That must be tasty food that those people are holding up for the birds! Can you imagine standing outside and having that many birds trying to get food out of your hand? Kind of neat, but maybe a little frightening at the same time, I think.

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Last week Chris and I took our dog to one of our cities (Toronto) beautiful parks for a nice long walk outdoors. Our dog had a ball running around in the off leash areas and uhm … rolling in mud! and we had a nice time watching her, talking to another dog owner (who’s dog played with Midnight during our hike) and simply enjoying our surroundings.

The trees are only just starting to change color here in Toronto, so I mainly focused on talking pictures of wild flowers as we walked.

I came across these flowers that I think look quite bit like my perennial Asters, but I’m really not sure what kind of flowers they are:

They’re pretty aren’t they?

I also came across a small tree (maybe 10 feet tall?) that had these lovely black berry clusters growing among the leaves. I’ve seen this before but I cannot remember what this tree is called. Any ideas?

The rich black berries are solid looking with a shiny outer skin. The berries are probably just a little bigger than your baby finger nail .. maybe the size of your ring fingers nail?

The clusters of berries looked very pretty in the tree among the leaves. They’re probably not edible though.

I have more pictures from our walk through Taylor creek park on Tricia’s Musings and My World if you’d like to see more flowers and some sumac’s turning red.

A wild flower that I came across while on a walk with my husband and dog in Toronto’s Taylor Creek Park.

Do you see what’s above the flower? It’s a snail. A pest I’m sure, but it looked pretty beside the flower.

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My perennial New York Asters are in full bloom and they are putting on a spectacular display as usual.

The bee’s can’t help but visit the small purple flowers to collect as much pollen as they can either.

I actually took this photo last year around this time. The weather’s been cool and the skies have been cloudy all week - not ideal picture taking conditions. Hopefully today or tomorrow I can get out in the garden and take a lot of pictures. The roses are pretty much all in bloom again, probably the last blooms of the season for many … so I’ve got to get those pictures soon!

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LOL have you ever seen one bird chasing another? Probably lots of times, right? I’ll bet that you never saw one catch the other by it’s tail before though!

BTW I didn’t take this picture, wish I knew who did as it’s a fantastic shot, isn’t it?

I was just coming outside a little while ago to clean up the dog fur at my front porch after a long grooming season with my Labrador Retriever, and as I exited my front door I noticed an older lady practically standing in my planted boulevard pulling away at my sunflowers.

She had a huge bouquet of yellow flowers tucked under her right arm, and with her other arm she was trying to get some of my sunflowers to add to her collection.

She noticed me come outside and she had the gaul to turn to me and ask for scissors???

I told her “No I’m not going inside for scissors” - 1. I was covered in dog hair and wasn’t about to go inside where my husband had just vacuumed to get a thief something to aid her assault on my plants and 2. I was just stunned that she was hacking and pulling away at my plants right in front of me!

She told me she wanted the flower to take to the hospital. Yeah along with the variety of yellow flowers in the bouquet she was carrying - the flowers that she’d probably stolen along the way as she walked towards the hospital.

I let her take the flower. I mean she’d already ruined the stalk. But I’m really ticked off at the nerve she had taking the flower(s) in the first place without even attempting to ask first.

If she hadn’t had a whole bouquet of what I can only presume were flowers she’d lifted from other peoples gardens, or if I’d recognized he as a volunteer at the hospital I might have felt a little differently …

I guess I know now why some of the stalks on a few of the sunflower plants were all hanging down and trampled last week. She’d probably stolen flowers last week too.

Just her whole attitude ticked me off. I can picture her walking down my driveway and going into the backyard to pick roses too! Arghh

I don’t even pick my own flowers! Not for myself anyway!

I feel like putting a sign up that says

“These flowers are for those in the neighborhood to “look” at, not to pick!”

Should I bother? Or maybe I should leave some of my dogs droppings right where she’ll be likely to step in it if she tries to get my flowers again? Ha Ha! ((( yes I’m feeling evil )))

After she wandered off down the street I went and got my pruners and trimmed the stems and stalks she’d broken. I also shortened and thinned out the patch of sunflowers as they were beginning to get tall and were starting to hang out into the roadway. Remember last year I got a bylaw order to cut my sunflowers down to three feet? Well, they are about four feet tall right now, but look a lot tidier than they did this morning.

I’d hate to get a bylaw order to cut them down again with only about a month left to enjoy them, well if I can keep the flower thief away that is …

The thing that gets me most is that if she’d asked I probably would have let her take a flower. I would have even helped by cutting it myself. Heck, after she’d damaged the plants and I went out to fix the damage there were sunflowers all over the ground. Chris came out to help me put the cut stalks and leaves in a bag and as people walked by us we even gave them some of the sunflowers. So it’s not like we aren’t generous with our flowers - it’s just the fact that she didn’t even bother asking and that she damaged the plants. Grrrr

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Can you believe it? I think I’m actually starting to run out of new pictures for my Green Thumb Sunday posts! (it doesn’t help that I do GTS on three blogs either). I just don’t seem to have the variety of photos in stock that I normally do. Perhaps it was all that rain this year, keeping me from getting outside and taking photos of my plants in different stages … or mucking up my plants so much that I didn’t want to take pictures! LOL

This is a beauty from earlier in the summer. It’s a Westerland climbing rose. It looks like it’s just beginning to develop buds again, so I’m sure it will be flush with blooms by the end of September .. and oh what blooms they are! This is a gorgeous rose with a heavenly scent.

Hmmm today is supposed to be fairly nice .. I think I’ll try to get out and take some new photos. Gotta store some up for winter GTS posts!

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Have you ever seen anything like this?

It must have taken years for this tree to be shaped to grow into the form of a chair. Very cool!

On Sunday it was extremely hot and humid. This of course was thanks to the warm weather blowing in, in advance of the remnants of Hurricane Ike. Late in the evening it became quite windy and the rain came - not as much rain as they were predicting luckily.   The wind cooled everything down and so far this week (Mon, Tues) it’s been cooler than it normally should be at this time of year.

It’s so strange to go from tropical temperatures to very cool temperatures all within the span of 24 hours. I wonder what our plants think of all the changes in the weather?

Have you had strange weather in your area in the last few days?

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Do you grow any vegetables in your garden? I do … yeah, I know, I’m always talking about my flowers and other plants and I barely ever mention the fact that I also try to grow vegetables in my garden, amide all of the flowers.

Each year without fail I grow tomatoes (I experiment with different kinds each year this year it was Early Girl, Glam and Tiny Toms), cucumbers, beans, peas, romaine and a variety of lettuces or mescalin mix.

My tomatoes did quite well this year, much better than the last few years anyway. Perhaps that was because I grew varieties that matured earlier.

Tiny Tom Tomatoes

Unfortunately though, my Tiny Tom Tomatoes, Cucumbers and beans didn’t do as well. I grow them in containers on the patio close to the back of the house. I guess I thought that with all of the rain this year that the plants were getting enough water … guess again … they grew very slowly and I think it was because they were too dry overall.

My cucumbers did the worst! They only just started producing tiny cucumbers about two weeks ago! Here’s a tiny one as proof:

Tiny Cucumber

If I’d paid more attention and didn’t just assume that the all of the areas of the garden were getting enough water thanks to all the rain we had this summer then I think my cucumbers and beans would have done a lot better.

I guess I learned a lesson this year. Even if it’s rained, always go out and check the soil to see if it really is moist. Plants growing near the house or under the eaves just might not be getting any water at all!

I hope your veggies did better than mine did this summer.

We are going to get the remnants of Hurricane Ike all day today. We are expecting a lot of rain. I mean the kind that causes flooding … and flooded basements! Our basements always been dry, but this might be the test! Hope my home and garden survive all the water we’re about to have dumped on us!

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!