And Now a Little Chronicling

Looking back at my posts I realize that there has been lots of walking, lots of looking at the lake, lots of the Royal Botanical Gardens, but very little garden chronicling.  So to rectify that deficiency, today is almost all about the garden and what's been happening.

There seems to be at least a 3-week weather shift since I began gardening in Ontario 25 years ago. The seeding I could manage in March is now done in April - and my last day in the garden has moved from the last week in October to mid-November.  While it's pleasant to have the weather patterns change to suit my general nature of procrastination, it all seems very odd.

The big trees on the property now are pretty much bare - although the neighbours Norway Maples and Oaks have yet to let go.  The leaf suck has begun.  Here's a photo of Kevin hard at work.  Notice how fast he's moving - not even my fancy camera can capture his muscles in motion:

So after working on the front, it was off to the back.  I still had a couple banana plants I was abusing by leaving them out in the cold.  I needed to lift and dump them into paper refuse bags to winter over.

Later.....you can see, the pots are emptied and I have a couple of tropical-esque plants to sneak into Kevin's garage.  Some women sneak in shoes, I sneak in plants. I figure as long as the garage door shuts it's all good.

This is the leaf sucking brigade.  The more humorous photos would be of the crazed home-owners trying to get last night's & this morning's leaf drop on the curb in time for the giant vacuum.

Here's how thing are looking at my front-side garden.  Some herbs left.  Some kale and of course there's always a few Brussels sprouts plants waving over in the corner.

I got this kale from Fantasy grocery store.  They've got all sorts of weird and wonderful varieties.  The pots were 5 plants for either .99 or 1.99, which suited my purposes just fine.

A volunteer nicotiana.  I'm delighted that it had enough time to mature and bloom - thought all was lost when we had the frost a while ago, but it still managed to force out some blossoms.

Other remainders in no particular order:  a lovely little thread leaf Coreopsis 'Route 66'.

An Oso Somethingorother Rose.

Now that I've got my new IMac, I'm working on making photo catalogues of my plants using smart files.  The name of this acer is in my "look-up" list.  I planted it when it was very small to cover the dining room window.  It starts out pink, turns green and then finally goes out in a blaze of orange.  Quite marvellous.

And looking out to the corner from underneath its branches.

Even the way its leaves are scattered is very elegant.

If all that wasn't enough, look at the way the blue sky frames each orange leaf.  This is one happy place in my garden.

And in the category of just too pretty not to share - this is from my walk this a.m.  The maple combined with the climbing hydrangea - a great pairing.

And one last shot of the lake looking back toward Burlington and Hamilton.  Looks like the next weather system is definitely on the way.