yikes, Lucy - guess I won't be visiting your end of the countrry! One of the reasons we moved to Calgary was that there's less snow here than Winnipeg - much milder winters.....
I don't see that Mother Nature is prepping very hard for winter, so I'm thinking it may be early, but a mild one. Sometimes all we have to do is brush off the snow from our deck with a broom!

Day of the Triffids?
Neil.

Beautifull Neil

Ah, Ha!!! I found you. Just do not watch the sites in order. As I said this is getting work for me and can't imagine what it is for Phoenix!

Kisses and Hugs to all,

Nancy

Hi Neil,

Lovely flowers!

The season here is very early too - my apples should hang till the end of the month but they are all ripe and just dropping off. I've picked the James Grieve and they are as delicious as ever but I am going to have to bring the russetts in too tomorrow. They are normally October eating.

My sweetcorn is going over so I'm going to have to harvest the rest of that and freeze it tomorrow too and we have been eating the grapes for a few weeks now. Unfortunately the wasps have now found them too!

I actually started my autumn hedge trimming today and that is usually a November job. Actually I bought a new hedge trimmer, battery operated, and wanted to try it out. Up till now I have used manual shears but 500ft of Hawthorn and fir hedge rows was getting a bit much for my arms to manage. I did as much in an hour today as I would have done in a day with the sheers, and that included clearing up the trimmings.

the elactric trimmer with its battery quite heavy after a while but as its so much quicker the arms ache much less for the same langth of hedge. I'll trim more tomorrow although if its dry the lawn needs my attention, after I pick up about 20lbs of windfall Bramleys that is.

Neil,If I had a pub with such a beautiful garden in my neighbourhood I would go there every afternoon. Great pictures.

We don't have a hedge to trim, but cut siberian iris foliage in early Oct. I use a 'Japanese rice knife ', a hand tool & scare myself when I use it.

wow what a large sunflower Neil - I take it that it's ripe and ready to pick?

Dear Susan, the sunflowers are ripe but they do not pick them at all as they are grown and left for the birds to eat!
Here is a small one and the only one left in flower.
Regards.
Neil.

have to laugh because my DH hates "Spitz" because people are always spitting them out the car windows, etc. He'd rather sunflowers weren't harvested at all. Do you have "Spitz" in the UK?

I agree, we do not like spitting people, spreading germs at the same time, goes on a lot here, even young people doing it, people eating grapes or cherries, spitting the pips or stones out.

A lovely verbena in flower!
Regards.
Neil.

I love that colour - no pale pink for me, thank you very much

Susan 'Spitz' is a type of dog, long coat tail curled tight over its back. They come in 3 sizes small. mediium and large and are really quite sweet!

The Japanese variety is all white, the German varieties in various solid colours. and of course th Pomeranian is a tiny rusty orange version.

How can anyone hate those?

"Spitz" is also the brand name of sunflower seeds in Canada & US.
I have seen the dog here, but usually when talking about Spitz, they're referring to the sunflower seeds that everyone likes to *spit* ewwww

My new Article is at http://garden.org/articles/vie...
Regards.
Neil.

And I loved it..................... thank you. Ed was looking at them and thought they were great also, but no we are NOT moving to England. He can be such a spoil sport sometimes.

Have to talk to the people at the state fair & see if they can make room for a 'garden' or two. Mask it as 'how to grow plants'.

Get beautiful ideas from looking at these photos. Neil does a great job..

Saw H.ampton Court 4, just lovely. Neil