What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Cold weather and snow days mean there is not much to do outside, but the garden still has growing going on. I have two garden spots to keep plants over the winter. One is in my kitchen, where I have the Thanksgiving cactus, the orchid, and my eight-year-old amaryllis. That is indeed a flower spike you see!

So exciting to have it bloom for the eighth year. It has five leaves, and is about 18 inches tall now.

My plants in the Carolina room on the back of the house are doing well, protected from the most extreme cold and ...

It is a bit unusual to have a lot to tell about the garden in the beginning of winter, but we’ve had a few surprises since my last post on the garden. We have a pair of pileated woodpeckers that live in the woods surrounding our home, and we often hear their laughing calls. Occasionally we see one, but I was surprised to see this one hanging from the suet feeder, stuffing his beak.

Last Monday, we had a wonderfully clear evening for the Great Conjunction. I set the camera on a tripod, and attempted to get a good ...

November usually brings colorful trees with gold and rust, burgundy and rich browns. This year it is a little sparse, as two storms with high winds have brought down a lot of leaves before they could turn. I did get a photo of this one, in the process of changing to a lovely orangy gold.

The view in the valley prior to the storm showed some lovely changes in progress.

Pine siskins migrating south took over the bird feeder for a couple of days. There are 15 of them on the feeder in this photo, and more were hanging out ...

Autumn Jubilee (#AutumnJubilee2020) in the garden brings a few chores, more to ensure a beautiful spring than to spruce up for fall.  It is a great time to dig up and divide crowded plants, put some new bulbs in the ground, and clean up the last of the summer vegetable plants.  One warm day, I got out the tools and headed for the planter in the front.  It was crowded with irises that didn’t bloom this year.  I think the rhizomes were covered up too much with leaves.  They needed to be dug up and divided anyway.  In September ...

Late summer blooms can still be seen even with the garden winding down in the summer heat.  This gorgeous dahlia bloomed recently, heralding the colors of fall right around the corner.

I still have cherry tomatoes on the vine, taking their time to ripen in the sun.

I planted an avocado seed and have a nice little tree starting.  It gets too cold here for them in winter, so I plan to pot this one in a large pot so it can spend the winter in the Carolina room – our three season porch out back.  I’ve never been able ...

There is always something going on in the garden, even in late November when the air is chilly.  We’ve had several dark and overcast days, lovely rainy days to stay inside to sew or stitch or read.  Then we get brilliantly sunny days that set the colors in the trees to light.  While most of the leaves are now gone on the deciduous trees, there are still some left to enjoy.  The birds are coming around a lot now too, so get ready for a long and picture heavy post.

It has been a couple of weeks since I ...

Autumn color is slow to develop this year, and it will be well into November before we can say we are seeing the peak.  Rain this past week should help some leaves stay on the trees, and freezing temps overnight may bring out some color before they all fall off.  At least I hope so.  Still, there are things to do in the garden before it gets into winter.

The hydrangeas continue to bloom, last week the shrub was covered in these pink and green blooms.

Here and there, a beautiful lavendar one will appear.

The dahlias are going crazy ...