The End Comes. Something New Begins...

If you are lucky enough to capture photos of your plants on the first good fall frost,

You might just end up with a great new shot for your blog header...

And I was lucky enough to have this morning happen on a day my husband was able to drop our little ones off to school…

Because a frost like this is strong enough to kill the upper parts of plants for the season and then be gone within moments once the sun comes up over the hill…

And if you miss it - you will have to wait until next year to try to catch it again…

These two images above are the main side hill garden before this beautiful frosty morning…

And here it is after…

This would be the perfect Halloween Spooky Garden!

Pop a few headstones in there and wha-la…

Photographs of bees on blooms will have to wait until spring…

Little critters are fiercely gathering seed…

This little mouse was eating corn left over from our kids fall pumpkin display.

And even though I will remember my 2011 garden as

"the aster yellows depressing year"…

There are little sparks of hope for what the future holds for my garden...

Because little pathways that I've been creating here and there with plants…

Are starting to be explored!

And that delights me to no end and makes me want to get back out there and make a wonderful exploration garden for my little ones…

Wonder what this winter will hold for dreaming and designing out a new garden?

Cone Flower Removal - For How Long?

Well - Today was the day.

Cone Flower Extraction Day.

As I pulled all of my cone flowers and black eyed susans from my garden beds I started thinking:

How long should I wait for replanting?

We normally get a nice wet cold winter here in Delaware.

And I can just hope that I can pull every infected or potentially infected plant out now so nothing survives to pass on the disease in my garden (that is a bit of a far fetched idea seeing as how it infects over 300 different species of plants though). But at least I'm trying right?

Every nook and cranny checked…

Finding the roots - looking for those pink buds that are ready for overwintering and blooming next spring. And out with them - into the heap of dying growth from this year.

And in my mood of pulling things out - out with a lot of the Russian Sage.

It grows so well in my garden - to the point of being too much.

There are more cone flowers in this bed that I didn't get to.

Maybe tomorrow I'll pull some more - and get to the mint and butterfly bush babies that are threatening to take over too.

And my mom's little bird hanging out with the Hellebores that seem to have a bit of pep right now from a bit of the cold we had in the last month.