Sunday Morning

Good morning!  First of all I want to welcome my new followers!  This is something I usually neglect to do publicly.  What a rude, ungrateful loser I must appear to be! From now on, public welcoming will be the norm   : )

Remember not long ago I mentioned that an iris was getting ready to bloom in my garden?  Well, here it is!

Isn't it gorgeous?  The name is Immortality & it is a re-bloomer!  When John & I bought some daylily plants from Willie's daylily farm back in June, she has several plants other than daylilies scattered here & there around her yard.  She was in the process of dividing some of them & asked me if I liked irises.  I said yes & she gave me this nice cutting! Just gave it to me!  What a sweet person she is   : )   I'm so glad it has survived!  There are quite a few other blooms on the plant right now & I just remembered that there is supposed to be a nice fragrance to it as well.  I'll have to take a whiff the next time I am outside   : )

Since I was outside with my camera I decided to take a few other photos.  These next 2 show my bittersweets growing along the back fence which cuts across our property at about the 1/3 mark ... 1/3 of the property being where the house is located & the other 2/3 being behind this fence.  The bittersweets look pretty ratty I'm afraid. They started growing beautifully in the spring but then we had a few nights of really heavy frosts which hit them hard. Only one plant has a few berries on it (2 berries to be exact).  If you look closely you can seem them in the center of the second photo. I know I bought an even amount of male & female plants so I'm not sure if the plants were marked incorrectly & I ended up buying 1 female & all the rest males or if this is just another result of the frosts.

This next photo shows our red crepe myrtle which we purchased at a 50% off plant sale recently.  We don't have a lot of luck with myrtles.  They stay alive but they don't bloom.  The only reason this one is blooming (as well as a pink one we bought that day but haven't planted yet) is because it had blooms on it when we bought it.  I don't know what's wrong with our soil but it apparently has too much or not enough of something.  I'll have to look into this & hopefully next year we will have prolific bloomers like everyone else around here does   : )

Next is a photo of our tricolor butterfly bush.  I'm not sure where the tricoloring is ... I only see 2 colors.  It's still pretty though   : )

This is my Russian sage.  Oh how I love this plant!  It has the most wonderful fragrance! It also started growing beautifully in the spring but became another victim of the heavy frosts.  It looked so bad that I ended up cutting away most of it.  I am truly amazed that it came back so beautifully!  It really overtakes the area where it is planted now.  Next spring or perhaps late this fall I will need to move it to some other area of the yard.  

I think it was last week that I mentioned I had to cut down many of the plants in my butterfly garden because they had reached an early end to their growing season.  I regret doing this because several days later someone posted on their blog about how finches enjoy eating the seeds from dead coneflowers.  I did not know this   : (   I will remember it next year for sure!  That black-eyed Susan there in the center needs to be moved to another spot.  I had no idea that Susans grow so large & overtake the area where they are planted!  

I have saved the very best outdoor photo for last   : )   Lookie-lookie!  Fall is starting to make a bit of an appearance!  Oh happy day   : )

I will leave you with one final photo.  I brought this moving box marked "flea market" in from the garage about a month ago.  I sat it next to the steps so John or I could take it upstairs to join the others the next time one of us went up there.  However, Sophie decided to use it as a resting place.  She will usually make a box her own when a new one suddenly shows up in the house so this didn't surprise me.  I figured she'd enjoy it for a few days & then become bored with it & then I could take it upstairs.  Her attention span for a new box usually doesn't last very long.  However, for some reason she really, really likes this box!  I hate to take it away from her so it will be a part of our livingroom decor for a while.  Doesn't she look cute   : )

IHSW weekend is going along pretty well for me!  I am doing more stitching than I thought I would be able to do.  My eye is feeling so much better!  Love those drops   : )   I am being careful not to overdo it even though I am already feeling the panic of Christmas fast approaching & my need for gifts & sales items for wherever I end up opening a shop. Argh!!!!!

I'm going to ask you for prayers again.  John has been having a rough time of it for the past several days.  It is unfortunate that the specialist the VA assigned to him is of questionable intelligence   : (   It would be so nice if he had a "good" doctor but that's not the case.  Over the past several years I have wondered how some doctors continue to stay in practice.  That's another story though.  Anyway, if it's not too much of an imposition would you please add John to your prayer list?  I'm sure this is just a specifically rough patch he needs to get through but these rough patches are presenting themselves more & more   : (

I hope you enjoy what remains of your weekend & I wish you a wonderful week ahead!