Lush. It was still alive and had grown a bit.

The intent is to have the yuccas in a bed of Creeping Raspberry on this end. I'll have to keep weeding my way towards that. Bare dirt is a powerful invitation to the Lush.

Less weeding was involved at the other end. I had already done it.

Here the yucca will merge with Clematis stans, dianthus and iris.

The theory of more planted. I can picture them in a mass bloom of floral extravagance and when the world is completely barren, the yuccas will still be there.

I putter in the tall flower meadow with a theme in mind and no detailed plan. Something is happening.

*Some wildflowers were killed in the act of planting. I didn't plant a one of them so I know they will be back.

Super Fly

The blue asters are sweeping across the wild cultivated gardens.

As the cool air infiltrates to mark the change.

They wander into the forest.

And mingle in a tall flower meadow.

Blue and white with sweeps of gold dominate.

It is Super fly.

More likely a fly mimic, in a garden that mimics nature or nature mimicking a garden. We are not sure which.

What Nature Does Without Me

You can see how deciding to eliminate the more thuggish inhabitants of the tall flower meadow can be a little wrenching. Even the thugs have their time of glory. The New England Aster fell over in the storm of course. Now it blocks the path. This year at least there is a path. Left to itself, nature would not provide a path.

I provided one of the four elements in this picture, the grass. Nature did the rest.

Nature provides. The gardener manipulates. Mostly in the form of eliminating the unwanted.

The results are always, 'To Be Announced'.