As the Garden Grows

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Autumn flower seed heads

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Do you remember the GTS post that I made in early October of a pretty blue wild flower with a snail on it? Well the flower was likely wild Chicory.

I took that photo while my husband and I were on a nature hike with our dog in Taylor Creek park here in Toronto.

Well, in early November Chris and I went back to the park with the dog, probably for one of our last walks there this year as the weather is starting to get bad (it’s currently snowing outside as I write this post!).

I took some pictures of the lovely scenery – leaves changing color, and I also took some pictures of flower seed heads as well as action shots of my dog running around like a wild creature!

I believe the seed heads below are from the Wild Chicory. Aren’t they lovely?

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I also took a picture of this flower seed head.

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I’d first taken a picture of this flower seed head when it started turning in early October. You can see a picture of it on my photo blog. It was quite spectacular in October. Now it’s just a shell of it’s former self. I’m not sure what kind of flower it was though. Any ideas?

IMPORTANT: The company that I use to maintain our GTS blogroll (Blogrolling.com) has been having some problems over the last month or so and they are currently rewriting the code they use to run their site. As a result of this problem I haven’t been able to add or edit any sites on the blogroll.  So if you need a change to your site name or url, or if you’ve added the blogroll to your site (and remembered to let me know) and you’re waiting to be added to the list it will have to wait a while longer.

Please do continue to let me know of any changes you need or if you are a new member feel free to join … we’ll just have to wait for blogrolling to get their site fixed before I can properly maintain the list and add new sites, but I’ll keep your messages and take care of requests whenever I’m able to do so again.

Note- this message goes for anyone who’s on any of the other lists i run such as the dofollow blogroll, Toronto bloggers, Canadian bloggers and the Fabulous Photoblogs blogroll.






The last of the Monkshood blooms

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My Monkshood, well the Azure Monkshood I mean, was a little late in blooming this year. It usually blooms in early September and finishes up by early to mid-October. However, this year it didn’t seem to bloom until late September and the blooms, though slightly wilted lasted until sometime last week. Maybe that happened because we had a drier and cooler September than we normally do and I wasn’t out watering.

Here’s a photo of Azure Monkshood:

Monkshood blooms

The next photo is also Azure Monkshood, but for some reason it’s lighter in color than it’s ever been. It’s coloration is more like my Bi-color Monkshood that blooms in June.

Blue Monkshood

I planted a rose in front of the last one so it competes all summer with the rose for water and sunlight. Perhaps that’s another reason why it’s lighter this year.

Perhaps I should look up Monkshood and see how easy or hard it is to transplant and then if possible move it next spring to a more open area of the garden.

Sorry this post is late – again. I usually make my GTS posts at around Midnight, but I’ve been feeling quite ill the last two weeks. My Crohn’s is acting up quite badly and sometimes I just don’t feel up to sitting in front of the computer trying to come up with a post.

My roses don’t know when to quit!

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It’s getting colder here in Toronto. Last night it went down to -2 Celsius. That’s below freezing folks … but my roses, some of them anyway, are still trying to bloom!

This is a picture that I took of my Parade Roses last weekend. As you can see they had beautiful rose buds.

Parade Rose buds 3

Climbing Parade Rose buds

Parade is a climbing rose and it’s flowers are usually a lovely pink, but I think because of the cold weather we’ve been experiencing the buds turned red.

I think they look beautiful.

Several of my roses are still trying to bloom, although last nights cold weather might finally put a stop to that. Moulinex, Sharifa Asma, Graham Thomas, Baronne Prevost, Jacques Cartier, Yves Pigiet, iceberg and even the Compte de Chambord have a few blooms or buds.

Here’s a fading Compte de Chambord flower … even though it’s obviously dying it was still putting out it’s lovely rose perfume scent:

fading Compte De Chambord rose

Fading Compte de Chambord Rose

Several of my other flowers are still blooming as well. I even have some Petunias that are still alive! Oh and my Lavender has started blooming again too. Very strange!

If you live in an area that gets cool for winter are your flowers and plants dormant now or are some still struggling to bloom?

BTW Sorry this GTS post is late. It’s been a busy and sickly weekend. Speaking of Green Thumb Sunday – how many of you are really participating? I thought that members agreed to check in here on Sundays to let others know they have a new post up … but that hasn’t been happening much over the last week. I’m starting to wonder if we should keep this going?

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