Sue's Garden: Fall
photos by Susan Stanek
FALL
Below: The fall, the grape. Late-harvest
above: ornamental grass in flower and in seed.
above: chrysanthemum begins their season of color.
above: Silver Dollar pods
above: Elephant Ear finally recovers from mid-summer drought.
above: ground ivy
above: Rose of Sharon in seed
MID FALL
above: Rose of Sharon Pods in a bowl, ready for planting.
A LONG WARM FALL
above: a pleasant surprise, a plush red raspberry shines in autumn sunlight, rare because they are out of bloom by this time of year, usually.
Above: Gladiola bulbs taken out of the ground for indoor winter dormancy. They will be back in the ground come spring.
Below: A spring bush opens some flowers, also fooled by the unusual warm spell we had in mid-fall.
above: gladiola bulbs, out of ground, ready for winter storage.
above: what once was green leaves with pink flowers is now yellow leaves and seedheads.
above: a Lady Bug is a gardener's friend because they are a predator of destructive insects. This one above is has buried it's head in a catnip bud.
above: the tomato goes strong, though many leaves are browned from mild frost. Warm days allow the plant to continue to produce flowers and fruit well passed the usual harvest time. Previous tomatoes have fallen and rotted. Hopefully the seeds will take for another crop next spring.
above: first year Silver Dollar plants. They are a bi-annual, so the first year they grow, and the second year they bloom and seed. This first year plant is old enough to bloom next spring.
above: Silver Dollar seedlings begin to sprout for next spring's plants. They will not flower next spring, but will the fallowing spring.
above: mums
above: raspberries, some ripe, some unripe, some old. The plant keeps flowering so long as it can, and produced a small, second harvest of berries this year.
above: an unusually warm, summer-like fall tricked these daffodils into sprouting.
above: more mums.
above: Hairy Vetch seeds begin to grow in fall for a stable growth next spring.
above: Silver Dollar seed pods have cast off their seeds, and only the silvery pearl paper remains.
above: curled parsley grows among fallen Sycamore leaves. Only one re-seeded from last year. So far it has not gone to seed, though it has been a big producer of leaves. This is the last of a four generations in the garden.
below: no grape goes un-cherished. This wasp berries his face into the sugary, probably slightly alcoholic grape.
below: leaves of the grape vine look very different than they did in the beginning of the year.
Above: sun through grape vine leaves, late fall. Below: Reflections of grass in a merlot wine glass.
above: pumpkins prefer a cold fall, not a warm one like this one. This pumpkin rotted before I could eat it, and dubbed it a "planting pumpkin" by drawing a germinating seed on it. Now it rests in leaves and mulch, and hopefully the seeds inside will be well fed and insulated by the slippery, rotting pulp of the pumpkin. Stay tuned for pumpkin propigation!