Recent pictures.

Fatsia Japonica getting ready to bloom in the shade garden.

The front garden with some Fall color, as seen from the stairwell.

One of the more interesting sunsets as seen from the house.

The 'kids', in a moment of togetherness brought on by sunshine.

The Galloping Goose Regional Trail in some Fall splendor.

Here are some recent photos I've taken, mostly from our yard. The Fall sunsets are so much more colorful than Summer. Today we are in and out of sunshine and it is around 14 degrees? (still getting used to metric) OK, around 50 degrees.

Tomorrow we are off shopping in the city, getting some Christmas things purchased and I want to find a lot of Spring bulbs to plant around the yard, before it gets too late. The ground here does not freeze but the bulbs need X amount of cold weather to 'set up' for Spring blooms. I have rescued a couple of Cannas from the garden that did not really do much this year. They DID winter over in the garden and maybe that is part of it. They are now potted up and resting in the greenhouse, along with a potted begonia from the front porch and an Avacado pit that is rooting! We are still harvesting tomatoes although the bounty that we had over the Summer has waned but there are just enough for a fresh treat once or twice a week at dinner.

I recently relocated some lilies that were in the back of a border, under some large spreading cedars that form a hedge, to a more prominent area in the front of the garden. In the process of taking stock of what I dug up I found many baby bulbs from the large parent bulbs and now have 11 babies in pots, hopefully growing over the winter so I can plant them and have a lovely lily colony in a couple of years. I also recently cleaned out an overgrown bed in the lower garden, which is mostly wild growth of grasses, and I moved a Sedum and some other plants that local butterflies just love, when in full bloom. The plants become covered with light airy wisps of pink bloom and butterflies and hummingbirds just go bonkers over it. It is not Butterfly bush because we have like 10 of those and I know what that is. This is a plant that forms a large cluster and dies back to the ground in Fall but then starts growing again right away. It is also very prolific and self seeds all over the place, especially in the gravel driveway, so I figured the wild garden was as good a place as any for it to establish itself and go crazy.

With the cooler Fall/Winter weather I am doing less outside and getting the bug to do more indoor gardening. I have two Christmas Cactus plants that I got last year for half price at RONA, after Christmas. (the garden center at RONA is really quite good, with a great selection and reasonable prices) One is white and is bursting into bloom now, the other being pink and on a slightly later bloom schedule. There were some leaves that had fallen off the pink plant this past Spring so I stuck them in a small vase of water and forgot about them for w while. They root up very easily and I 'found' them about 6 weeks ago. They have now been moved to individual pots, two, in a potting soil mix and both plants have little pink bus on them which should be in bloom in maybe 7-10 days. I have to be careful what I bring into the house for not only keeping the kids safe from ingesting poisonous plants but also to keep certain kinds away from the cat, who likes to 'nibble'. Dixon has a small palm that I bought him a while back, to replace one left in the States, and if we had it in a public place, instead of the master bath, the cat would be snacking like there is no tomorrow. She LOVES plants with long grass-like leaves and for that reason the Christmas cacti are quite safe - she does not bother those at all.

That's about it for now. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to click on the left button to Help the Animals.