Still Blooming in Paradise

Today I looked out the window and saw the Sparkle berries shinning in the sun. So I grabbed my camera and went outside, ended up pretty inspired and gathered a fair collection of photos from here in Paradise.

This is a tiny piece of the Sparkleberry. I took this with my seldom used 400mm "toy" lens handheld. The leaves of the bush are nearly gone, we are patiently awaiting the birds to feast on these. Last years show(birds feasting) was something right outside of our screened in porch.


One of Meg's nasturtiums, they are looking much better than they did in the summer.


Snapdragons were here all summer, this little bit of blooms seems better than any blooms they did earlier this year.


OK, help me here this huge 7 foot tall saliva still is blooming. It stinks the leaves are somewhat heart shaped and some have turned burgundy. Any idea what this is? It'll have to be relocated as the plant and our walkway do not get along.


Yes we still have two zucchini and one male bloom as shown below. Ate two last weekend and there were yummy. The mild frosts here have not got it yet.




Yes my first ever camellia bloom grown right here in Paradise. This is Camellia japonica "Debutante". Indeed an early C. japonica and I'm very tickled with this beauty!


Another nasturtium, this is a climbing nasturtium a complete disaster this summer the bamboo grass covered it up. Pulled the grass out and it loved the fall.!


One of the expensive hellebores I bought this spring, Red Lady it looks great! You'll be seeing this plants first blooms early next year, I hope.



I think this is small hellebore I picked up from some ladies at the local farmers market this past spring for $5. I found it under the leaves today I'd thought it was a loss, looks happy to me.

Acorn bombardment, fall gardening

Folks,

The past few days and nights we have been bombarded with showers of acorns. It now takes about 2-3 days before the deck is covered in acorns.


Above is two days worth of acorns on the deck, pretty noisy when they hit the roof then bounce onto the deck.

A pile Meg swept up that we'll be piling in the woods for the deer.

Today Meg and I went to the local farmers market and stocked up on fresh veggies and greens, our CSA on Wednesday has now ended and they closed the Wednesday market too.

Down by the pond this morning I spied our local 3 point buck resting hidden in the willows by himself. Until a few weeks ago he was in the company of several does and two fawns, this was the third time I'd found him by himself down by the pond in the morning.

We cleaned up the garden and planted garlic, greens, swiss chard, spinach and kale. Before planting we filled a wheelbarrow with our homemade compost and added it to the soil. Someday that soil will be prime but it has years to get "fixed".

Dot the Wonder Dog in deep thought. She is enjoying the freshly swept deck, a hard hat is needed out there!


Meg was digging in the garden and found this Red Eft, Notophthalmus viridescens. This was the second terrestrial version of the Eastern Red-spotted Newt we have found here in paradise. Our pond has a lot of aquatic Red-spotted Newts every year.

Other creatures seen in the garden today were a Common Ground Skink, 2 Worm Snakes (they eat slugs BTW) and a Eastern Fence Lizard.

I was lucky enough to find this Marbled Orbweaver, Araneus marmoreus down by the pond this afternoon. They are my favorite spiders and I had the pleasure of watching it build its perfect web. Finally I can see the web and ID the spider before I look for it hidden in the leaves next to the web.


Above is an update on our Swamp Sunflowers, even in more bloom than the last posting. We have seen several Monarchs, Cloudless Sulphurs and an American lady visit it for nectar.

Here is our 10 foot tall Sparkleberry with lots of berries. It is I believe actually a holly. I canoed the Sparkleberry Swamp in South Carolina once many years ago and the sea of red berries really got my attention. So I bought this one at Durham Hardware many years ago, it has been closed down for a long time now. Last year Meg and I watched from 10 foot away in the screened in porch Cedar Waxwings, American Robins and Eastern Bluebirds eat all the berries in two days.

Our Cosmos is still doing well!

These tiny peppers are called Del Monacos I think. I searched the web for them and came up blank. Meg bought two plants this summer and both plants are 2 foot tall and wide completely covered in these pea sized "HOT" peppers. I added three of them to some salsa for heat a few times this summer. These are too hot for our liking.