The Light's Right but the Temps are All Wrong

So I heard yesterday was the first full day of autumn.  Really? You'd be hard pressed to know it from walking around outside. Though the nights might dip into the upper 50s, daytime highs are still in the mid 80s.  Thankfully, the humidity remains pretty low, and next week the highs should be in the mid 70s, but it just doesn't feel like fall yet.

My roses are still blooming.

The celosia finally took hold.

The phlox has renewed blooms.

My coleus plants just went nuts towards the end of the summer.

I've pinched the blossoms and tiny tomatoes off the tomato plants so all the energy will go to enlarging and ripening those hard green blobs, but I don't know if that'll be enough. 

Here are the latest photos of the tipsy pots:

One of the pots below suffered greatly when we went to Birmingham for 4 days over Labor Day weekend and just never did recover.  

The vinca in the top pot stayed pretty sparse, too, though the blossoms were lovely.

That's the problem with clay pots--they dry out so quickly.  I've already talked with one of the little neighbor girls about paying her to water my plants if  I'm going to be gone for a while, but it'll be next year before that happens again.

The moss rose in the second pot from the top was supposed to trail, but it didn't really.  In the 4th pot I planted something with the moss rose (can't remember the name) and it looked much better than the moss roses. 

I might plant vinca and moss rose again next year, but not in the tipsy pots.

The chilly mornings have made some of the insects rather sluggish. 

This little wasp was just sitting there, not moving at all.  Even when I disturbed the plant a little, he only twitched an antenna.

But there are some signs the season is changing. The jalapeno plant yielded up its last pepper yesterday, so it's been pulled up and tossed in the trash.  The petunias are giving up the ghost, too, so most of them have been uprooted and I'm thinking of putting pansies in the pots instead. My neighbor planted 75 spring bulbs yesterday.  Ron the Mower Man comes by only every 3 weeks now.

It's time to pick a permanent home for the Japanese maple and decide on which trees will replace the Bradford Pears I lost last winter. But the other Japanese maple is showing those lovely burgundy tips.

 A lot of my herbs have been trimmed back or gone to flower.  It wasn't a good year for the mint or
 basil, but the lavender, parsley and chives have been outstanding. 

The afternoons are shorter and showing that golden cast that signifies the changing of the seasons. The State Fair is over for another year.

My Halloween counter says it's only 37 days til October 31, and I should be getting a little sense of urgency here.  I've ordered several items from Fright Catalog, Spirit Halloween and Grandin Road, and spent a few hours dismantling the red dresses as well as putting the first coat of paint on a display box for the glowing heart, and on the small coffin MightyMom gave me.

Last year, the party I'd planned was cancelled after Jack's hospitalization, and I hadn't given it another thought since then.  But at least 3 people have asked if we were having it this year, and one gal arranged her schedule to be off the weekend in order to come.  So it looks as if the party's on for this year. The decorations are going up anyway, so why not?  But nothing elaborate--just going to throw a couple pots of chili on the stove and maybe make some grilled cheese sandwiches,  and everyone can just bring something to share. 

A friend asked if we had a fireplace or outdoor firepit to toast marshmallows, and we don't, but I'm thinking the place in the center of the yard where the old oak tree was taken down will serve as a good place to make a firepit.  There are no trees close by, and the hose will reach as a water source, and it's right in the center of the action for this year's yard haunt, so I just need to dig out the leftover mulch and encircle it with the scalloped cement borders.  What a great place to tell ghost stories, huh? Guess I need to head back to the thrift stores to find wire coat hangers. Gee, another trip to the thrift shops. What a hardship.