Asters in Autumn

I love the pink/purple combo peeking through the arbor. This is how asters look their best. Planted someplace where their ratty bottoms are hidden.
All the bees that left the Sedum have gone to the asters.
Old weathered bird house, asters and a scattering of fallen apple leaves.
These mini asters in the rockwall garden look almost like their taller cousins except they only grow about 15 inches high. They are very neat compact fall bloomers.
Behind the rockwall it is full of wild asters. I put the dark purple ones back there, but the light ones all moved in on their own.


I have been working a little on the blocks for that tree skirt. I have finished 20 6-inch blocks. To make a tree skirt I would need 80 more of them. I am not willing to do that much more work for a tree skirt, so I will turn them into something else--most likely a table runner.

Here are the two possible layouts for the table runner.

Which one do you like better?

Sunday at Home

After a 9:00 a.m. breakfast at the local golf club with DH's family (11 of us), I have been home puttering all day.

Spurred on by my recent black frame painting success, I sprayed 8 picture frames, one large mirror and a lazy Susan in the same gloss black color. It's a cheap easy way to make a big change in your decor. I only spent $4 on the paint for all of this.
Now I just have to decide where to hang everything and get DH to help me hang them.

I have been working a little on these 6-inch squares. I am throwing around the idea of making a Christmas tree skirt from them. I have 12 made so far. I would need quite a few more and they take longer than I thought to sew. There are 17 pieces in each 6-inch block.

Here a 8 of them put together in one setting. I am going to make a few more and play around with them to decide if I will continue on or stop where I am and make a table runner.
I get a lot of use out of the table runners I have been making all year. Just a few weeks ago I finished this one and have already used it at least three times.

It's hanging over my long kitchen counter now with this pumpkin display. Yesterday it was out on the deck for dinner. I rearranged the deck and set a little autumn table for dinner for two.

After dinner I brought it and the pumpkin centerpiece inside. Today I changed the deck table setting to this one which uses my quilts from last year. I missed them. :) This is the first time I've had them out since last year.
Whenever I took a coffee break, I sat out here to enjoy the last remnants of warm weather. Yesterday it was near 80 degrees, today I am not even sure if we hit 60.
I think that length of orange poka dot fabric goes nicely with my centerpiece.

I walked around today and took a few pictures of fading flowers. Bee Balm is one of those flowers that looks nice even as it's dying. I hope I look half as good on my way out.

My sedum has turned from it's pink color to a deep Burgundy. I noticed that all the bees have left it since it turned colors. I don't think I have ever noticed that before.

It's about time for me to check my meatloaf in the oven. We are having mashed potatoes and spaghetti squash with it for dinner tonight. It will be my 1st spaghetti squash of the year and mashed potatoes are a treat because I only make them about four times a year.

I hope you are all having a great weekend.

Martha Wants to See Your Blog

Yes, that is the Martha, as in Stewart. She wants to review your blog with the possibility that she will post it on her site. How exciting is that?!

Get the details on her Sept. 16th post.

Thanks to osagebluffquilter for her post alerting me to this.

Who is using the new "followers" widget? I notice I have a couple of followers, but I have not really known what that was. Thank you to my followers who have somehow discovered how to "follow" me, even though I have no link widget.

What I want to know is if you have been using the follower thing, do you like it? Is it something I would do instead of having the blogs I follow through bloglines? I really never use bloglines to find out if there has been a new post. I only used to get the sidebar favorites posted. I want to dump it.

I think it would be convenient to have the updated blogs appear every time I go to my dashboard. Before I delete the favorites, I just want to get some input as to whether people like the followers widget.

So please leave a comment and let me know.

Thank you!

Hiking, Waterfalls, Opera, Micro brew & Appletinis

I had a another great weekend. After work Friday, DH and I took off for two nights in the upper peninsula.

On Saturday morning we got up and headed for Tahquamenon State Park. The park is in Paradise, MI. We try to get there once a year. It's a six-hour round trip, so we always make a weekend out of it.You can see by these pics where the name Paradise came from. It's one of the more beautiful spots in Michigan. There is quite a lot of walking involved in getting to the falls. Look at DH holding up this tree for me to pass. :) There are two areas with a lot of steps (94 at one place and 116 steps at the other). Here is DH doing jumping jacks to show hot fit he is while climbing all the steps....such a comedian.
Here he is after the walk enjoying some micro brew in the outdoor pavilion.
We were disappointed that there was not more fall color--just a few reds showing. We are thinking of going again in two weeks, because that should be peak color. Another big event for the weekend was attending a performance called, "An evening of Opera", by a Canadian singer, E*lt*on L*a*mm*ie. Prior to the dinner show, I enjoyed an appletini--my current favorite libation.



We loved the dinner opera event. As a person who couldn't carry a tune to save her life, I am amazed someone can do things like this with their voice. I did some research and found out he was the winner of an IDOL-like show searching for Canada's next Opera Star.

Dinner was a baked chicken half, asparagus, scalloped potatoes, salad and raspberry crumble. I only got one picture of them meal. The pic does not do it justice, it was really quite good.


I've mentioned many times how I love to read, but only have the time when we travel.
This time I read Considering Kate, a Nora Roberts novel. It's an enjoyable read and a short novel compared to that last 600-page one I read.

All in all, we had a great time and can't wait for the next getaway.

Bet You Never Expected Me to Have a Pastel Garden

Have you noticed how my fall garden changes from the summer hot reds and oranges to pastel pinks and yellows?

I love both color schemes so I have been working at making a complete change from summer to fall. I think I have it backwards, but all that pink sedum sort of controls what else I can plant with it. Today I noticed some purple with the first day of bloom for the fall asters. I also have some hot pink asters. These are the flowers that I have been digging out by the wheelbarrow load to toss in the wooded area. They are very weedy, but I do like the flower. It comes at a time when I really need something new to flower.
Remember my butterfly bush that was not doing very well? It did produce a few blooms, but it's half the size it should be. Hopefully next year will be better. Please ignore that hose hanging down. I just finished watering the deck and didn't feel like running up there to move it before taking this pic.

In today's mail I got a big Spring Hill envelope full of individual pages of flowers. I just HATE getting these individual pages! There must be two dozen of them printed front and back. Whatever happened to a nice catalog that I can leaf through without papers falling all over?
I don't care what kind of discount they are offering. I don't want to waste my valuable free time trying to sort through all of this, so into the garbage it all went.
Is it just me or do you guys also hate this type of advertising?

I finished painting my picture frame tonight. It did need a bit of touch up. There are always little places on the inside that I didn't quite hit with the spray paint.
Now it's done and on the wall.

At the moment I am liking it.

Fingerling Potatoes

At the Farmer's Market this weekend, we bought some tiny little fingerling potatoes. Have you ever had these?

They are very small and finger-shaped. I took some of the larger ones, par boiled them and then cut them into little slices.
I put a bit of vegetable oil and a couple pats of butter in the pan and fried them until crispy. Then I sprinkled salt, pepper and a few chives on top.
They were quite tasty...sort of like round french fries. DH loved them,so I will have to remember to cook them like this again next year.

I went out after work today and cut the three large hydrangeas flowers I had blooming. I decided to use them inside where I would appreciate them more.

Aren't they just perfect with this vintage tablecloth? The old cloth has pink and purple hydrangeas just like I had blooming.

I also decided today was the day to paint a picture frame that I have had sitting around in the basement for three years. I bought the paint Saturday, but it was raining all weekend. It didn't take long at all to spray paint it.

It should be dry so I am on my way out to see if I need to do any touch ups. My fingers are crossed that I got it right on the first try. It's not likely, but stranger things have happened.

Jean, Is this a foxglove? and I Planted all the Crocosmia Corms

Jean, I was pretty excited today when I came across these. Do you think they look like they could be foxgloves from the seeds you sent me? I see four or five clumps in the area where I planted them.

I sure hope they are foxgloves. I could probably separate these. Would now be the time?

I am afraid the Rose of Sharon you sent me may have died. I see only six sticks rising from the soil. All of the leaves are gone and I can't tell if there is any life. I will leave them until next year because the stress of their long journey and new planting may have sent them into early dormancy for the winter.

But just in case they don't survive, I bought this at Wally's yesterday. As soon as I saw it, I thought of the starts you sent and I couldn't resist. This is the same plant, isn't it? It's Red Heart Althea (hibiscus).


I also planted all of the crocosmia corms from Chopsticks.

While researching, I discovered that they are corms, not bulbs. If like me, you have never heard this one pronounced, it's kro-KOS-mee-uh. Way back on June 17, 2005, I posted about a site that provides audio pronunciation of flower names. I still go there now and then to hear the name of flowers that I am not familiar with. It's worth another menion for new readers. The site is Fine Gardening's Pronunciation Guide. Give it a try. I bet you will love it.



The corms are planted in each section where the shovel is. I put only about 5 in each area. The three areas in my main garden are planted in a triangle.

This post is mainly for me to remember next year where I put the new plants. I have learned to take pictures because it's a given that I will forget within a week.

This is a colchium popping up. These bulbs came from another blogging friend who wishes to remain anonymous. They are in this area where I spent the summer killing off sedum coral carpet. Yesterday I raked all the dead debris up. Luckily they were underground and survived all the Round Up applications it took to get rid of the sedum. This area used to be full of creeping phlox, but it all had to be sacrificed to get rid of the coral carpet sedum. I am still not rid of it, but I've made a good start in this area.

Abracadabra.............

Now you see the Sedum...

Now you don't

Early this morning while it was still cold enough that the bees were not covering the sedum, I took a shovel and lifted it out of both barrels.
It was overtaking everything in the barrels, the pink was a clash with the dark orange and I didn't like all the bees, so I found a new home for the two giant plants. I placed them in the Arbor Gardens flanking my newest path. (The path that won't be done until next year because I ran out of pavers.) They look much better with their own kind--pinks and purples. Here they are viewed from the second long garden across the grass walkway. I put a few of the 'Chopsticks' crocosmia in each barrel (I think they may look quite nice with the orange dahlias and some big Tropicanna Black next year).
Then I dropped one of my big lushly-blooming containers in the empty spot. The containers used to sit at the foot of the barrels.
Look you can't even tell I removed anything. I always plant extra containers because they are great to redo big containers if something dies out or, like me, you just want a change.

Unless you look very closely and then you can see the rim of the container.


Here's the second barrel, which looks very much like the first one.


Oh, I forgot to show you my side yard with -- guess what?--MORE SEDUM!

September is certainly Sedum month at my house!