Blooming Tuesday -- Fall Asters

I have been removing fall asters for the past two years and have just a couple areas of them left in this garden.

Some are over 6 feet tall and some are only half that because I pruned the front ones back in June. I like flowers to start from 3 ft and continue up to 6ft instead of lanky dead stems at the bottom with flowers so high up I can't see them. Aster foliage is unsightly for the first two or three feet so it needs to be hidden.

I have more in the garden directly across.
Some are the same pink color and some are purple



Here is one of the purple flowers way up in front of the garden that escaped my removal efforts.

I noticed it earlier in the season and cut it way back so it's blooming quite short.

These late blooming, daisy-like flowers attract tons of bees, butterflies and moths. I don't want them taking over, but I would not want be totally without some in my fall garden.

This will probably be my last Blooming Tuesday post because I have nothing left to bloom!

Sad on one hand, liberating on the other. The contractor will probably be finished today so I need to get out of the garden and start getting the house back in shape.

Now don't forget to head on over to Jean's Blooming Tuesday to see what everybody else has in bloom. I am on my way over there right now. For some reason I woke up at 2:00 AM and can't get back to sleep, so I finally decided to just get up and do this post. It's so wonderful to be able to go garden-hopping at 3:45 AM!

Now You See the Black-eyed Susans, Now You Don't

I took a few pictures from my bedroom window early this morning before I went out to begin my fall clean up. Since I spent a lot of time early this summer removing tons of Black-eyed Susans, I wanted to remove the few that remained up front before they seeded all over the place.

I removed 5 wheelbarrow loads of them plus daylily foliage and some phlox.

Here is the area next to the main arbor after removal. You can see the green foliage up front, but the flowers are all gone.

Here is another view after I removed the Black-eyed Susans from the front of the border. I think it looks so much nicer without them. I like them in the back of this garden, but not so much up front.

Earlier this year I moved a bunch of colchium (sometimes called fall crocus) to this area under the smaller arbor. Their bloom has been quite disappointing. They were much nicer back in the rockwall garden--much larger. . . this year some insect has been eating the flower before it even opened. I will leave them one more year to see if they improve.

I am happy that my Mandevilla vine is still blooming. It has climbed all the way to the center top of this arbor! I really hope I can save it for next year!

I have a few very astute readers (especially you, Dianne! :) ) who may wonder what happened to the black-stemmed Elephant Ears that I had next to this arbor. I removed it today because it was really going downhill because of the cold nights. I cut it way back and put it on the deck where it is shielded from the harsh nighttime temperatures.
I will be storing it in the crawl space this winter, but it is a bit too early to put it there.

Tomorrow I will show you the last bloomers that are just beginning in my garden.

I am Tired of this White Stuff Already

No, I am not talking about snow! Even in Michigan it's too early for that.

Here's clue #1:
This trailer has been parked at the end of my front yard for the past week.
Clue #2:
After work last night we went out to purchase our weekend entertainment.

You guessed it... the contractor finally started replacing windows, doors, drywalling, etc.

Today we had to begin our huge painting project--every room and ceiling in the house will be repainted and DH and I are doing it all. I have decided that all moldings, window casings, etc. will be pure white. I have not yet decided on wall colors.

The hallway floor has been finished and today we are painting the shelves for the tiny pantry we have at the other end of this hall. I primed the shelves early this morning with Kilz and DH painted them while I made dinner.
Of course, all of the food that goes on these shelves is sitting in plastic bins on my kitchen floor.

Next week, they will be replacing all of the doors in that hallway with 9-panel doors, which will be painted pure white. The contractor will be painting the doors, but we will do everything else.

These doors are also being replaced. I am saving these to paint in outrageous colors to use in my garden! What fun I will have with these next year!


The drywall guy has been missing in action since last Monday. I expected to be cleaning drywall dust this weekend, but the guy never came back to finish this wall and the dining room walls. I guess he has been on other projects and Friday he was home with a sore back.
He is supposed to return on Monday.

I hope you are all doing something more fun this weekend.

A New Use for my Vintage Metal File Drawers

I have an old piece of junk, vintage metal file drawer that has been sitting empty since floppy disks became obsolete. At one time, it held all my 3.5-inch floppies that stored everything from my recipes to my garden pictures. Now just one of these holds close to 500 of those floppies.

Last night I was cleaning some chives to freeze for the winter. I thought how much I was going to miss going out to the deck to chop off a sprig of fresh herb while cooking dinner.

Then I thought why not bring them inside? I washed them off in the kitchen sink, then wrapped the plastic pot in paper grocery bags and stuck each inside one metal drawer.

I made a label for each, which really brought the old metal to life. Now I have fresh herbs right at my fingertips. Let's hope they take a liking to their new home!

My sister and I just returned from a Harvest dinner at our local VFW. Both my mom and dad were volunteering for the event. We had a nice meal of fresh veggies, pork, beef and homemade pies.



There's dad back in the kitchen hand washing dishes for about 200 people! Yesterday he and Mom spent all day there with the other volunteers preparing the veggies, cooking, etc. Tonight mom was one of the wait staff.

My sister and I are members, too, but we have no time (or desire) to do all that work. We each donated 12 lbs of carrots, & bought a ticket to the dinner. That is more than 80% of the members do!

Blooming Tuesday

Don't ask how I got two of these images...I have no idea. I have been playing with the image for a long time to try to make it link back to Jean's blog. I could not get that to work, but somehow I did something to multiply the image!

Hey, wait...I think I did get them to link back....when I put my cursor over the image, it has Jean's address! Wooo hoooo! Now how did I do that???? Click one and see if it works for you.









I don't have a lot of nice images today because after a week of very cold nights nothing is looking very good in my garden.

The poor Elephant's Ears have seen better days.

This one is really bad.

This whiskey barrel is looking pretty decent. I have been waiting patiently for the orange phlox to bloom....finally it has burst forth....see it way in the back of the barrel..........no?

The reason you don't think you see it is because it's not orange at all! It's hot pink!!! To top it off, it has a bad case of mildew. I expected it to be a new mildew-resistant variety.
Nothing I bought this year turned out to be what I expected.

Even the Sedum Autumn Joy is not up to par. It's OK, but the heads are tiny this year.

It could be because it's a new planting. This is the area I dug out and replanted in 2008. Here it is before planting:

I am planning to cut down a lot of things this weekend. It's that time of year...if I work very hard in the fall, I won't have to do much next spring.

How did those Veggie Patties turn out?

Betty, thanks for asking. Here they are:



DH loved them even though I forgot the caramelized onions that I had made earlier with the plan to use them. I completely forgot about the carrot patties and put all the onions in the meatloaf! A soon-to-be-senior moment? LOL. O.K. in some circles I am already a senior.

Just so I remember how to make these again, here is what I used: shredded carrot, tiny bit of shredded celery, mixed with one egg, salt, pepper. Then I sprinkled Panko bread crumbs on top and bottom and fried in mixture of oil/butter at medium heat. Next time I will add onion to the mix.


No time for blogging right now as I have to head to work.

Happy Monday everyone!

Carrot Cake Cookies, Powdery Mildew, Silver Artemesia and BOO!

As I like to do on Sunday mornings, I was cooking before 8 a.m. today. The crisp cool air of the past week inspired a nice Cheeseburger Chowder with carrots and potatoes. That is for later in the week. For tonight I have a meatloaf with caramelized onions ready to go in the oven. I think I will also make mashed potatoes and gravy. The veggie will be a shredded carrot and celery patty breaded with Panko crumbs and fried in butter. I just made that up, so we shall see if it actually tastes good!

When that was done, I still had a bunch of carrots that I wanted to use up, so I surfed the net for a carrot cookie recipe.

I found a recipe that sounded good on my first click and within an hour, I had these cookies made.
Just like most carrot cake recipes, this cookie recipe called for crushed pineapple.


I omitted the raisins & walnuts because DH is not fond of either. The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of cinnamon, which sounded like way too much, so I used just less than one tablespoon. The recipe also called for a baking time of 20 minutes. I found that 18 was all that was needed in my oven. I frosted them with some leftover cream cheese frosting I had in the freezer. I think these cookies really do need the frosting.

We both enjoyed them. The recipe only made 12 cookies because I made them fairly large. A dozen is just perfect for two people.
If carrot cake in the form of a cookie sounds good to you, click for the recipe Allrecipes.com

Besides cooking we moved all the furniture from the dining room and living room to the family room and basement. I am expecting the contractor to start tomorrow. With contractors, one never knows...he was supposed to call me last Thursday to let me know, but, of course, I have not heard from him. Good thing I am not in a hurry to get everything done.

My poor plants are ready to be cut down. Yesterday I cut down this Silver King Artemesia that was beginning to seed.
I did not want the seeds sprouting all over. It's a challenge as it is to keep this plant in check from the underground runners. I love the color and it's great for bouquet fillers, so I put up with the extra work.

Most of my potted dahlias have powdery mildew.

Ugly! I don't remember having this problem with dahlias before.

I did get my Christmas tree skirt sewn together this morning...yeah, it's a different shape for a tree skirt. Everybody has a round or square tree skirt... how many people do you know with an octagonal tree skirt? LOL. I still have a lot of work to do before this is ready for the spot of honor under my 7.5 foot tree.
I also finished this little project that I started a few weeks ago.

Any idea what this could be? The colors probably give you a hint that it's for Halloween.

It's a Boo banner!
It was quite easy. Most people would have it finished in a day, but I set it aside and did not feel like working on it.

Finally I decided I needed to get it done so I could clear off the ironing board.


I will embellish it a bit more and you may see it again next month.......although at the moment I have no idea what I will use it for.
I do crazy things like that all the time....most people would not make something unless they had a plan for it...not me..........I just start sewing and figure out later what to do with the items I make. Weird, I know.

I hope you all had a nice weekend!

A Few Comment Answers

I hope you all know how much I appreciate when you take the time to leave a comment on my blog. There are millions of blogs out there and I never take it for granted if someone takes the effort to leave a comment on this blog. I don't respond to every single comment, but I try to resond if a question is asked or just to say thanks now and then.

Sometimes I post a reply in the blog itself. Today is that day.


My first comment is from Karen: Get this,I think I actually killed my obedient plant.....

Zoey: No! Please share your secret. How did you ever get rid of that thug? LOL.


From: ankhorite
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ankhorite has left a new comment on your post "Look at all the 'Broccoli Flowers'!":

...
Your 'Elijah Blue' grass should come back next spring. Named after Cher's son with Greg Allman, if I recall correctly.

Love the jagged-edged green plant above the echinacea in your final photo. Never seen anything like it. Under the begonias to the left, is that a fern drooping down, or something creeping out of the pot?

I'm leaving this comment going back to my own blog instead of my tumblr account in case you want to say hi. :)

Ankorite, I would love to say "Hi", but you posted as anonymous so I could not reply to you. That is why I decided to post the reply here. I hope you see it.

The jagged edged leaves are Ligularia. It gets a tall yellow spiky flower. This year it was the best it has ever been. You can see the bloom, if you look under "Ligularia" on my side bar.

Under the begonias I have creeping Jenny. If you mean the big blackish leaf, that is Elephant's Ear.

I had wondered if "Elijah Blue" was named after Cher's son. I am happy to hear that it should come back next year. Thanks for the info!



Mon, September 6, 2010 12:45:18 PM[Perennial Passion] New comment on A Few New Bloomers.
From: becomingkate
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I love how you include the background, so that I can see how you've grouped them, or added garden art. Beautiful!

Hi Kate,
Thanks so much for saying that.

I always like to show the actual garden, not just close-ups of flowers. That is a pet peeve of mine--I can see flower close ups in any catalog....what I enjoy seeing is the full landscape. Like you, I want to see what is planted beside what, the size of the border, the shape, etc.

So I am just tickled that there is someone else out there who appreciates that I attempt to do that!

and from Betty in Canada who has been a loyal reader for a long time (Thank you for that, Betty. I so appreciate all of my loyal readers!):

Thanks Zoey for the recipe, I am making that dressing very soon with the potatoes of course:) I need to look for wholegrain dijon mustard..don't know if our grocery store carries that....

Betty, I think any mustard will do. If you have only plain yellow mustard, just give it a good squirt. It will be fine.

Once again I want to thank all of you who take the time to leave a comment. If you want an answer, PLEASE make sure you don't post as anonymous because there is no way I can contact you.


For the past few days, I have been working on a Christmas tree skirt that I want to use this year. I posted about it on my sewing/quilting blog. Just click here if you want to see it.

A Few New Bloomers

Just in time for Jean's What's Blooming Tuesday.
While looking over the deck railing at my side garden, I admired this color combination of dark purple Buddelia with the black-eyed Susans.
I have two butterfly bushes. The other one is a lighter purple. The lighter one seems to get many more butterflies. It's bigger so maybe thart is why. There is a butterfly on one of these blooms. Did you see it?


It looks like I finally have a true 'Picasso' canna. I bought these this year at the end of June when Home Depot had them half price. What a bargain! They have bloomed true to the package description.


I bought 'Lucifer' at the same, but am still waiting for its bloom.
It appears to be a late, late bloomer.

Here is a zinnia from the seeds I tossed in a few containers.


Perfect splotchy colors for the cannas its planted with!
Tropicanna 'Gold' is putting out some nicely colored flowers.


My first ground-planted canna is about to bloom. That is very exciting for me because I have never had one that I planted in the ground bloom.

Pardon me? Oh, did someone ask what was in the background?

Click here to see my latest shaggy bags.

After doing that, don't forget to head on over to Jean's to see what everyone has blooming.

A Little More of Manhattan & Aunt Mary's Cooked Potato Salad Dressing

The Manhattan lilies I planted last week have really opened up. They go nicely with the Sedum Autumn Joy. I moved the whiskey barrel orb to this area to enhance the display. It's great to fill in bare spots!

It's only in the mid 50-degree range out today, so I have been inside cooking all afternoon. While looking through my old 1970's recipe box, I came across aunt Mary's potato salad dressing recipe. It is a cooked dressing with a bit of ZING from vinegar.
I love these old recipes! Who says "oleo" any more? I used real butter because that is what I always buy. I just used about 1 tsp.


I cut up 5 medium potatoes.
While they were boiling I cooked the dressing. I did not have dry mustard, so I just squeezed a blob of this multi-grain mustard in instead.

You only bring this mixtue up to a boil and then remove it from the heat. You don't want the eggs to cook--although mine did because I let it boil a min. or two. No big deal, once I put the mayo in, you could not even see the small bits of cooked egg.

I cut up some onion, celery and red pepper to add to the potatoes. Here it is all done.

It's in the fridge cooling until it's time for dinner.