Bits of Beauty

Flowers and shrubs here on the farm are putting forth the last bits of their beauty before winter kicks in. I thought my 55 cent mums had quit blooming, until I noticed the gorgeousness pictured above. I think it is almost prettier than the original blooms.

In the weed patch landscaping beside the front porch, self-seeding snapdragons have managed to keep coming back year after year, even though I haven't actually planted snapdragons in at least 2 maybe 3 years. Depending on the year, they will get some blooms in during the summer, most definitely before frost. This summer I saw several snapdragon starts, no blooms. Until this week . . . quite a ways past the first frost:

I have half a mind to mulch that area with leaves and see if I can't overwinter a few snapdragons. I've done that before (by accident), and ended up with the best looking flowers off of them the next summer. We'll see.


The rest of the color you'll find around here besides the dull green yard and our poultry is fruits and leaves.

Though I know burning bush is not native, and can spread quite well given the chance. I still admire it's fiery display in the fall. I wanted to show you ours in it's full, bright pink glory, but the wind got to it before my camera did. So here's a picture of what's left . . . burning bush fruit:

When Ryan first moved to this property, he was big on planting any kind of bush, shrub, or perennial he could get his hands on. This included a pair of bittersweet plants, of which there are male and female plants, and you have to have a male and a female plant to get the beautiful bitterweet fruit of autumn wreath fame. 
After 4 years of being in the ground, and no fruit to speak of we were beginning to think we got jipped, and that we had 2 female or 2 male plants, instead of the promised male/female pair.

That is until this year, during which the bittersweet vine took over it's arbor, and tried to take off into the yard. And this fall, as it's leaves fell off, we found this:

Evidentally, like many things, bittersweet seems to have to reach a certain age before it will produce fruit (i.e. reproduce). What you're seeing in the picture is pretty much it's total produce this year, which is hardly enought to cut and make a wreath with. I don't know if I'll even cut it. I kinda enjoy being able to see it in my walks in the yard.

Having this growing in my yard seems odd, considering the time I can remember spending with family cruising country roads looking for this stuff growing in the fence rows. All for some color to hang on the door, going into a season of drabness.

Speaking of . . . it snow flurried here yesterday. Best be getting my windows cleaned in preparation for out the window, winter blog photos. Which is a really sad motivation for washing the windows, but hey at least they're getting cleaned.