Late Season Color Changes

 These are some of the reasons I love certain plants in the rock garden. I'll show you several as they look today, compared with earlier in the season. It will be a lot of pictures, but oh well.

This is the Sedum elecombeanum. Today:

Most of the season. Actually this is the same three clumps just after I planted them in 2023:



In full bloom:

This is one of my favorites that isn't very showy. But it loves to crawl over cracks between the rocks. Sedum sarmentosum. Here is what it looks like in the fall. Very pinkish.

Most of the year it is just yellow-green, and it gets little yellow flowers.



I seem to have three different types of tricolor sedum. This is my favorite. Look how red it is today.

This is what it looked like in June.

This is another little grouping that is turning out to be very nice. This is sedum 'Angelina' and sempervivum 'Gold Rush.' Today:

And in June (the 'Gold Rush' was quite new and sprawly as it came from the store):

Finally, I haven't showed this very much this year, but it continues to be one of my favorite purchases of last year. It is filling the space in slowly. I think I'll be able to split a piece off next spring, because I definitely want it more that one place. This is Sedum takesimense (formerly kamskaticum) 'Atlantis.' Today:

In August:



And in early spring when it's just coming up:



In other news, I worked on computer stuff, I worked in the driveway garden, I took a little walk.

Miles walked in 2024: 489.2

See October Rock Garden Report

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

  The Scottville Senior Center has a regular event (I think monthly) for Grandparents Raising Grandchildren. This month they invited several local authors to come and give short presentations about books/writing/being creative.

Left to right are "moi," Brad Reed and Rachel Gaudetter, and Debbie Nellis. I have the Dubois Files mystery series for young readers, Brad and Rachel have a picture book featuring their photography called They Call Me Eagle Eyes, and Debbie has four picture books featuring a turtle named Max who tells people about things on Mackinac Istand. It was a nice selection.

The Center was disappointed because they had a number of people sign up who didn't show up. That also means they have a lot of food left over from the dinner to deal with. So it was a smallish group, but they were enthusiastic. Here Bill Kerans, the director of the center, is taking a picture of Brad and Rachel presenting their book.

This is Debbie and her husband, with her books.

The Senior Center gave each child a notebook, markers, and a pencil to help inspire them to be creative. Also, each family/kid got to choose one book from each author.

Afterwards, Debbie and I talked a while about the self-publishing business.

Other than that, I managed to walk about 1.5 miles before the dinner, and worked on various projects.

See Senior Center Program

Leaf Peeping 2024- Part 2

  Today was a good day to hunker down inside, and I mostly did. Bell choir practice in the afternoon, but I worked on projects a lot. No worries. I have more nice pictures from yesterday.

Love a good dirt road in any season, but this is spectacular. Six-Mile Bridge Road.

There is only one bridge across the Little Manistee River between Stronach and Nine-Mile Bridge where the North Country Trail crosses the river. And it's on a seasonal road. This is a nice picturesque crossing of the Little Manistee at 6-Mile Bridge.

I actually wasn't aware that portions of the Little Manistee are in a fairly deep valley. Here's one such place.

Bright spots of color against a green background are always fun. Maple leaves are pretty good at that.

We made a point to drive through the tunnel of black willows at Eastlake. But they were not showing off nicely at all. I expected the leaves to be yellow. Maybe it was too dry earlier this year. These trees are getting very old. I'm not sure how much longer this view will be available. See other seasons in a link below.

Tomorrow I think there will be an event to share, but I do still have some more worthy autumn leaf pictures.

See Leaf Peeping 2024- Part 1 See Entering the Tunnel

Leaf Peeping 2024 - Part 1

 Today was the one day this week that wasn't busy. The colors perhaps aren't quite peak, but they are getting close. This one is on Custer Road. Didn't even have to go off pavement

Look who I convinced to go with me! He's even smiling. I didn't make him walk much, and he actually said he had a good time.

Got off the blacktop, but still weren't anywhere I'd consider off the well-travelled paths. This tree is on Stephens Road.

We made a stop at Hoag's Lake. It was looking nice. The only ones enjoying it were the geese.

After that we made a big loop on some much-less-travelled roads. In fact, I think we took one I'd never been on. It certainly was not the road I thought it was. More on that another day.

For now, I'll tell you that we ended the loop by coming south through the Manistee National Forest near Nordhouse Dunes. This view is on Green Road, always one of my favorites.

Om had had enough by then, but we had to stop for one spectacular October sky picture before we got home.

I have found a few more places that need exploring! A quality day on many levels.

I have ordered a replacement camera.

See Fall's Final Fling

A Point of Reference

 This post may not hold much interest for you. It's a mostly bare flower flower bed with some lines of orange flagging tape staked down on it.

However, it shows the progress I've made this year. I did sit down and make a plan for this garden. Almost all of what I need I just have to move from other places. The orange lines define the sections. I've been weeding out the grass again which had come back since June, but it wasn't as deeply rooted.

Today I moved coreopsis, coneflower, the 'Candytuft' that may or may not be hardy, moss phlox (blue I think), and the pink showy sedum. I put in a bunch of daffodil bulbs I'd pulled out of this bed earlier this year that were not in good places. I also had a bag of grape hyacinth bulbs, and they went in too. I found one bulb that MAY be a regular hyacinth that hasn't bloomed in a while.

It didn't start raining until almost 4 pm, so I got a lot done. I still have some other things to move. Maybe I could spring for some petunias to fill in spaces next year. We shall see.

Here's how it looked in June. Yeah, about the same. I have shown you some of the things that bloomed, but because they were sort of haphazard and uncollected, it didn't look like much. It SHOULD look better next year.



Omer asked me if the dirt was any good there. I reminded him that its gravel underneath but the top 8 inches I carted here by hand in the wheelbarrow long ago when I created this garden.

We've had a nice soaking rain, and it's supposed to clear up and be mild for the rest of this week. Some days in the 50s, but that's nice enough as far as I'm concerned.

I'll leave you with another mood of my backyard. This is not so colorful as some have been, but it's calm, in muted shades of green.

I worked on a lot of things I'm supposed to be doing today. Yeah me. The camera is dead. I'm looking at options.

See Cleaning the Driveway Flower Bed See moods of my backyard