The Wedding is over and The Mexican Marigold Mint is in bloom!

What an absolutely fabulous weekend we had. The weather for the wedding could not have been any better. Everything was decorated for fall...the church, the country club where we had the reception..it was all beautiful! I only have a few pictures right now, but if we get some good family pictures, I will post those later. This is a sweet picture of our Pastor explaining the vows to Jen and Jason.
And a picture of the very happy couple cutting the cake. (and YUM was it good!)




With the exception of the bridal bouquet, all the flowers were fall colors. These are what the bouquets looked like on all the tables at the reception. They were in short round vases with 4 votives surrounding them.(I didn't keep their vases-this is one I had in the garage.) The chocolate brown napkins on the table had a pocket fold with a silk fall leaf and little bag of chocolates tucked inside. I got to bring some of the flowers home. Roses in every fall color filled the vases along with several other things. The florist did an outstanding job.

And, while I was busy with wedding details, my Mexican Marigold Mint started blooming! I bought this as a small plant back in early summer. Just one of those things I wanted to try. I didn't even know it bloomed in fall! It just got taller and taller all summer, and now it has these buttery yellow flowers.
Sorry the close up is so blurry-I wanted you to see the cluster of flowers blooming only at the top.

Mexican Marigold Mint is native to Mexico and Guatemala where its foliage is used for teas, seasoning and medicinal purposes. Herb gardeners in Texas often substitute this plant for French tarragon, which cannot withstand summer heat in Texas.
Although it is a marigold, this plant is not susceptible to spider mites. After becoming established, very little needs to be done to keep Mexican Marigold Mint looking attractive, although growth may be pruned back before June in order to shorten the ultimate height. Mexican Marigold Mint does best in well-drained, sunny locations. The leaves are slender and have notched edges, and the blooms are in clusters of golden-yellow single flowers, appearing from mid-fall till frost. There is a noticeable fragrance of anise associated with the plants.
This plant even survived all the October rain we had! I think this will be one of my fall favorites!

Do you have a favorite fall flower this year?

November

It's November! Can somebody please tell me where October went?? And, while you're at it, can someone please explain what happened to summer!

From time to time I go back and read articles I saved written by the late Jo Northrop who wrote for Country Living magazine many years ago. This is from one of my favorites of her "Simple Country Pleasure" articles about November:

"The exquisite cranberry and chrysanthemum days of November are a gift. We intensely and thankfully absorb them, knowing the inevitability of sudden, bone-chilling cold. Even in clear autumn sunlight, a scarecrow among fallen leaves in a deserted garden looks cold. It is this deepening of the season, the passage toward the end of the year, that gives November a quality that is energy charged."

Jo Northrop was legally blind; however, I think she "saw" the seasons better than anyone else and described them so vividly. Through her writings I can see that scarecrow standing in the now empty garden, and I can feel the sudden chill of the north wind. And the passage toward the end of the year is certainly exciting-(thoughts of spring flowers-whoo-hoo!) And, for us, this November is very "energy charged." Our daughter's wedding is next Saturday--so I will be away from blogging for a week or so getting ready for the big day. (I think it was just yesterday I was driving her to dance lessons! )

Happy November everyone! I wish you all cool and crisp cranberry and chrysanthemum days!

Garden surprises and Red Geranimums

In the fall I love to walk around the yard and find little blooming surprises. I didn't have to go far before noticing this lonely little cosmos growing right in the grass.
Not a blooming plant, but I thought it was odd to see an asparagus fern growing in the bed in front of the tree. Now, where did that come from?
I bought this little plant because I thought it would look good growing around some of the large rocks in my garden. I don't even know what it is..so how surprised I was to find a little yellow bloom on it!
The little star creeper has started to bloom again. Poor little thing has been struggling to survive this summer. I think the ground ivy is taking over.

When I put the new trellis in the wildflower bed, I saw this one BIG bloom on White Swan Coneflower.
And look at the tiny bloom of a rose moss growing in with the hens and chicks. I think this pot at one time was full of rose moss.
Not a surprise though are the red geraniums all around my yard. Now that the temps are lower and we have gotten so much rain, they are lush and blooming up a storm. This is one of two containers that I kept on the front porch. They are just too heavy for me to move around, so hubby did one final move and put them in the back bed. I will try and keep them over the winter, but this may be the year they go.
An old tin picnic basket holds more flowers...

I actually started both of these plants from cuttings from the large pot of geraniums.
Red in a garden is my favorite!
I completely forgot there was a little geranium in the basket of all mixed plants I bought in March. It never really bloomed, but I see now there is one tiny bloom.
I love these late fall surprises..and I especially love seeing all the geraniums blooming for probably the last time this year. I guess I will move all the plants to the corner of the patio and cover them during the really cold days (if we get any of those!). It's quite a treat to have early blooms in spring after looking out on the brown of winter. Flowers never fail to brighten my day.

"Flowers are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul."

Luther Burbank

Saturday things..

Do you see this..it is sun!! Today is the first time I have seen the sun in a month. We are so grateful for all the rain, but cloudy and dreary every day really gets to a gardener. I was ready to get out in the garden today when I saw the bright sun!
This pretty yellow daisy is one of my favorites. I bought it last spring to put in a red ceramic container (you know me with my red and yellow in the garden!) It has bloomed continually all summer. I did have to water it twice a day during the hot summer days, but that was not a problem.
Have you noticed I keep calling this pretty little thing an "it?" Well, it's because I forgot what it was! Is it an Englemann Daisy? I always keep the plant tag that comes with plants when I buy them, but guess I lost this one. Look closely at the petals--does this look like a cutleaf to you?
Remember this? I didn't know exactly what it was-and I still don't know. Some of you thought asparagus, Robin thought it looked like her sea shell cosmos, and Cindy thought it was probably just a weed. Well-I didn't know..and decided I didn't care. This plant was taking up too much room in my wildflower bed. So, today it was cut down. I still needed height in that bed, so--I did what all good gardeners do, I went shopping!
And this is what I found at Lowes. It is just a plain wooden trellis, but I think it was just what I needed. The green looks really good against the fence.

The trellis looks pretty lonely right now, but what you can't see is that this bed is full of little seedings. Bluebonnets Mexican Hat Coreopsis, Coneflower rosettes and who know what else.

Winter may find this bed rather dull, but I am hoping spring will put on a beautiful show of blooms to make this new trellis happy.

What did you do this Saturday? Hope it was a good one for you too!

Fall at the Arboretum

It has been so rainy in the Dallas area, I have had a hard time finding a Saturday to go to the Arboretum. Even though today was cloudy and pretty chilly, it was a great day to tour some of the gardens.

It is fall, and the trial gardens are full of plants showing off their fall colors. It was so wet, I just stayed on the walkway and didn't venture over like I usually do. Looks like most things did really well this past year. They will be planting bulbs and pansies pretty soon I think.
The cute little thatched roof house is still transformed into Hansel and Gretel's house. The plants on either side of the walkway look like they are about ready to stop blooming, but they have been spectacular this past year. I love the cottage look this area has.

This is one of the ponds. I think it looks great! It won't be long before the lilies and poppies will stop blooming. In the winter, the ponds look cold and lonely, but the minute warm weather returns, the pond comes back to life.
This is one of the beds around the grassy meadow. This time of year the Arboretum beds are full of coleus (my favorite!) and ornamental grasses. The colors are normally very striking-this cloudy day does not do justice to their brilliance.
And, Cindee, I took this picture just for you! These hens and chicks were really big!
Can you tell it's getting about time for Halloween? woooooo...

And of course, we saw lots and lots of pumpkins!

They lined the walkways..

There were pumpkins to buy..

There was even a pumpkin house!
But we had the cutest pumpkin there!

No day for gardening!

This was definitely not a day to garden. It started to rain yesterday late afternoon, and rained all night into this morning. I think it stopped around 2 in the afternoon, but the day remained cloudy and cool.
We have such bad drainage in back, even with a french drain. Water will be standing for days-and the weather forecast is for rain all week. It was sure not a day to be outside...but..
..it was the perfect day to bake cinnamon cookies! My best friend gave me this recipe 19 years ago. It is the perfect cookie for a cool fall day. And it is really easy to make!


Carolyn's Cinnamon Cookies

Cream:

1 cup softened margarine

1 1/2 cup sugar

Add:

1 egg

1 T. plus 2 t. molasses

Combine:

2 1/4 cups flour

1 T. plus 2 t. cinnamon

1 1/2 t. baking soda

Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture and mix well. Drop by level tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake about 10-12 minutes (I bake mine 13 minutes). Let rest on cookie sheet about 2 minutes before removing to rack to cool.

Now pour yourself a glass of milk or a cup of coffee and enjoy! YUM!

A few new things for Fall

I know-it's not exactly the right time of the year to buy new plants, but when you go to a garden center to buy mulch, you just can't resist picking up a few things!
I don't have any asters, and knew this cute little "Pixie Dark" aster would just fit in a spot by the pond. And it's a perennial, so maybe next year I will see Pixie's cute little flowers again!
I have been trying to think of a way to camouflage these stakes around the pond. Until I do, I thought I might try a dwarf grass. So, I picked up a "Little Bunny" fountain grass. I read about these before I went to the garden center, so this is one plant I was watching for. It will only get about 18 inches tall and wide-perfect for this space!
The wheel-
barrow full of coleus and sweet potato vine is so pretty right now, but I needed something tall for the back. I thought this ornamental pepper plant would work great. It is a very, very dark purple and called "Black Pearl." Should look great against the reds and greens in the wheelbarrow.
I wasn't planning on buying any sweet alysum, but they had some pretty little bedding plants, and I thought I would get a few for the flagstone walkway and enjoy their sweet fragrance this fall.
And of course, who could leave without buying a few pumpkins...

Even though it's in the 90's here today...

It's Fall Y'all!!!