Midweek Miscellany

Time again for collected snippets. It's not Autumn now, it's not! At least the weather agrees with me on that, as it will be 90ºF (32ºC) again today, and for the next few days. Humid too -- where's my dry September that I love so much?

Speaking of love, the deer are so comfortable in my garden, they must love it. I have mixed feelings about that as they walk around like they own the place.

***

There are other visitors too:

At first I thought this was one of the garden cats from a few years ago, but surely there's just some resemblance and this is a new one. I startled it later in the day when I opened the garage door and I haven't seen it since.



What I am seeing again -- to my dismay -- are the Pennisetum 'Moudry' seed heads:

Although I dug out all of the seedlings I did not remove the main plants. I will now though. No more 'Moudry'!



I forgot to mention that both the deer and cat photos were taken from the bedroom window. Also visible from that window...

...is the bird of paradise plant (Strelitzia reginae I believe) that is now so incredibly tall, leaf in front of the window. I do not know how I am going to overwinter it this year!



Also incredibly tall are the Castor Bean plants (Ricinus communis):

I'm pretty sure the leaves follow the sun, as this was taken in the evening. I haven't seen this plant in the morning for a while but I'm pretty sure I see the backs of the leaves then. Can anybody confirm?



I talked about the main Maypop (Passiflora incarnata) planting yesterday. Here's the second:

Is there anything that doesn't look good when next to the castor beans? I like seeing just a touch of bamboo in every photo too.



Did somebody say "bamboo"? The Phyllostachys viridis that I have in a contained raised bed is shooting again!

It doesn't do this every year, but apparently it was very happy with our summer weather this year. The new shoots are lighter green -- you should be able to see three of them in that photo. I don't know if they will have enough time to harden before winter arrives, but anything to fill this plant out is welcome!



Since we're talking about late-season growth, I can't skip the Petasites japonicus next to the pond:

They look fantastic each spring and early summer, then get ratty during the heat of summer. This year they've put on some late season regrowth. Note the one good original leaf on the right and how much bigger it is. Still, I prefer the smaller leaves to seeing bare ground.


That will do it for today. Happy first day of "Autumn"!


.