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Autumn blooms from my garden

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It’s started to get cool here in Toronto and I suppose it’s time to get the garden and yard ready for winter even though I’m dreading the arrival of snow and ice! Ah … too soon to think of those things isn’t it?

Anyway … Last weekend I decide it was time to get a start on preparing the garden for winter so we got to work at putting away our patio furniture and tidying up the garden beds to some degree. We still have a lot of work to do, but at least we got things started.

While I was working in the garden I noticed that quite a few of my fall flowers were blooming so I got out my camera and took quite a few pictures. Here’s a few of my favorite garden photos from last weekend:

Toad Lilies! The only time of year that I can see lovely Toad Lilies blooming is in late September through October. Aren’t they absolutely lovely?

Toadlilies

Then there are these lovely chrysanthemums. I have a large planter of them on my front porch blooming their pretty little heads off.

chrysanthemums 3

Sedum always shines at this time of year. I always think of it as kind of a filler plant in the spring and summer, but come Autumn it’s a star when it begins to bloom and turns lovely colors.

Sedum

Monkshood is another Autumn favorite of mine. I have two types of Monkshood growing in my backyard garden. I believe the type in the photo below is Monkshood Azure.

Monkshood 9

This last photo is my favorite. Of course it’s a rose. This rose is Chicago Peace. It’s not as colorful as it would be in the Spring or early summer … but it’s still lovely. If it weren’t for the little tiny green leaf on one of the petals I think this would be an almost perfect picture of this rose.

Chicago Peace Rose

Do you still have flowers blooming in your garden? If you do what’s blooming?






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.

Growing Monkshood

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It’s amazing how many plants are coming up in my garden. Every time I either look outside or go outside to look at the garden I notice how much the plants have grown or new green shoots coming up in areas that were barren the day before.

The monkshood is already making an appearance:

monkshoodshoots

This is Monkshood Aconitum Arendsii Azure Blue.

The new leaves are coming up amid the old stalks that I still have to remove! Usually I tidy up the garden beds in the fall, but I didn’t really do that last year. Even when I clean up the garden in the autumn I’ll often still leave a few plant stalks or a leaf or two so that come spring I can remember where the plant is planted.

I do have plant markers in the garden, but most have been there for four or five years now and they are barely legible or they’ve snapped in the cold so there’s only half of the plants name.

I grow another kind of Monkshood at the back of the garden near the holly shrub. It’s a bicolor Monkshood and I’ve forgotten it’s full name.

Now I know I have several photos of the Azure Blue Monkshood but I can’t find any of them right now. Odd. I do have a photo of the BiColor Monkshood as it’s beginning to bloom though.

Monkshood Aconitum

The bicolor Monkshood usually blooms twice a season. Often once in July and then in Mid to Late September. The Azure Blue only blooms once in late August through into September.

Monkshood is very easy to grow, but you must remember that it’s a poisonous plant. I’m a little nervous about growing it now that we have a Labrador Retriever puppy, but I don’t think she’ll be allowed in the backyard very often and certainly not unsupervised.

Monkshood can be grown in shade or bright sunlight. It does best with at least 6 hours of bright sunlight each day. Depending on the species it grow from 30 inches to approx. 36 inches in height.

This plant does best in rich, moist, humusy soil. It doesn’t like being disturbed once it’s established but it can be propagated through division.

There are several species and hybrids of Monkshood. Some will rebloom if the flowers are removed shortly after they’ve finished blooming as with my bicolor monkshood and others are of the fall blooming variety.

Monkshood is a beautiful plant that adds a lovely touch of color to the garden bed. Even it’s foliage is attractive. Just remember that all parts of the plant are poisonous!

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