Winter is here...

Things in the garden always get a boost from the cooler temps... just before a killing freeze...

 Horn worm caterpillar on winged sumac... couldn't pin down what critter he was.

 Spectacular Autumn colour in my yard....

 Second generation glass gem... Our seasons are so long... that I replanted the kernels from the mature corn planted in the Spring!

 

Frozen corn stalks...

Frozen Maters

Gonolobus suberosus

matelea carolinensis

Autumn Gold

I'm getting these pics posted a bit late... Last year I posted the golden asters at the end of September...

 Camphorweed (Heterotheca subaxillaris)

 Slender scratch daisy (Croptilon divaricatum)

 Goldenasters (Chrysopsis gossypina)

Helianthus angustifolius

Mexican sunflower (tithonia rotundifolia)

solidago rugosa

Yellow Wingstem (verbesina)

Ok... Not gold, but autumn is when the tibouchina shine... 

Unfortunately, tibouchina doesn't seem to be attractive to the pollinators... And while that purple bloom was a show stopper the first time I saw it... over the years... it's kinda lost some appeal... 

Tibouchina is easy to propagate, I shoved some cuttings in the sand one year... and it seems to thrive in my garden... that cold spell last winter didn't faze it at all.

Got 2 inches of rain, and autumn temps.

TV for cats...

Yall know that's a tomato... don't cha?

Start of Autumn

Garter snake... I see this guy a lot....

Buckeye and gulf fritillary visit mexican clover (richardia sp.)

Tri-foliate orange... Contrary to popular belief, I'm finding this orange very edible.
One orange to a half-gallon of water... makes decent orange-ade... One orange juiced into a batch of potato salad... pretty good...
I tried adding an orange to a coupla stewed pears, and adding all the peel was too much... the peel tasted good, but the pears were overwhelmed.

Viceroy enjoying a bit of pokeberry fruit.

Ellen from Using Georgia Natives sent me some pink turk's cap hibiscus seedlings... and they didn't exactly come true... Pink ones & white ones from the 2 I kept... too bad that the ones I gave away ran into the tidy garden syndrome and got weeded out before they bloomed... :(

 Monarda punctata...

eupatorium serotinum

The voles ate the roots of this wildflower over the winter, but it came back in abundance from last years dropped seed.

wild, wild life

I've discovered a new Aureolaria... Unfortunately, I can't find a name to assign it...

Aureolarias like Agalinas... are hosts for the buckeye butterfly.

EDIT: Apparently the above plant is a seymeria  (Seymeria cassioides)... rather than aureolaria...

The two plants are growing together, look alike, are both host to the buckeye butterfly, AND are parasitic... Hence my belief they were related...

 Here's the southern oak leech (aureolaria pectinata) that I've been enjoying every summer for a number of years....

 The poke is having a good year.

 And the mocking birds practically live in the pokeweed.

The towhees seem to be around a lot... whether he's eating poke, or something else... is an unanswered question.

 The blue curls are in bloom...

 Look at these bee killing spiders!

 Wasp sex on the verbesina

Which is a towering 9 foot tall!

Another wasp who appreciates the verbesina...

 I kept this lespadeeza when I first cleared for the vegetable garden, in 2007.

I keep trying to get a decent picture of the sesbania... without having much luck... at 11 feet tall, it has a lot of presence.