Progress

The hyacinth bean vines have made some neat-looking purple seed pods, hyacinth beans—the very thing they were created to do! I like the way they’ve arranged themselves as a cascading “mobile”.

Still more heavy rain fell this morning but now we have sunshine! We’ve not seen much of that stranger since last Wednesday or Thursday. I was beginning to think we were in the Pacific Northwest!

Now that autumn is officially here, maple and oak leaves around town are beginning to turn reddish.

No more white stuff has turned up on the soil. The avocado plant that I pruned has the smallest beginnings of new branches! This morning a moth delicately sipped from the pink pentas; I’ve never before thought of moths being delicate. The butterflies didn’t accept the invitation so I guess the guests will come from “the highways and byways”.

Plenteous Pentas

I finally added a deep pink penta to my garden; the first one hadn’t yet opened when I bought it so I couldn’t tell that it was more of a “sweet” pink. Oh well, butterflies like them. Butterflies may enjoy dining on the nectar of pentas but they must not have gotten the invitation to mine; I haven’t seen a single one.

Nevertheless, the pentas' clusters of star-shaped blossoms are pretty, long lasting, bloom often and grow well. When I bought the "sweet" pink one it was the size of this deep pink one (that I got for half price!); now it has multiple branches and blooms. They like having more room to grow.

I thought I could stay outside longer this morning to write since it’s cooler but the humidity smothered that plan.

I haven’t seen any more caterpillars or grasshoppers, no lizards—just lots of tiny white flying insects. I don’t use chemicals and to a point, I reason that these creatures have a right to be outdoors. However, they don’t need to be attacking my plants; they especially like my petunias. Maybe I’ll get some fly paper.