Foliage Follow-up, a Couple Blooms, and some Critters

It's a beautiful fall Saturday, and we've had a good day so far.  KJ helped harvest most of our sweet potatoes this morning and picked some tomatoes.  He had fun with his little shovel and we got some photos of him with his hands under the dirt.  He's at my parents' now, and I am about to go outside to see what kind of gardening I can get done.

OK, I'm back to finish the post.  Foliage Follow-up is hosted by Pam, at Digging.

The heucheras are looking good.  The hellebores are holding their own.  The pigsqueak plants have been enjoyed by the slugs this summer.

The different perennial geraniums have nice looking foliage.

I'm thinking this monarda is 'Marshall's Delight', but it could be 'Petite Delight' or 'Petite Wonder'.  I've got the right name in the blog somewhere, but I couldn't find it.  I should get one of those things where one can do a search on their blog.  It has a little mildew on it, but it spent most of the summer clean of it.

Two aggressive plants are battling it out for this spot.  I see there is a bloom on the octopus bellflower I hadn't noticed until looking at the photo.  I've been pulling the Queen Anne's lace after reading that it is not native, and is taking over the space of natives in some areas.  It sure wants to take over this flower bed!  It came up all over, even though I only had one plant last year.

The comfrey foliage is looking pretty good.

Pasque flowers are some of my favorites.  I should find more spots for them.

The amsonia hubrichtii is continuing to turn its lovely fall color.  The coreopsis is still nice and green.

I don't know why I've kept this tub here since I realized from seeing the crumbles on the ground, that it would decompose soon, and not keep the roots of the bears' breetches from spreading.  I'm hoping for blooms next year.  The foliage reminds me of globe thistle, but it's prettier this time of year.

Amsonia tabernaemontana:

I'm enjoying Euphorbia, 'Bonfire' and rue next to each other.  Can you see that caterpillars have been enjoying the rue as well?

Lemon balm is kind of pretty, and is getting by with growing in the ground in front of the veggie garden, even though I had said I was only going to grow it in pots to keep it from spreading.  I did cut it back a few weeks ago to keep the seeds from falling to the ground.

The scented geraniums will need to come inside soon.

Folks are continuing to find my blog by doing searches to see if ornamental sweet potatoes are edible.  I've been eating a variety of them each year, and have never gotten sick from them.  Some are better tasting than others.  I have managed to keep the tags in these, and look forward to harvesting them soon, and posting the results of my taste test.  The sage on the lower left is doing better than the pineapple sage, on the right, which wilts when dry.  This is the worse I've seen it.  I wonder if it will recover and give a little bloom.

Coleus, 'Red Planet':

'Dappled Apple' and 'Beauty of Lyon':

I don't think I've posted a photo of the chocolate Joe Pye weed yet.  I forgot to include it in the bloom day post.

I just noticed the sweet potato bloom under the above plant.  This is not an ornamental sweet potato, but it sure has a pretty bloom.

This is my Camera Critters section of the post.  Click on the Camera Critters link in the sidebar to see more critter posts.  Be sure to visit Misty Dawn's, as she is the host.

Saturday, we drove to an area lake for a family gathering.  Most of the photos I took from the car had reflections from inside the vehicle, as did these, but I wanted to show the cows and horses we saw.  There is foliage in them, as well.

These birds were flying over the campsite, and I took this from the spot where I was eating.  The birds over the lake flew too fast for me to get decent photos of.

Today I took a few more critter photos.

Here's a skipper on a Mexican sunflower, which was also one that was left out of the bloom day post.

When I took foliage photos yesterday, it was too windy to get a shot of this amsonia.  I think it's also a 'Tabernaemontana', but the leaves are a little narrower, and maybe longer than the other.  I noticed it wasn't as windy today, so went to try again, and saw this insect.  It looks different from other bees I've seen.  Do you know if it's a bee?

I've seen ants on strawflowers before.  I have to be careful when I take them inside to dry.  There was another little insect on one of them, too.  I get bees and hoverflies mixed up sometimes.  I wish I was better at keeping things straight.

I hope you're enjoying the weekend, and finding time to be outside.