Our Evening Walk

There is a lot to be done at Chickadee Gardens right now, but I didn't want to let the week go without at least a quick post. I took my camera along with me on our regular evening walk, a routine we have nightly after dinner if it's not raining. That is taking the kitties out for some fresh air around the garden. I guess technically you could say the kitties take us out for a walk because they dictate where we go. Come along on this odd tour of the garden where I had the task of following Hobbes.

Evening light and Muhlenbergia rigens, our native West Coast deer grass, one of my favorites. The spikes add a lot of interest to the garden this time of year.

Those tripods FM built me that we saw last week are being tested out in the meadow to give some structure.

Along the berm, Rudbeckia hirta and asters add late season color.

Hobbes on one of his catnip stops.

Wicked thorns on Berberis jamesiana.

Unknown but sweet white aster.

Stipa gigangea and Geranium 'Rozeanne' (foreground right) in the evening light.

Isn't the stipa lovely?

Meanwhile, FM has Annie duty. Here he keeps his eye on her in the shrubberies.

Hobbes and his dad.

Annie loves to sit and listen to underground critters. She could stand here for an hour, no kidding. Easy to please, this one. So cute!

I never really look at this shrub up close, but Hobbes decided it was a good pit-stop to sit and smell the air so we were here for a good 5 minutes. I paid attention to it tonight. Baccharis pilularis, coyote bush, an evergreen really cool native shrub. When the sun is out, it is a favorite of pollinators.

Ozothamnus 'Silver Sussex' and its clouds of flowers.

This Crocosmia pottsii is right next to the catnip, so of course we lingered.

Cardoons have been stripped of their dead leaves so that I am left with something sculptural on the horizon.

Fungus under the coyote bush.

I've recently been smitten with Clematis 'Romantika', one of the darkest of the clematis flowers. Here they read as very dark violet, sometimes they actually appear black.

Rhamnus alaternus 'Variegata', another fine evergreen shrub.

The most sincere pumpkin patch in the land with bean towers and fading corn stalks.

Aster ericoides 'First Snow', my favorite of all the asters.

The corn has been harvested, it was a smaller crop this year as it wasn't a very hot summer. Still, it was fun to grow it.

This little one has been singing outside our bedroom window for a while. We really enjoy the frog song.

In the evening light, Tetrapanax papyrifer and the "bones" of Silphium perfoliatum backed by Solidago 'Fireworks' look lovely.

There's my quick, disjointed tour of the garden, courtesy of our cat, Hobbes. It really is one of our great joys in life to, at the end of the day, enjoy a little quality time in the garden with the cats whereby we are forced to focus on them and not the weeds. It's probably the only time we are ever in the garden and not working, so for that alone, we thank Annie and Hobbes.

 That's a wrap for this week at Chickadee Gardens. As always, thank you so much for reading and commenting, we love hearing from you!