I Have a New Address

Come visit at my new address.

Mother Nature's Garden

http://mothernaturesgarden.wordpress.com/

Lycoris and Dogwoods

A nice rain in September will stimulate Lycoris radiata/red spider lilies to bloom. There are lots of buds but I usually cannot wait and eagerly photograph the first one that opens.

Fruited, Budded Dogwood

My area is filled with mature dogwoods/Cornus florida.

Buds and Drupes

They are now laden with next year's white flower buds and this year's red drupes. The drupes are a favorite food of wildlife.

Dogwood Bark

Soon the leaves will be turning red

and there will be pretty flowers in spring.

A word about the hummers... The last time I filled the hummingbird feeder, I decided to hold the feeder to see if they would feed from it. It worked. :-)

Autumn Dish

Autumn is in the air. It is a little cooler at night...down into the 50s. I can bring out the fall theme dishes I bought earlier this year and bring autumn to the table as well. It is time for those comfort foods like chili and chicken and dumplins and beef stew. Now I'm hungry. Cornbread...and...

Strange Things

Perilla frutescens

Square purple stems are strange but I am becoming accustomed to the unusual. Some deem it a weed but it looks pretty good to me.

African Mask Plant/Alocasia x amazonica 'Polly'

makes a very attractive indoor plant. It likes humidity. I water with rainwater or bottled water.

Northern Walking Stick

Diapheromera femorata

Look again. His head is in the middle and to the right are his front pair of legs and antennae flexed forward to contribute to the stick disguise. Distinctive backside on the left tells us it is male. This insect feeds on apple, oak, rose leaves. We put him on this available hosta leaf for a photo. He was hanging on the best he could for this photo was made in very windy conditions. One can imagine how he would blend into the surroundings on a twig or stem. Diapheromera femorata can reproduce parthenogenectically.

Autumn Joy

Gloomy days lately have me moving plants away from my door. It seems I cannot get enough light.  It's clean up time today. I must reduce some of the planters. It is too big a job to wait.

fledgling disciples

hunting in the misty rain

outside my window

One bright note.. I saw the Carolina wren fledglings hunting as a family yesterday. This is probably their last day together. In one week parents teach them where to go and what to eat and what to avoid. I'd say that is a crash course in survival.

I'm not noticing any male hummingbirds. I think the males have already gone south. Next will be the females and lastly the young. They fly solo. Read more here.

Campbell's Labels for Education tallied on your Kroger Plus Card.

Thankful Thursday 

I'm thankful I live in a peaceful place.

Happy Birthday, Philip Bewley.

  

John Muir Trail Hike

Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail.
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike. 

2658 mile Pacific Crest Trail by Rainmaker

So extraordinary is Nature with her choicest treasures, spending plant beauty as she spends sunshine, pouring it forth into land and sea, garden and desert. And so the beauty of lilies falls on angels and men, bears and squirrels, wolves and sheep, birds and bees....

By forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive Nature accomplishes her beneficent designs - now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood of water; and again in the fullness of time an outburst of organic life....

One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature -- inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty; and we soon cease to lament waste and death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unspendable wealth of the universe, and faithfully watch and wait the reappearance of everything that melts and fades and dies about us, feeling sure that its next appearance will be better and more beautiful than the last.

Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts.

No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening - still all is Beauty!

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. 

John Muir Quotes

Carolina Wrens Fledged Yesterday

and I'm thankful they made it.

Thankful Thursday

Although there isn't any room to ever have flapped their wings and they still have downy fluff on their heads, four Carolina wren nestlings are ready to fly on day 13.

A brick wall will do for the first landing. See his little short tail.

Although it was later in the day, the least developed one also took off. He hardly has any feathers on his head but it is warm weather.

It was a big day with little birds landing hither and yon and parents locating, feeding, and calling them together. See you around, birdies.

Now I can replant my flower pot.

Photos are courtesy of Father Time.

Yellow Floating Heart/Nymphoides peltata

 

Nymphoides peltata

I grew weary of waiting for it to bloom and forgot about it. Hubby alerted me to seeing a new bud yesterday. I almost missed it. They only stay open in the morning.   More Nymphoides species info can be seen here. Shops that sell tropical fish are a good source for small floating plants you may desire for container water gardens. 

Aquariumscape Contest

We can always garden inside when it is no longer possible to do it outside. How about a tiny terrarium?

Summer's End

The earth is rich for summer is full and ripe awaiting harvest.

New life is encapsulated in seeds of perpituity as signs of autumn begin. 

A minute entity of itself is encoded, compacted, and archived 

for a journey through time.

Caterpillar J's  attached and spun into chrysalis and cocoon

dangle in the wind.

Hurricanes come and hurricanes blow

as sunlight creeps on the floor farther inside the window.

Shall we bemoan its passing or glory in its wonder.

Baby, Baby, Baby

Mama!

Lots of fluttering around the nest feeding the cheeping birdies makes them so vulnerable to the ever alert squirrels. I am amazed any survive. Good luck little birdies.

Andromeda

or Pieris

The new foliage looks like flowers because it is red. They are budding presently. There will be clusters of lily of the valley like flowers in the spring. Sometime they have the white flowers and the new red foliage together making them even more decorative. They are a nice shrub for a container. I'm moving this one up to a larger container soon.

Bloomin' Tuesday

  Join Bloomin' Tuesday here.Father Time, in a moment of inspiration, ran around the garden photographing every little flower he could find making this post possible.

Goldfinches

love the coneflower seeds.

A few coneflowers have reseeded in the garden this year for the first time. 

Bird photos by Father Time

Others that reseed readily in my garden are:

cleome,

common mallow, 

four o'clocks, and 

Madagascar periwinkle/Catharanthus roseus.

Need more color? 

The New Guinea impatiens I bought never did much until recently. I had them in a large mixed container. I took them out, planted them in homemade compost, fertilized, and kept them watered.

Perhaps they will look good for fall.

He's So Nice

In addition to the pictured goodies from the local farmer's market, there are fresh purple hull peas, okra, butternut squash, and one of those miniature watermelons. I know it sounds too good to be true but, Chef Roger shops, prepares and cooks these wonderful delicacies. Am I lucky or what? He's so nice.

My daughter, after returning from a convention, called my attention to The Power of Nice written by AD executives responsible for you knowing who Aflac is. Quack, quack! :o)

This green June beetle never knew he would be an internet star.

Hemerocallis Pardon Me 

Bright cranberry-red 2-3/4 inch blooms with yellow-green throats are produced beginning mid-July, often continuing into fall. Voted best miniature in 1985. 18 inches tall. Diploid.

I have been looking for just the right place to put the lovely Hemerocallis 'Pardon Me' given to each of us Tennessee bloggers by Frances of Faire Garden. Frances, my hubby said to thank you for him. He collects miniatures and loves red.

Tennessee Bloggers Meet

Here are the Tennessee bloggers:

Square Foot Gardening in Nashville/DP

Clay and Limestone/Gail 

Mother Nature's Garden/Donna

In The Garden/Tina

The Home Garden/Dave

 Faire Garden/Frances

Pictured also is Tina's friend, Geri, and Dave's little blogger in training, Olivia. 

Adventures In My Garden/Rhonda is another TN garden blogger we hope to meet. 

Tina made and gave each of us our own garden marker. How nice is that? And since it is Thankful Thursday, I must say I'm thankful for my new friends.

More little birdies have arrived in Mother Nature's Garden. Maybe, I'll get a better shot later.

Callaway Gardens Chapel

 Callaway Gardens Chapel

To celebrate the joys of life or for the most poignant moments, there is the garden.

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known

He speaks and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known

I'd stay in the garden with Him
'Tho the night around me be falling
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known

Wondrously Strange

August is the month when insects proliferate. They are everywhere. They are everywhere. Can you imagine if they were bigger? Talk about your monsters.

Part of this caterpillar's body is translucent green. 

photos by Father Time

I've already started removing some of the spent plants. Call it a pre-fall clean-up. I have to get a head start on these things. The hummingbirds continue to empty the feeders almost daily now. Fall is looming large.