Sort of my backyard

Some of the most beautiful flowers are the ones I didn't plant, feed, water, or prune.  They are the fabulous native plants that grow on the roadside, along a fence line, or in the ditch.   I picked these stunning blooms along the fence line at the horse pasture.  The bright yellow plumes are goldenrod (which is falsely accused of producing allergens), the dark purple clusters are ironweed, and the lavender puffs are ageratum.  Take a closer look at the wild areas near your home--God's gardens are in full bloom!

Fall is coming

Oak leaf hydrangea

Goldenrod

American beauty berry

Hearts a bustin'

Not all fall colors are leaves.  Here are a few of my favorite signs of fall appearing in my gardens this week.  All of them are native plants and all but the golden rod are plants that I originally transplanted from a friend's woods.

Sharing . . .

Do you see the cocoon?

One of the exciting aspects of growing native plants is sharing those plants with the native fauna that depend on them
for their survival.  I was overjoyed to discover that gulf fritillary butterflies have been visiting my passion flower vine.  The caterpillars are growing fast and I even discovered a cocoon hanging on my fence.    I'm happy to share my vine with them.  There is plenty of passion flower vine for all of us to enjoy.

True blue

Every year I plant morning glories along with the moonflower vines on the chain link fence that is visible from my kitchen window.  This year the moonflowers outdid themselves but the morning glories did not grow, or so I thought.  This morning, I was delighted to see a bouquet of my favorite, heavenly blue morning glories dancing above the foliage!   (You can see my kitchen window in the background of this photo.)

"My" spider web

I was cleaning up the tomato garden (blight got them), feeling a little blue because I couldn't save them, when I looked up to see the sun shining through the strands of this beautiful spider web.   There is always something beautiful to see in my garden, even if I didn't have a thing to do with creating it. 

Sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn't

It hasn't rained on my gardens in 12 days.  In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a big deal.  We've had plenty of rain this summer so the soil is generally moist.   However, my annuals are very unhappy right now.  The very fact that we have had a wet summer is the reason they look so miserable.   Because they have been watered by the abundant rain on an almost daily basis this summer, they have never had to send their roots deep into the soil to hunt for water.  Now, at the end of the season when they should have had a deep, broad network of roots to find moisture and nutrients, they are unable to cope with the adverse conditions they are confronting.

Gardening teaches me wonderful lessons on life.  Watching my annuals struggle to survive with just a little less water reminds me that life's little disappointments are good training for me.  If I never learn to handle the small problems of life, I will never develop the necessary skills to survive when the serious issues arise.

God gives us many tools and opportunities to prepare for adversity.  We have access to the Bible and church families to help us grow and mature, but if during the "good times" of life, we do not read the Bible or develop strong connections with our church, we will not have the resources we need to manage during the "tough times" that inevitably come.

We never know what will happen in the future.  Sometimes it rains, and sometimes it doesn't. 

Spiders, spiders, everywhere

Have you noticed that there seem to be a lot more spiders and spider webs than normal this fall?  Some experts are suggesting that the mild winter combined with a wet summer has created the perfect environment for spider food (insects) and so, more spiders.   There is no quantitative study to verify this idea but it sure feels true to me. 

Spiders are good for my garden--they eat lots and lots of insect pests.  I have to remind myself of this truth every time I find myself engulfed in one of my friend's sticky webs.

Weird and wonderful

There are some plants that are definitely just a little strange.  One of the most amazing to me is the osage orange tree.  I discovered this tree last year while riding in a field behind our horse pasture. 

What drew my attention were the huge, greenish yellow fruits.  From a distance it looked quite lovely but when I got too close, I discovered the stout, one inch thorns.  I had to find out what this fabulous tree is and how it came to be in my horses' backyard.

The osage orange is most likely native to Texas.  It was highly valued for its dense wood that resists insects and rotting.  It made terrific tool handles and fence posts.  The Indians used the wood to make superior bows.   Farmers would deliberately plant the trees close together to create fences and windbreaks.  Over time, the tree has become naturalized over the entire country.

The fruit contains a chemical called elermol which repels insects so well that some study results show it is more effective than DEET.  It is edible, but not flavorful.  The seeds are supposed to be similar in flavor to sunflower seeds but extracting them from the extremely sticky pulp just doesn't seem worth the effort.

To reproduce, the tree requires both a male and female tree.  The female will produce fruit without a male tree but the seeds will not be fertile.  

So how did four osage orange trees end up in a field in central Alabama? What looks like one tree, is really four trees planted in a near straight line.  All four trees are females (I carefully crawled around them to make sure all of them had fruit).  I hiked all around the area to determine if there were any more trees or seedlings nearby--there aren't.    The trees are mature in height and bearing fruit so they are more than 10 years old.  My best guess is that someone planted them deliberately and then they were forgotten until we rediscovered them last year.

Although the fruit are beautiful in a basket as a fall decoration, I don't think I will be planting them in my backyard.

Rain as yard art

We recently experienced a rain shower late in the afternoon that produced the most amazing art display in our backyard.  While it was still raining in our yard, the sun was shining just to the west of us, creating the appearance of brightly colored jewels in every rain drop.  It was like watching a million rainbows!  These photos do not do justice to the beauty of those moments.  It was a once-in-a-lifetime event.