I spent today bringing in garden plants to over-winter, mostly geraniums that I grew from seed this year. The frost warnings spurred me into action. It's like the Joni Mitchell song "All that stays is dying. All that lives is getting out." (or coming in, in this case.) Fall seems to come sooner each year!

Here are a few pictures of my indoor gardens... or not I guess. Houzz seems to be in a mood again. Well visualize a couple dozen pink, orange, and red geraniums crammed into small pots atop the laundry machines in my basement.

Sped, I have always loved "The Urge for Going" (Tom
Rush version), but I forgot that Joni Mitchell wrote it, "When the leaves
fell trembling down, bully winds did rub their faces in the snow..." Thanks for reminding me.

We’ve been wrapping up our vegetable (and other) gardens. Here are some images:

The apples were so abundant this year that many branches broke. Almost no crop last year.

Corn was great. This area is all planted with winter rye now.

Good year for pumpkin and squash

Sunflowers behind the tomato garden

Tomato alley. Despite the drought, this is the only crop we used drip hoses on a few times.

Some of the tomatoes up close. The one called ???? was supposed to be German Red Strawberry. Although it was clearly not that. it was a tasty orange something.

But all was not great. Those that were not photo-worthy, or even edible in some cases: cukes, lettuce, green beans, spinach, broccoli, etc.

Glad it's over for this year, and I plan to cut back next year. I always say that until the seed catalogs show up in December.

Susan

Susan, it looks like you had some real abundance in certain crops. Do you start your own tomato seedlings? If not, where do you get your plants? Thanks!

Susan, great photos! Looks like you had a great season! Apples have been great everywhere this season, it seems. A few friends of mine have apple trees and they are up to their ears in apples! :)

Thank you, Dee. Babs, yes I start tomato seeds around April 1. I like to try different heirlooms that are not available locally (as plants or seeds). I have ordered from several places over the years: Pinetree in Maine, Johnny's, and this year Sample Seed Shop in NY also. I also buy a few plants from a local family greenhouse (Big Beef, Jet Star, etc.) for the folks that think tomatoes should all be big and red!

Susan

Leaves have started changing here, so I went out to take some photos before the weekend's possible wind and rain strip the leaves that have changed.

Many of the shrubs are changing color differently than usual, with a rim of color around a mostly green center. Perhaps due to the summer's drought?

Mushrooms have sprouted everywhere after Wednesday's 5.4" of rain.

Houzz seems to be getting progressively slower, so I'll add blooming plants at a time when I can upload a bit faster.

Flowers blooming now

Agastache rupestris

A couple of clematis

Great photos everyone! Susan, that is some haul you have there! WOW!

There's still quite a bit of color in the cottage garden.

The viburnums are getting some good color. Mixed with the yellow fall color of the climbing hydrangea.

This is a seedling that is about a foot tall with over 7" flowers on very sturdy stems. It has been quite a good performer this season.

Some years I get lucky and the peony foliage stays pretty mildew-free and turns a nice bronze color. I like it mixed with asters.

Very picturesque harvest, Susan. You'll eat well this winter.

Leaves are changing already, NHBabs? Not here, yet. Your shrubs really look like drought has damaged the leaves.

I covet your Agastache rupestris - I tried it once but I think our wet winter and spring was too much for it and it didn't come back.

Lovely as always, T2D, particularly in the sun - it seems like weeks since we've had sun. We did get a few hours today.

Looking out my kitchen window today, I was struck by the winterberry and the mullein.

The picture doesn't really show the winterberry fruit well at this distance.

The berries will be redder and more obvious when the winterberry leaves drop.

The mullein just keeps growing taller.

The hummingbirds and the bees loved the flowers. The hummers are gone now but the bees are still here.

Not exactly in my garden, but Thursday night's sunset on my commute home.

Gorgeous sunset, NHBabs! It's enough to almost make you drive the car off the road (obviously you didn't or you wouldn't have posted).

I forgot to include Hosta 'Red October' which smells like grape Kool-Aid.

Claire

Susan, what a bountiful harvest you raised this year! Your gardens are totally amazing! There is a bumper crop of apples this year everywhere it seems. I've made pies and crisps from the wild apples and apples from our one domestic apple tree. The trees' branches are bent over from the weight. I'm not sure one of trees will ever be able to straighten up again. One of our friends lost some branches from his tree; they snapped from the weight of so many apples.

Thyme2dig, your cottage garden is so beautiful! I just love it!

Spectacular sunset, NHBabs! Beautiful color on that tree also. We're getting some color here too, but it has a ways to go to reach peak foliage.

Wish I could post some photos to share... all of the glorious shots, above, motivated me to move. But I'm having "computer troubles" due to the fact that I updated my Mac to the newest iOS, El Capitan, which I HATE! No more iPhotos with the ability to add text and move pictures around... just lines of dated photos. Ah, technology! I do not want to make movies or create photographic images. I do not want to share my photos across platforms. So... until I can dump El Capitan and revert back to an older iOS, they'll be nothing from me.

NHBabs, your clematis is still going? Mine are now crispy stems.What variety is that blue one with the white center? Seeing your tree in color made me realize that we'd better get going if we want to take a meandering foliage trip up north. Of course, I'll take lots of photos but maybe I'll use Picassa for photo sharing until I get the systems issue settled.

Claire, I love mulleins but my DH not so much. And since our gardens are "shared" I won't be putting any in our yard. We did see some stately ones at the Hancock Shaker Village.

Susan, your tomato crop looks delicious. I followed your directions and saved some seeds from our favorite heirloom tomato. We'll see what happens next year.

T2D, your cottage garden is always lovely in every single season. I think I remember your saying that you put the walkway in yourself? The combination of stones, fence and flowers is so tranquil.

Merla

Thanks, Molie. Actually, I am not the seed saver...I believe that is suzabanana. I saved her good instructions too, in case I decide to do it that way. I'm always trying different varieties, so am still buying seed each year. Hope your computer woes get sorted out. That stuff is soooo frustrating!

Thank you T2d, Claire, and Sped, Babs. Your gardens and landscapes are beautiful!

Susan

Molie, the clematis is Venosa Violacea, one of my favorites. It is blooming so late because the voles nipped it off at ground level earlier in the summer. It regrew and is blooming now. Normally it blooms in July.

Thanks for the warning about the new Mac OS. I'll be sure to not download it. Are you aware that you can't post photos any other way besides directly from your hard-drive here or give us a link. Houzz doesn't allow direct posts from other sites.

You''re right, Susan, it was suzabanana who passed along her seed-saving tips. (I just checked my document.)

Thanks for the name of Clematis 'Venosa Violacea', NHBabs. The thing I dislike most about the new Mac iOS is the new Photo platform, called "Photo." I actually wrote a letter of complaint to Apple in CA but don't expect a response. Unfortunately, there's so much going on at our house now that I'm not sure when I can get Maverick back on and El Capitan off. I'm sure others are very happy with the new program but not me.

And now, NHBabs, there are additional swear words swirling through my mind. No, I didn't realize that I can no longer post photos via Picassa. I previously posted from Picassa and used it to for all my garden shots. Drats! Yet another thing to get irked about.

Molie, the aggravated one

I share everyone's aggravation with technology and add my own frustration with Houzz. What on earth is wrong with their photo uploader that has made it impossible to simply upload pictures directly from one's own computer? I assume others have run into the same situation if you are having to use Picassa and other web services to post photos. I can use the FTP space (free with my email service) to post links, but Houzz doesn't support html, so I cannot post actual pictures, only links to them. It is very annoying. And I liked Houzz in the beginning!

Love all the photos and maybe I've figured out how to post photos. My excellent winter squash harvest and my vegetable beds. The cotoneaster has gorgeous big red berries but I don't see any bluebird family feasting nor brazen chipmunks stealing.

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Very impressive harvest there, defrost49, and the display just looks lush.

And you have beautiful fall foliage behind your vegetable beds!

My cotoneaster also has red berries but the leaves are still green. They'll turn red sometime in the next month - maybe the freeze that's forecast in the next few days will accelerate the turn. The berries last a long time - I suspect they're not that tasty, at least not until a few hard freezes.

The sedums are turning darker.

Claire

I forgot to mention the Blushing Knockout roses which always perk up in the fall. It's been a rough season for roses with the drought, but a lot of the rough is my own fault. I'd intended to drastically cut back the Knockouts this spring because they were way overextended, but I didn't have the heart to hack at them. This was a mistake because now the blooms are mostly clustered at the tiptop of a scraggly plant, and one rose is totally overshadowed by a bigger one (not to mention a cherry tree). Next spring they get seriously renovated.

Anyway, these flowers are at the top of one rose. You can see many buds ready to go. I hope the freeze tonight and tomorrow night doesn't damage them. It's probably not going to be too bad given our coastal climate and sloping garden.

Claire

Nice harvest, defrost49... how/where do you store these? I love the yard photo with the fall trees in the background. It's getting to the time when we say "good bye" to the gardens.

And, yes, Claire. All of our roses are also doing much better now that the summer heat is gone. I agree that you need to chop the Knockouts back or they become huge. But they require so little care that we've put in three of them.

Molie: I don't mind the Knockouts being huge, I don't want to be the tallest thing in my garden, but they were (and are) getting very scraggly with some dead branches and holes in the structure. I'm assuming that they need new healthy growth from down near the base.

This doesn't seem to be the case with the big old rugosa - it just sends up new canes and I cut out the old dead material as needed.

Claire

Claire, it's always a treat to see your osmanthus with the winterberry. That is such a great combo. I had some seriously, crazy-tall mullein this year as well.

Nice haul, Deb! And those fall colors are spectacular. This really has been a great year for very vivid foliage. Let's not discuss brazen chipmunks. I can't believe how many chipmunks we've "dealt with" this gardening season. I think we're up to over 120 by now. We are always overrun by them.

Barb, you get those sunsets that the great masters must have seen in the 1500's. Their paintings had those skies that looked so unbelievable, but seeing some of your awesome shots one can tell they were not exaggerating.

MolieP, we store winter squash in the coldest part of our basement in the area where my husband has a basement level garage. The basement gets heat from a wood furnace so it's kind of tricky. This year he graciously suggested putting up some wooden shelves we already had instead of putting them in wooden crates under his workbench. But, since the shelves were close together, he cut the stems down to 1/2". I was appalled. Hope that doesn't make them spoil. We had another Delicata last night which was so sweet he asked if I had added sugar or maple syrup.

I might have seen bluebirds yesterday. Perhaps they are the winter ones. Yeegads, I am fussing about a couple of chipmunks. Thyme, sorry you are overrun. I saw a lovely hawk, possibly a marsh hawk, making low circles around the yard yesterday. I've read about putting used cat litter in woodchuck holes. I might try that next year with the chipmunk holes. Damage this year is not as bad as last. The repellant spray I bought might have worked a little.

This is a strange fall - my garden doesn't seem to be recognizing that the growing season is supposed to be ending.

For a week or two I've been watching this crocus flower which is usually closed when I see it. Today it happened to be open at the right time. This is not a fall crocus, this is Crocus tommasinianus 'Albus' which usually blooms in mid-April. The goldenrod has gone by and the crocus is still blooming?

Aster 'Fanny' is just beginning to bloom next to Sedum 'Matrona'.

And the big old osmanthus is covered with flower buds that should open soon.

Claire (eating lunch out on the deck, with the help of a fleece vest)

edit note: The mosquitoes are still flying so I can't put away the bug spray yet.

still beautiful but I do not look forward to November

Another photo that's not exactly my garden, looking downriver from the bank right behind the house. The red maples are now bare, so this is all oaks with a some beech, aspen, and birch. I can't remember ever seeing the oaks so bright as they are this year.

We have had 3 nights (plus probably tonight) with temperatures down into the mid-20's, but a few blooms seem fairly frost-proof - an old, fully hardy mum that's just starting to open, fall crocus/C. speciosus, and monkshood/Aconitum which is continuing to open new flowers.

Thank you NHBabs for starting this thread. I was too preoccupied with company, winterizing chores and a nasty virus to remember that it was time for the Nov thread.

Everyone's waning foliage photos are lovely. Our leaves are almost completely gone now, but what a spectacular year it was! I haven't seen so many reds, oranges, and golds in many years.

I think I may have finally figured out how to upload photos to houzz. I had really been ready to give up on houzz, but I guess I'm giving it another chance. Right now milkweed fluff, along with apples and crabapples remaining on the tree branches, are the main attractions here.

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And of course I put this in the wrong thread - was supposed to go into Nov 2015. Oh well...

Sped, glad you've figured out one way to post photos to Houzz.

It's a rather convoluted way, NHBabs, but at least it works! It only took about an hour of trial and error and extreme frustration. Houzz *could* just get their photo uploading software operational again!