Late Fall in the Garden

Yesterday, in spite of the fact that I wrote I was getting right on my chores, I have to admit, I became distracted by my garden. Or what passes as a garden during late fall. First off, it was gray, gloomy, and wet from intermittent rain. Nothing like the rain while Matt and Tom were visiting, but enough to make for a miserable day.

Cheering myself up by taking photographs, the first thing that got my attention was a big crop of big mushrooms amongst my purple petunias.

Aren't they something? For the record, I did not place that fallen bloom atop them. But you knew that already.

Adjacent to this area is a big patch of purple plants that I started from a cutting gleaned from Angela's garden. They just spread, and spread! This time of the year they have these cute little white blooms, or that is what I'm calling them for lack of a better term.

The cool thing is that Cheryle has since taken cuttings, planting them in her garden, so the spreading business continues. Another shared plant is this coleus; again from Angela's garden, or make that her former garden! Still miss that girl living across the street.

The color is quite cheery don't you think? And guess what!!! I have a bloom on my paperwhites!!!

Although there are loads of green stalks, aside from this bloom, and one more I noticed yesterday, the remainder of the plants are just that---green stalks. That is infinitely better than last year when all I had to show were the bare green stalks. Have I mentioned how much I like white flowers? I read somewhere that they really stand out in the dark, and indeed they do. Presently, I have white pentas, and petunias, as well as my two paperwhite blooms.

Much to my surprise, the Christmas cactus is blooming like mad. Last year, nary a bloom. Perhaps there was some benefit to moving it onto the porch shelf?

And, while we are out front, how about these geraniums?

Technically, these are in a pot I purchased, so not really IN the garden, but still they are worth showing. I had no idea what color they were when I bought them, so it was quite a pleasant surprise when they began blooming. Although it looks as if the one on the left is two-tone, there are really two plants with the fuchsia being the odd ball of the bunch.

Then there are the Nandinas, sporting lots of bright red berries. Love.

By golly, I've run out of garden photographs to show, so let us enjoy a little Christmas cheer from inside. A few years ago my friend Sue had a little booth inside an antique shop where she sold old stuff. Imagine that. Anyway, I picked up Mr. and Mrs. Claus from there.

Aren't they fun? Last year when we were decorating for the party, everywhere we put stuff up. Not so this year, but I did want a little something in the kitchen so this is what I did.

May I just say again how much I am LOVING my "new" kitchen? Thank you for your indulgence.

Well, today, once again the sun is shining with temperatures in the mid 50's. Perhaps you wonder why I'm always writing about the weather? The reason is two-fold--one, because it affects me so much, and two, because this blog is a record of life here in Orlando. A lovely friend came by the market Sunday, and during our conversation, she mentioned she'd just begun reading "Camera Crazy." Nice. That said, because she is new to this space, she had no idea about the original impetus for blogging, or frankly, that there are nearly EIGHT years of posts! I can hardly believe it myself. I was just a young thing of 53 when this all began. My word, how time has flown. For the record, here is my first post on Valentine's Day, 2007. I certainly have become more verbose. :)