It's really fall!

Isn't he though?!

JD, I don't wear a belt when I garden....NEXT????

OK...pants with pockets. Shorts with pockets. Sweat pants have pockets, too.

I don't think dresses have pockets...but then again, how many women garden in a dress? Except Martha Stewart of course...yeah right...like she actually ever gets her hands dirty !

Yeah, she's got all her "minions" to do the work for her! I could use a minion---just one!
I actually bought a back-pocket holster recently that works pretty well. I tried a toolbelt, and it about drove me crazy.

Zuzu gardens in a dress :-)
I'll line up behind ima for a minion.

Jas, I was up on a ladder when I left them there trimming a vine nearby...months ago!I found them when I got the ladder out to tidy up the vine. I started cracking up!

I thought the afternoon sun coming through the golden bronzy leaves of my Forest Pansy redbud was pretty yesterday.

I wonder what the going rate for a minion is these days? Depending on the rate, I might either try to hire one or become one . . .

Surfcity that is classic!! I think I have "lost" at least 5 pairs int helast 2 years as a matter of fact I can not find any of my trowels.

marie, I think your trowels have migrated to my house. Suddenly I seem to have extras.

Hmmmm....I wonder if there's any money to be made in minion wrangling?

Minion trafficing is a huge urban issue these days...

What is the going rate for minions? I'd like a minion, got a million minion chores.
My pitcher plant decided to bloom again, so I had to get a photo.
Then I have some berries that followed me home from the grocery store that need planted in the ground. They are soaking right now, must plant tomorrow!
How are you all preparing for what we CA's call winter?
WIB!
SW

This message was edited Oct 21, 2009 6:55 PM

Right now I'm just picking up leaves and making sure that the weeds coming with the first rain don't take over. I don't cut back perennials until the early spring.

And of course there is photographing the fall trees.

I tried to take photos of them leaves falling the other day. Then decided it was too cold. At least this year they are falling off the trees. Last year they stayed on longer than usual.
This is the best I can do for fall color unless you want 20 shades of brown and two shades of yellow. These guys live in the gh, we cut back on the water in there and they all decided to bloom. These Bougies are really orange, and as they age they turn pink.
WIB!
SW

Rats! That photo is an orchid, not the bougainvillea.
So sorry about that. I really hate thumbnails.
WIB,
SW

Please send all extra trowels to my place. I promise to loose them for you.

Okay, if any extra trowels show up I'll ship 'em out to you, Marie.
Now can anyone tell me what happened to all my spoons?
WIB!
SW

They ran away with all my socks!!

...and with my dark blue cargo shorts...

I have two sets of tools, one for the front yard, and one for the back, and I still can't find what I need when I want it!

What's more symbolic of Fall than wild turkeys? We ran off to Julian today to have lunch in our favorite cafe and look for wild turkeys...found one flock of about 16 anyway and this guy even fanned out his tail for us:

Coming back down the high desert route...love it out there in the winter:

Cassia bicapsularis are beginning to flower (Worley's Buttercream):

Regular bright yellow cassia bicap is beginning also with a little red from the Pineapple Sage and a little purple from the Mystic Spires salvia also:

I like the color of this salvia leucantha (s. leucantha Santa Barbara which is supposedly a dwarf version of s. leucantha, but does not at this stage really appear to be much smaller. I suppose the proof will lie in whether or not it spreads as much as the regular s.leucantha.

Went out early to take shots, (just took a photo class on Sat.so I am practicing with my settings, soooo much to learn!) It was way too windy for blooms but watched the ducks for a while at a local park. Nothing exciting to photograph here so I just gave it a calming soft look.

Ahh, I did get this Fall shot though, rose hips!

Yes, it is really fall! I am just east of the new fire along the ridge of mountains between Santa Cruz and San Benito Counties, along a rdige myself. There fire is about 75% contained now, but all day long the winds have been terrible. They said that gusts out our elevation could reach 50-60 miles an hour.
Well.....about an hour ago, I heard a strange loud noise and just as I realized it was the sound of a tree trunk ripping as a tree was falling, I felt a thud like an earthquake! I had been frozen for a moment, not sure where to go, because the ravine beside and behind me is full of huge trees that are all tall enough to take out my little house if they fell this way.
This time though, it was a Monterey Cypress than had grown leggy between the Eucalyptus. It fell sideways into the ravine and took another tree out with it.
The noise was so loud, everyone who was home up and down both streets that lead into here, came running down the road to see what had happened!
I'll take a photo tomorrow. Dang batteries in the camera were out! And for some kookie reason, even the back up batteries had lost their charge.

I hadn't heard one word down here about another fire going up your way...I feel on pins and needles until October is over and hopefully we finally get some rain down here. Waiting for fires every year now has pretty much ruined Fall. We were battling strong headwinds heading through the high desert today. Stay safe...

PC, I had read they expected to have that dang fire under control today, but I'm sure these high winds are not helping.
Glad the trees missed you and yours!!

Oh, I know the noise trees can make when they break or go down - not surprised you froze for a sec! Glad it fell the 'right' way, though. We are getting winds down here, too - pretty gusty at times.

It isn't as bad today, but big chunks of bark, some six feet long, are still flying through the air! That is one thing about the eucalyptus that is so irritating! After big storms, there is so much clean-up work to be done. I have a large side lawn that holds a hillside in place and I need to get out there and mow it.
After I remove all the bark lying on it.....
And after I don't have to worry about being hit in the head with more.... :-)
I bet you had more smoke in the air than I did this time imapigeon!
Looks pretty clear this morning.
Has anyone grown saffron crocus? Crocus sativus? The rains caused mine to come up already!
But they haven't bloomed in the last four years, they just grow.....
Do they need to be root bound or something? I have lots of other, normal crocus that bloom in January without any problems. Those are in the ground though.

This is my Fall project. Here's a "before" picture of what will be my new succulent bed.

And here's a "during" picture. It'll be a couple of weeks before I have "after" pictures to post.

Can't wait to see your succulent garden DP.
How is the fire going? I haven't been watching the news.
That wind was something. I'm glad that your house was OK Pedricks. Pretty scary.

I'm eating Fuyu persimmons for snacks. The squirrels didn't take them all this year. It's a bumper crop.

I'm super envious...we have absolutely not one persimmon on our tree. First time this has ever happened. Lost my hachiya when we divided the property and the new owner let it die...actually, she's let most everything die. I try not to look back.

I have a Hachiya and a Fuyu, and they both seem to fruit in alternate years.

Our fuyu has been bearing every year for many years now and our hachiya did also. I do hope this isn't starting a pattern. We have one remaining avocado and it bears alternate years. I think I counted about 6 on it the other day...not a lot of guacamole this year I'm afraid. Our plums got no plums this year either.

Here's our Fuyu in the middle of November a couple of years ago. I love the fall color. Only a couple of weeks away.

My little sister has lived in SF her entire life and one day I was driving her around down here about Thanksgiving time and she remarked on the beautiful oranges on a tree in someones yard as we drove by.
I almost had to pull over, as I was laughing so hard!
They were indeed beautiful, but they were persimmons!
The winds are beating up my Mission Fig, but I have managed to get a few off of it everyday for a couple of weeks now.
I was wrong about the downed tree. It wasn't the Monterey Cyprus that fell. It was one of the huge eucalyptus that fell over and took half of the cyprus with it! I went to take photos this afternoon when there was a lull in the winds and at first, I couldn't figure out why there was a eucalyptus tree lying on my neighbors fence, ha, ha!
You can just make out the roots of the end of the tree close to the stumps.

The tree trunk you see laying on the ground going away from you is what felll.
Here you see what I thought was all that had fallen. Now that I think about it, this would not have made as much noise. Nor would it have shook the ground so hard that everyone came running down the hill so see!