The Colors of Fall in My Garden

Yes these are pictures of my Fall garden ! I took these pictures just last week. Last night we had a very still and chilly night, so I know that our first killing frost will soon be here. We also were able to enjoy a glorious Full Harvest Moon.

My Belinda's Dream rose is still covered with buds and the Endless Summer Hydrangea is putting out new buds, especailly after I did a big trim back of any spent blossoms.

My hardy Pink Daisy mums are blooming their fool heads off and next year I must rmember to tie them up so they don't flop all about. It does look pretty and wild with the pink blooms showing in amoung all of the other plants however. perhaps I will continue to ignore that chore! :)

As the fresh periwinkle purple hydanges blossoms fade they trun a wonderful akliedescope of colors and when paired with the pink Mums one can see all of the red and pink tones in the bracts of the flower head. Sooo beautiful!!

Despite my best efforts and repeated attempts, including presoaking of the seeds, I failed to get any of the old fashioned morning glory seed sot sprout!! My Moon Flowers went crazy however!!!

The wire fencing that seperates the dog run from the rest of the back yard looks so much nicer with vines growing all over it and the Moon Flower buds are still coming! It is such fun to go out after dusk and watch all of teh insect activity around the glowing blossoms adas the hawk moths and Luna Moths swoop in to feed. i saw two Luna Moths this year but the phtos did not turn out well so I will just have to count on my garden journal to remind me of her visit.

Both the roses and the Zinnia's really love the cooler chilly nights and warm days and repay me with glorious blooms .(as if I am responsibel for the change of seasons- HAH!!)

As long as I am willing to dead head, the zinniza and perrenial Verbena will continue to bloom. this all makes the little moths and butterflies very happy and I have seen lurking Praying Mantis feasting on the beetles and other little critters that are drawn to the floral feasting.

I jsut love the color variation on this zinnia blossom but I am not sure whether the red and orange streaking is due to the chilly evenings or to a mutaion in the actually plant. Some one came along and decided to snack! i am goignt o save the seeds form this particular blossom and plant them out next year to see if it is a real mutation ar a response to the cold. You can take the girl away from the science lab but you can't take the science lab out of the girl!!!

Now I must go out and pick another fresh bunch of Zinnia's as it may be the last of the season.

Have a beautiful weekend everyone!!!

One Can Never Have Too Many Roses!!!

Two things have jsut occured to me. First, it has been a long time since my last post, my apologies! Secondly I will be only three posts away from the Big 500th post when I complete this post!!!! I feel a Give Away and Thank You to all of you for reading, coming on!!! Stay tuned!! We have had a very busy week getting our eldestr son off to his first year of college! This has been a very large change for all of us, but so far so good!!! We ahve also been feeling chnages in the weather with shorter evenings and cooler night time temps. My Belinda's Dream rose bush is loving the change and showering us with lovely fragrant blooms.

This is also the first fall season that my Gertrude Jekyll Rose has put on a second show. The blooms are much smaller than Belinda's but the fragrance is almost twice as intense. Simply delightful!!!

Since my fabulous class playing with Soy Wax Batik, I have had the itch to dye and paint fabric. To that end I have taken scissors to a stained damask linen tablecloth. I cut strips roughly 1-1.1/2 inches wide and painted each one with Setacolor paints in a very mottled and haphazard fashion.

I was hoping to enhance the damask weave patterns in the cloth and give a very natural graduated effect to the coloration of each strip.

After I had dried and set the paint on each strip, I stitched a twisted each strip into a rose. It is quite hard to see in the pictures but in person, one can see the damask patterns and the varigated painting gives each bloom a very natural look.

I created individual leaves by stitching green painted linen complete with veining in Free Motion Embroidery. After stitching a double outline I cut out each leaf and stitched several blooms together to form brooches. After the construction was done , I covered up the messy bits with some beautiful vintage deep green velvet.

I delivered several brooches to Liberty Town and soon I will be adding some to my Etsy Shop!!!

It is amazing how many blooms one can get out of one large linen tablecloth.