Wordless Wednesday

On my to do list: making new geraniums!

Pictures from the garden and a little neighbourhood walk

I love my trusty Powershot SD610, but I really want a camera with manual focus and a decent macro lens. Maybe when I have money ...

I've seen but one bumblebee in the garden this summer; mostly it's been mason bees, wasps and flies gorging themselves, especially on the sunflowers. The fat little guy in the middle picture was so preoccupied with his lunch that he didn't mind being petted at all. The wasps are also surprisingly non-aggressive. The goal next summer is to get more bumblebees and butterflies hanging around.

Wandered around the neighbourhood on a beautiful Monday afternoon and saw plenty of plants showing off plump little seeds and berries. I think the plant below with the striking seeds pods is Belamcanda chinensis or Blackberry Lily, I think. I'm not sure why it's called "blackberry" when the berries are more like little blueberries. Whatever. All I know is that I want some.

Wandering down Chateaubriand, I found more blueberry-like berries, this time on vivid red stems. My web browsing leads me to believe that I'm looking at Pokeweed a poisonous, but sometimes eaten plant. I'm not sure I want a lot of it in my garden since, other than the berries, it's not very attractive, but I brought home some berries to wintersow to see what happens.

Fuzzy caterpillar

An awesome caterpillar from Not Dabbling in Normal

Raptor!

While I was repotting my Thai chili peppers out on my balcony I saw some kind of raptor stalking an albino squirrel! I managed to grab my camera in time to snap these pictures:

The squirrel got away safely.

Awesome stuff.

Hello world!

A black thumb trying to turn green by reviving an-ex roommate's southwest facing balcony garden.

I started gardening "seriously" this summer out of boredom. During that time, I managed to kill a miniature rose bush, several coriander plants, a number of bean bushes, a begonia, some Hungarian chili peppers, and innumerable other victims, mostly (I think) due to overwatering and underfeeding.g.

I had a beefsteak tomato plant, which yielded this meager harvest before giving up the ghost.

Undaunted, I've gone ahead and ordered a metric ass-ton of fall and spring bulbs and built a couple of cedar planters for them on my balcony garden.

Follow my botanical (horticultural?) adventures here and at Folia.com