Beautiful Deer and Beauty Berry Plantings

 This week we were lucky to get a great picture of a young deer in the side yard.  This deer posed perfectly for the camera.  Meanwhile just around the corner in front of the fence, we are trying to plant Beauty Berry bushes.  A number of years ago, we planted the scraggly looking bushes but they have never grown.  Since the Beauty Berry is doing so well on the other side, we thought we'd give it a try.  We mushed up the Beauty Berry berries to expose the seed and planted them between the sad looking bushes.  We are also going to try to transplant a couple of Beauty Berry bushes later this fall.

More New Oak Leaf Hydrangeas

 We liked the way the last Oak Leaf Hydrangea looked in a corner of the fence, we planted two more in another corner of the back yard.  These were also rooted from one of our other Oak Leaf Hydrangeas.  They are small now but if they take off like their parent plants, they will fill this corner very nicely in a few years.  The trick now is not to let Mother Nature take over this corner with a bunch of vines and weeds. 

Beauty Berry Abundance

Ever since I realized the bush at the corner was a Beauty Berry, I've enjoyed seeing it go from bare to full leaves to purple berries.  This year is one of the best with large bunches of berries. hovering over the Elephant Ears.  In the past few years, the Beauty Berry has spread so we are going to try moving some to other locations where we hope they would do well and enhance the display.  Meanwhile at the end of the deck, a volunteer Morning Glory has been greeting us with large flowers every morning for a month.  The flowers don't last too long but are great for a few hours.

Interesting Insects

 Mother Nature has been showing off some of her critters the past couple of days.  First is a Marbled-Orbweaver spider who built a web from the fence to a branch.  Quite a colorful and scary looking spider but supposedly not dangerous to humans.  Meanwhile I was surprised to see a six inch long Praying Mantis on the back door.  The dog was sniffing him and the dog seemed more afraid than the bug.  He hung around for an hour and then move on somewhere else.

Clown Flower Volunteers

 Once again this year, we are pleased to have several bunches of volunteer Clown flowers (Torenia).  They have popped up in three different locations with a couple of different colors.  Especially beautiful are the flowers in the deep purple coloring.  These flowers magically appeared a number of years ago and have continued to pop up every year since.