Still Saturday . . . so, sixish pixish

Once again, I took pictures, this time two weeks ago, and didn’t get a post written. So it’ll be another double-your-fun post, all from the front beds and shade garden. I haven’t been doing much in the garden (not nearly as much as needs doing), because I’ve been grading, and going out with friends (to a restaurant! and then to their house! and brunch with a different friend! and walking with another one!) when I’m not working. Autumn showed up precisely on schedule: we went from summer weather to chilly overnight on the equinox. Funny how that works.

Anyway, up first we have the upper front bed, where I moved a tomato plant that volunteered itself in the veg patch (this is what happens with homemade compost, I think). Alas, bugs have burrowed into the tomatoes, so I’m not going to get anything from this plant. But in the wider view today, the two shades of sedum are very pretty.

#2, the big lump of sedums that I so often reference as a sign of the changing seasons, first two weeks ago and then today, from different perspectives as well:

#3, Honorine Joubert and her companion Rudbeckia (and some columbine seedheads):

#4, the purple aster with more of Honorine:

It really is purple, not pink.

#5, two pink flower pictures from two weeks ago. This little geranium appeared unexpectedly in the shade garden, and also the coneflower cultivar was blooming brightly. It has since gone to seed.

#6, volunteer asters, some of the purple, and then the wild ones in the side yard (popular with the bumblebees):

This is more the color they really are.

So there we are, the state of things in the garden for the last two weeks. Six on Saturday is hosted by the Propagator.

I swear someday I’m going to start posting more often, and on topics that aren’t just the garden, but at least this keeps me showing up once in awhile. I hope my fellow gardeners are enjoying the weekend!

Who should that be but our cousin Scotland?

I don’t think it’s so much that I’m especially interested in the royal family as that I have a hangover from my mother’s interest, which permeated my childhood. She was a few years younger than Elizabeth II, and thanks to her collection of magazine clippings and a few books, such as The Little Princesses, I grew up with the topic. That book combined with James Kenward‘s Prep School (a battered Penguin copy kicked around our bookshelves, surrounded by Scholastic kids’ books; I have no idea who acquired it, or when) to fuel many happy hours of playing school with my dolls and dollhouse when I was small.

So although I can’t say I feel particularly bereft by the death of Elizabeth II, it does feel a smidge like some distant friend of my mother’s finally passed on, someone I used to hear about; and it does feel like the end of an era. Being what I am, I immediately tried to link this to what people might have felt when Elizabeth I died, people like the chap I once spent years researching. In both cases, for many people the queen was The queen, the person who had always been on the throne. Only when the first one died, there was also the question of who would inherit, which worried a lot of people. Now that’s not an issue. I have to admit that I would have advised against taking on the name Charles (not particularly well-omened), but I guess it’s a good thing for a monarch not to be superstitious.

Some inner child in me would like to get out the dolls’ house and sew little black costumes for the dolls who were sometimes little princesses (and sometimes children from Swallows and Amazons), then find the old plastic horses (where in the world did those go?) and make them suitably funereal draperies for the cortege.

But I’ll probably mark the occasion only by checking out a few M. C. Beaton books for a re-read, even though historical fiction (or biography) might seem like a more appropriate choice.

Twelve on Saturday

Last week I took pictures, downloaded and saved them, and then went to do the cats’ lunch before writing the post. One thing led to another, and the post never happened. This week, therefore, we’ll do a time-elapsed set (mostly), so you can see developments in the past week.

Here’s #1, the coneflowers and coreopsis in one of the front-stairs beds; this week, the coneflowers look a little worse for wear, but the pink sedum clump is starting to bloom:

The round blue object is a dog toy that turned up in our yard when the snow melted last spring. We do not have a dog. I keep meaning to offer it to one of our neighbors when I see him.

#2, on the other side of the steps, the coneflower cultivar. I like this color very much! This week it looks a little faded.

#3, Honorine Joubert has been spreading. As with #1, this week’s photo is from a different angle, so you can see more of the bed, including a volunteer coneflower on the right that I’m happy to have.

#4 is the flowerbed in the middle of the lawn. Last week, the scabiosa was doing well. This week it’s mostly over, so you get the Russian (can I call it Ukrainian, instead?) Sage. This is a purple bed.

#5, over in the ditch, we’ve been seeing dayflowers (the small bright blue spots) and baby’s thumb (pink). Also assorted grasses and dandelion-like weeds. Apparently the bee who was enjoying this patch flew off rather than having her picture taken.

And #6, the side-of-house clematis that I tend to forget about is putting out a few flowers for a second bloom, though it blooms most generously in June. Maybe next year I’ll manage to photograph its first glorious color.

Wouldn’t you know it, the day I manage to get a Six on Saturday post done before it’s no longer Saturday in our host’s time zone, the Propagator is away doing some crazy endurance race instead of hanging about in the garden! Nonetheless he got a placeholder post up so the rest of us can compare notes as usual, so check it out if you like garden blogs. If you’re still hoping for academic content or at least cat pictures, well, so am I . . . my intentions are good but we all know what the road to hell is paved with.