ABC Wednesday: Minding My P's and Q's

I enjoy participating in the ABC Wednesday meme when I can think of an idea, usually related to gardening. I was going to skip this week, though . . .I mean, what flower starts with Q?? And then it hit me! I had the perfect topic! I spent part of the last two days photographing my subject from various angles and doing a little research on the topic.

And then I realized . . .Q doesn't come after O . . . the next letter is P! Drat! Time to bring out Plan B . . .

Last Saturday was the first of the month, which means in garden blogging land, it's Garden Muse Day, sponsored by Carolyn Gail, when many gardeners post an appropriate poem for the season. I found a suitable poem, though it wasn't anything famous or particularly literary, but VP at Veg Plotting posted a poem just perfect for November by one of my favorite poets, "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost. The sentiments of that poem stayed with me as I read Gail's post on Monday about the gold and yellow colors in her garden this November. Both of them inspired me to take a second look around my own surroundings where I noticed more golden colors of autumn than were apparent last week.

At the risk of being accused of Plagiarism, I'd like to share some similar golden views.

In my last post I showed some of the fall color in my garden, including the honey locust trees whose leaves were beginning to turn from green to yellow. This week they are dressed completely in a magnificent yellow.

"Nature's first green is gold/Her hardest hue to hold..."

I will enjoy this lovely show of gold as long as it lasts, for we know that soon these leaves will drop with the inevitable rains and winds of November.

Another correction from my last post--I said that the old oak tree wasn't especially colorful in the fall and that its leaves merely turned brown and fell. Not so! This week the leaves have turned to bronze. Its leaves are still clinging to the branches, providing shade across the front lawn as it has all summer, but now its burnished gold provides some light at the end of the driveway as well.

Across the road, the neighbor's trees are all decked out in yellow and gold, too.

"Her leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf."

In the shade garden the hosta leaves have all started to turn yellow, a sign that it's time for their long winter's nap.

The Pumpkin that my daughter carved into a Jack o'lantern looked great on Halloween. But after too many hours of candle burning, its face is beginning to sag and collapse upon itself.

Winter seems far away despite the falling leaves and wilting garden. We have had beautiful weather for the past week, almost summer-like. But the bees and the butterflies that inhabited my garden all summer long left at the first frost the week before. One visitor apparently didn't get the message of impending cold.

"...Nothing gold can stay."

My husband spotted this Praying Mantis one morning last week on the screen of his bathroom window. Oh, I will miss you, my strange little friends! See you next summer...

Fall is also the time to Preserve the bounty of the harvest. This year has been an exceptional year for apples; my two trees produced more than we could eat. I have made nearly every apple dessert I could think of and have put apple slices and a lot of applesauce into the freezer. This was my first attempt at making apple butter, and it turned out quite well, if I do say so myself.

The beautiful weather this past week has been perfect for Planting bulbs. I was overtaken last spring by tulip envy and got a little carried away in buying bulbs--nearly 300 tulips, daffodils, crocuses, and hyacinths! Thank goodness I had a little help: my daughters bought me this auger attachment for the cordless drill pictured above. I think it is one of those gadgets advertised on TV, and it's touted as making weeding a painless, easy procedure. I didn't find it very useful in weeding--if you're not careful, a perfectly nice flower can get entangled in it--but I thought I'd try it out in planting bulbs. Once you've drilled a hole, there is still some scooping out of the dirt to do, but it saved me from getting up and down so often, not to mention avoiding carpal tunnel syndrome from the bulb planter!

Besides planting bulbs, this is the time of year to Prepare the garden for winter, including adding some mulch. Mother Nature obliged by blowing most of the leaves into my flower beds. Little Snow Bunny looks all snuggled down for a winter's nap, doesn't he?

Today, though, the big news all across the United States is that we have a new President. There is the Promise of change and a brighter tomorrow. I wish him all the success in the world.


ABC Wednesday is brought to you each week by Mrs. Nesbitt and can also be seen at the ABC Anthology . . . um, next week is Q, right?