White strawberries

White California poppies

Albino plants. In a previous post I mentioned that I have albino strawberries and white California poppies that grow along side their pigmented sisters.  Today I noticed two white cyclamen, which I have never seen before. I tried to take a photo of them, but like many white flowers photographed with a crappy cellphone camera, they seem to glow and none of the definition and details are visible. Sort of like UFO photos from the 70s…

White cyclamens (terrible photo – sorry!)

Weeding: my favorite fall activity. Now that fall is in the air and the temperature isn’t a gigilion degrees, I have been trying to make up for lost time and remove all the weeds and other things that have been growing like crazy. I have finally removed all the old raspberry canes and tied up the new ones (a task that took upwards of six hours overall) and am now starting my annual assault against the lauryl hedge, which I am again conducting to coincide with yard waste pickup day.

Daylilies are planted. The other productive thing that I finally did, was plant the daylilies from my good friend Mrs. G. She gave me four varieties – one mystery one, Sammy Russel (delicate red), Pittance (yellow) and Minstrel Boy (dark red). I have planted them in a sunny spot behind the tiger lilies in the front

White Gentian (not an albino)

yard.

Other fall activities. The other important thing on my list is to mulch the side yard, mulch the “short” raspberries, remove the sprouts  underneath the hazelnut, pull ivy, keep cutting off dead things and try to decide what to do about all the overgrown shrubs in the back, which are interfering with the sun.