End 'o Garden

The mums, I think the variety is Sheffield

So...it is time for frost in this area, past time really, not that I have the slightest desire to see it arrive. Instead I have been reveling in the blooming plant life that this soggy summer sent us. What a year for flowers!

Cannas are at least four feet over my head and still blooming like mad. The invasive purple and blue morning glories that surprised me by coming up from seed every year after I misguidedly planted them a few years back, have covered the arbor and burst out into the yard, waving bright flags until noon or later every day.

The old-fashioned mums the kids hate so much that they dig them all up and give them to me (chortle, grin, chortle) are elbow high, and so burdened with pink flowers that they can barely stand. I do love me an easy flower that practically grows itself. These things languished in plastic bags, practically bare root, until I got around to heeling them into the dirt last year. Hey, I was busy, it was hot and blah, blah, blah. They didn't even notice the abuse and all grew. ALL.

The butterfly bush is in its second year and looks amazing. I bought it last year because the dusty grey foliage looked cool. The bazillions of purplish flowers are a nice bonus.

I go in for that Tarzan-is-about
to-come-swinging-by-on-a-vine
look....

Various annuals are doing their thing as well. I learned about cutting back and feeding leggy petunias from a YouTube video last year. It works. The red one on the front porch had to be cut back TWICE this year because the growing conditions were so amazing.

'mingo beans

However, as I brush through the narrow path between the morning glories and one of the mums at the back door, I can't help but realize that this is not going to last. Although at this moment there is no frost in the forecast, you can feel it coming, smell it on the air, sense it in the need for warm sweatshirts in the early morning that somedays lingers all day.

Any day now. Or any night.

I am not ready for frost or winter or wind or wild weather, so I just enjoy every hour of good garden time that the good Lords sends me. It will all be gone soon enough.