Fall Colours 3

Only a few black-eyed susans, margaritas and pansies are still blooming in my yard in late October, and most of them are fading quickly. As you can see from the first image, the petals on the golden black-eyed susans are succumbing to the cooler weather we've been having recently. We've had frost several times and the nightime temperatures are dipping close to 0° C while daytime temperatures are hovering around 10°C most days.

The second photo shows how prolific the black-eyed susans were. I bought one plant late in the planting season, and was not disappointed even though one of our cats broke off a large stem with many blooms. It was a good investment of $3.00 because I have been photographing them for nearly 3 months.

The lone yellow margarita is one of the only flowers of the thousands of bright yellow blooms that added colour to my yard since early July. My wife purchased one margarita plant in the spring of 2008, the first summer we were living in our new house, and the following year there were hundreds of these flowers growing all over the yard, growing mostly in rocky fill. This year there were thousands of these plants growing all over the rockiest areas: along the side of driveway and the septic field. Since these are excellent self seeders, I have thrown seeds and seed pods all up and down my rocky driveway. Hopefully they will grow and the 240 foot driveway will be flanked by bright yellow flowers next summer.