Fall Flowers and Storms are Upon Us

Passionflower Vine, foreground. Elephant Ears, background.

The roadways are lined with Joe Pye Weed, Giant Ironweed, St. John’s Wort, Black-eyed Susans, Goldenrod and all manner of wildflowers. Most people think of these beautiful wildflowers as weeds, but they’re wonderful feeding stations for pollinators to store up the rich honey they need to survive on in the winter. I used to look at them as weeds and pulled stuff up out of my carefully landscaped flower beds all the time. Now, I seek them out to harvest seed for my own pollinator gardens.

We have a few passionflower vines that grow on our fence and somehow they all got pulled up either last fall or early this spring and I didn’t think we were ever going to get any this year. But they’re pretty hardy and low and behold, by the first of August, we had one little vine weaving it’s way up the chain link. Just last week, it started producing a few flowers and my heart was so happy. They are truly beautiful and I hope they come back next year, bigger and better.

Arabian Starflower…a variety of Star of Bethlehem. We harvest the bulbs from these and store them in the basement over the winter then plant them again in the spring in an old galvanaized washtub.

Our Elephant Ears are really looking good at this time of year. They are almost to the top of the chain link on the other side of the fenced in back yard. They grow from a tuber that looks an awful lot like a jicama. Every year, the plants produce more tubers and we give them away like crazy to all our family and friends. And still, every spring, Mr. FixIt has to extend the bed by several feet in order to accommodate all of them. It’s too bad we need to dig them up before the first frost or they’ll die. They are a lot of work, but they make a real nice display.

I thought perhaps I would mow yesterday, but it rained off and on and is supposed to continue on today. That will push off the mowing till later in the week and then the grass with be tougher and thicker and harder to mow. Since we couldn’t get outside and work, we fiddled around in the house all day. I was looking for glass tops for these end tables we bought over the weekend, but glass has gotten so expensive and I’m not going to pay as. Much for the glass as I did the tables. After researching alternatives, I decided to just use doilies and coasters and call it good.

I haven’t seen a single Monarch Butterfly this year. Photo Credit: Pixabay

I worked on the computer and designed a few Halloween shirts. I cooked and cleaned and made popcorn after supper. And that was good enough for me. We don’t have to be anywhere this week, so I’m happy to be nesting a little.

If you are in the path of severe weather or fires or crazy gunmen today, please be safe and know we are all praying for you! Let us know what’s happening in your neck of the woods.