Radically Altered

 My activity outside has been radically altered by knee replacement surgery last Tuesday.
I have tried for a little sun-therapy along with my physical therapy each day...

our little back porch providing an easily-accessible spot.

 I still rely on the printed copies of exercises here at home
and take advantage of a couple of railings for stability when outside.
Yesterday, the wind wafted the pages from the seat of my walker.
My husband was temporarily off the property,
so rather than foolishly attempting to retrieve them myself,
I threw a few weights on top of them to hold them safely until he returned.

(One gets very creative when faced with such challenges!)

What a beautiful season!  

How disappointed I am not to be able to do simple tasks like:

• picking up the walnuts falling rapidly from the tree
• snipping off the sucker shoots growing from some young trees and bushes
• emptying water accumulating in the birdbath
• pulling weeds
• dead-heading the white roses that stubbornly refuse to quit blooming

What ARE They?

He called me away from my pleasurable read (My Garden, the City and Me:  Rooftop Adventures in the Wilds of London, by Helen Babbs) to tell me,"You ought to go look at those plants you brought from Dave's" (my brother who lives in North Carolina).
After marking my place carefully, I did!

 They've been slow to take hold in the northeast Indiana spot

in which I casually plunked them a few years ago.

This IS the best I've seen them!

And how I love the variegated leaves and demure lavender flowers!

(Actually, I think I've divided them a couple of times.

Maybe I interfered with their intentions, 

but now that I've established a bit of a border, 

I think I'll leave them alone to do their thing.)

Can anyone tell me what they are;
...and have I asked that before?????

Another Garden Walk

 West Central Neighborhood

 Fort Wayne, IN

As wonderful as most of the interiors were....

it is the gardens that I enjoyed most!

 Beautiful views -- beautiful day.

Weeds

 There's really no getting around THIS part of maintaining one's flower beds...

and he's been hard at it this week!

Another bed....Another day

 The results have been gratifying.

As some have said:

Crabgrass can grow on bowling balls in airless rooms, and there is no known way to kill it that does not involve nuclear weapons.  ~Dave Barry

I always think of my sins when I weed.  They grow apace in the same way and are harder still to get rid of.  ~Helena Rutherfurd Ely, A Woman's Hardy Garden, 1903

But make no mistake:  the weeds will win; nature bats last.  ~Robert M. Pyle

Weeds are nature's graffiti. ~Janice Maeditere

They know, they just know where to grow, how to dupe you, and how to camouflage themselves among the perfectly respectable plants, they just know, and therefore, I've concluded weeds must have brains.  ~Dianne Benson, Dirt, 1994

Good and Plenty

~Autumn Joy Sedum~
They're in every flower bed here at Gatescroft!

Currently in the pink and

growing randomly or in order.

Surpassing all expectations of size,

 they unselfishly share the space

with garden art - rust and wood.

 Silently they speak.

"Abundance," they say.  "Good and plenty OF it!"