Goodbye Summer Gardens - by Sunscape

Now that fall has arrived here in western, New York it is time to start putting the gardens to bed for the winter. The butterfly garden flowers are all slowly losing their vitality. I have been cutting all the perennial plants back and pulling out some of the annual flowers too.

Today, I will share some of the photos I took over the summer. The plants were some of the best I had grown in years, perhaps it was due to all the rainfall we had.



Look who I found eating my dill plants. These two caterpillars will become Swallowtail butterflies like the one in the first photo. They always enjoy the nectar from the zinnia blossoms.



The morning glory vines grew so tall this season that one of them climbed up my Star Magnolia tree. Another one grew from seed naturally and took over one of my tomato plants too. They were very prolific this year and very pretty in the morning sunlight.



I had some fun with my camera playing with the double exposure setting and here are a couple of my favorite ones.



The dragonflies always seemed to stop and rest on top of my hanging plant holder. I was pleased with the double exposure on this one.



Soon the birds will stop coming for their daily baths in the pond next to the porch. Watching all the different ones come all summer was a true delight.



The last Monarch butterfly was released the third week of August. I am going to miss seeing them most of all. Raising the butterflies every year to release them into the zinnia garden has been a passion of mine. This year I only had one female and 11 males which I found very interesting. Usually, there is somewhat of a balance of each every year. I am already seeing a decrease in sightings already, perhaps they are beginning to migrate due to the colder temperatures at night.

I do believe that the hummingbirds have left now which is normal for them during the middle of September.



The veggies are almost done and I had a bountiful harvest this year. I really enjoyed not having to water very much with all the rain we had. It sure made the plants very happy and everything grew like wildfire. I still have Swiss chard in abundance growing in a raised bed. This week I will harvest some more of that for dinner one night.



Lastly, watching my neighbors close the pool last weekend really brings the summer to an end. It is always nice to be able to float in the pool on a hot summer's day. Well, now that fall is here to stay for a while, I had better get out and find that perfect pumpkin.

Until next time, this is Sunscape
Sun. Scape. Ing Your Day