Sunshine Daydream

Autumn happenings in my garden

These are last of the garden pictures for the season.  It was a beautiful Autumn.  The dogwoods and crepe myrtles were spectacular this year.  The sourwoods and sassafras were gorgeous red and orange, Even the forsythia put on a show.  Most of the leaves have fallen now so I'll wait patiently through the winter, looking at garden catalogs and dream of next years garden.  I do want to try to have some tomato plants next year.  If you've been following, you know I battled the deer with sprays, hot peppers and chili powder, wind chimes, cages.  Nothing would stop them.  I learned from a neighbor that she used ivory soap cut up in chunks around hers and that worked. So next time, I'll give that a try.  

Red orange sassafras trees

Forsythia will turn this pretty purple the more sun it gets in the fall.  Talk about a southern staple.  It grows everywhere and doesn't need anything.  Just cut it back occasionally if it gets too big.  Pretty bell shaped yellow flowers in the spring, a carefree, open shrub in the summer and then this lovely purple in the fall. What's not to love?

Heading around the curve in the driveway and this sugar maple greets me

Crepe myrtles line one side of the driveway

This is an azalea.  No, really!  It blooms in the spring, off and on in the summer and then this show in the fall

Some garden mums in a pinky purple.  There'a a little bee taking a nap in this one.

Garden Lovers and Potato Eaters

Nature Inspired Gifts

Christmas gift ideas from the Gardens of Etsy Team

The Lotus experiment.........continued

Part one -
http://gardensofetsy.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html

Here's an update on my experiment over the summer, growing a lotus from a seed.
I had placed the 8 lotus sprouts in pots in different places, 5 went in my pond and two on my deck in a tub.
Well it turns out, the ones placed in the pond had a ever so slight trickle of water near them from a nearby water fall and in less than a week, the 5 baby lotus plants here did not survive :(
They definitely must be placed in STILL water.
Out of the two plants I placed in the tub on my deck, one perished ? and one flourished!

Here it is in late August ~



It even had a resident frog all summer long :)



The plant that survived ended up with 12 floating leaves and 5 standing leaves.
They were a Gorgeous blue/green. Such a cool leaf, totally waterproof, any droplet of water on them would just roll right off.

.... Late October now.... getting frost here in New York, so I needed to decide weather to bring it into the basement or place in the bog that was ready. After much research, others have been successful leaving them out in my zone, so I decided I would be planting it right in the bog.
We lifted the pot out and to my surprise there were shoots of roots up to 15 inches long that found their way out of the 4 holes in the bottom of the pot. The plant was totally root bound. Now I see how they can become evasive in a pond.



I decided to cut the pot as to try not to disturb the plant in any way.
(My husband so nicely did this part for me).



The bog I created is 18 inches deep filled with a mixture of soil and peat moss. I left 3 inches of room on the top for water to sit. It took the two of us to plant it with our arms totally immersed in mud. Had a lot of fun with it!

My finished Bog ~



So far so good. It loves it there!
Even in these cold temps down to 40 degrees, new shoots were emerging in the last two weeks. Fingers crossed.




Next to the lotus I placed a water iris in a pot for now.



In this last picture in the left lower corner, you can see the money plant sprouts from the seeds Julie from willowtreepottery sent me. Reaserch for my zone said to plant the seeds in Late Summer. They are doing wonderfully and will be a Beautiful backdrop for the bog. Thanks again Julie for the seeds and your awesome bog idea. It has been a wonderful adventure.
Here are the links to Julie's bog blog ~
http://gardensofetsy.blogspot.com/2011/04/bog-blog.html
http://gardensofetsy.blogspot.com/2011/09/bog-garden-continued-before-and-after-i.html
http://gardensofetsy.blogspot.com/2011/09/bog-garden-continued-before-and-after-i.html

I am counting the days till spring :)
to be continued.........................................

For the Love of Birds