A day late and a bloom short

Actually, I'm more than a day late - since I've never participated in Garden Blogger's Bloom Day before. In the summer, I'm just too busy sitting on the porch looking at the garden to run around cataloging everything in flower. And I catalog at work all day anyway. I content myself with looking at all the other bloggers' blooms. So I figured November would be a piece of cake - the only blooms I have are dessicated. Like this poor Siskiyou Pink guara hanging its head in the grass, with only a few stray leaves to keep it company.

But wait, here's something that still has a breath of life in it - Homestead Purple verbena.
And a couple of miniature white roses, flanked by their dead cousins.
This is all too morbid, let's check inside the house and see how the carry-over plants are doing. This fern and a few others of its kind live on the patio in the summer, providing a lush background for the Pink Flamingo. This one has to move soon, it's in the Christmas tree spot.
I'm not keen on variegated leaves but I bought this Calathea because the undersides of the leaves match a pot I own. This is the only sunny window in my house and in the morning this plant reminds me of the view inside a kaleidoscope. I liked it better outside and I think the plant did too.

I predict this fern won't make it through the winter. I'm getting really tired of picking up dead, dry leaflets off the carpet.

The bamboo is looking none too happy. I don't know what's the matter with it. Probably a lack of humidity like all the other plants I brought indoors for the winter.
And this behemoth in the kitchen skylight is really annoying me. There's one like this hanging over the basement stairwell too. Do you know how hard these are to water? I need a solarium, or a greenhouse. A conservatory would be lovely. Heck, I'd settle for a big bay window. I need to get lucky and win the lottery.
Speaking of luck, it's run out for this gardenia. Remember I paid $1.00 for it at a garage sale? It had two blooms and I certainly got my dollar's worth out of smelling them. I brought it into the house before the first snow and it proceeded to get spider mites. It's back outside. The weatherman says the second snow is coming for Thanksgiving. This gardenia is history, just like the turkey will be on Friday.

Veteran's Day

A veteran ancestor from Civil War times...

....and a grandchild whom I hope grows up in peacetime.

Piece of cake

Most of my leaves have fallen. There was a cold front that moved through with some fierce winds a few days ago that sent Mother Nature's tattered leaves swirling down. Today was sunny and warm; a good day to attach the mulcher to the mower and hit the back yard. Here's before -

And after.

I love those crispy leaves, but they can't stay - at least not in their present state.

Shredded by the mulcher, they'll decompose slowly into my grass.

This tree is my top shedder. Lots of leaves...

Gone. Shredded. While some of my neighbors raked and used their blowers and piled up the black leaf bags on the curb, this took me the same amount of time that I normally spend mowing the grass, and I get to reap the bounty of mulched leaves enriching my lawn. I was back in the house watching reruns of Project Runway in no time.



This look will never hit Project Runway, but as promised, here is the ghost of Mary Queen of Scots. Fortunately, she and her head were reunited after death. Note my nametag which I wear everyday at work. It normally says Mary so I just had to add Queen of Scots and no one asked me who I was supposed to be. Handy.

Looking rather serious, but you would be too if you were a ghost. Though you can see she was reunited not only with her head but with her little dog who was in the folds of her skirt as she was beheaded. There was a bit of splashback on her poor Skye Terrier (err, 20-year-old Pound Puppy I found in the basement).
Here's what I got for my trouble. It is a lot of bother being beheaded.