Last Days of Summer at the 45th Parallel

Here at the 45th parallel, summer ends pretty early.  The day lilies and sunflowers have pretty much ended their summer bloom, and we are being treated to a good mushroom season.  It is now a season of changing leaves, heavy morning dew, extravagant spider webs, fog and fading vegetation and one of my favorite seasons.

smiling birdhouses

family in fog

johnny jump ups one of the first and last flowers of the season

spectacular mushroom "flower"

mushroom and lichen.  Mushrooms have an amazing diversity of color and shape

my red and yellow sunflowers against our red barn.  I try to grow these every year, but these year only a few germinated, but the ones that did provided spectacular blooms.

a new variety of echevaria with pretty flowers captured here  

My smokebush!

smokebush and sunflower

spider web

spider web...great design!

When the spectacle of Fall is nearly over, we begin our trek south and west to Arizona stopping briefly in Wilmington, NC so Michael can teach a workshop, in Georgia so Michael can celebrate a decade birthday with his family, then briefly to NM and then on to AZ where Michael begins the Sedona Plein Air Festival less than 24 hours after we arrive.  It will be a very busy October!

Fireweed, smokebush, blue hydrangea, hostas, dahlias, day lillies, and oval windows!

Daylilly Pentagram

Flowers have been amazing in this dry summer so I have been snapping pictures like crazy so I have lots of material for future kaleidoscopes.
So here are my latest creations:

Fireweed Extravanganza

Fireweed and spruce

Blue Hydrangea  with no enhancement of color ever in my kaleidoscopes, just as nature created them!

Fireweed Pentagram

Dahlia at Roosevelt Campobello International Park

Dahlia at Roosevelt Campobello International Park

Daylilly

Fireweed

Oval Window at Hubbard Cottage at Roosevelt Campobello International Park

Hosta Flowers...yes we do not have any or many deer on the Island so we have many hostas in our yard...

Smokebush Pentagram

Smokebush Pentagram

Sneezeweed

Smoking Smokebush!

This is my smoking smokebush.  It is particularly beautiful this year.  It is a bone of contention with my parents as their smokebush next door froze over the winter so that we had to cut most of it down this year, but mine seem to thrive!  In the morning with the dew and the sunshine it seems to be truly smoking.

Lots of great colors in one bush!

Sneezeweed, Smokebush, and Gooseneck Loosestrife

These odd sounding plants are in their full glory now in my Campobello Island gardens.  Although a little dry this summer, I don't think I have ever had a better year for my garden than this one.  My mints are over 4 feet high, my sunflower is over 5 feet high, and everything is doing incredibly well.  The fireweed has passed though and the old-timers say when the fireweed goes to fluff, the cool weather is not far behind.  Well the fireweed is beginning to "fluff"...

We are winding down the Friar's Bay Studio Gallery and have repopulated the Gallery with paintings Michael has brought back from the St Andrews show today.  Come visit us at 822 Route 774, Welshpool, NB E5E 1A6.  Don't use your GPS or Google Maps to find us as they seem to have wiped out all the data on the Island for those of us on Route 774 and despite lots of effort, I can't get the addressing corrected.  See our directions at:  http://www.friarsbaygallery.com/  I would be happy to give you a tour of my gardens!

Below are kaleidoscopes of the 3 plants in my title today!

Gooseneck Loosestrife and Spinner

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Smokebush

Sneezeweed in Full Bloom

You will have to visit to see the plants from which I have created the kaleidoscopes!  Maybe you will take home an original painting with you!