The September marsh is ablaze with goldenrod and sumac. There’s a golden theme this week.
1. Caryopteris. Abuzz with pollen-packed bees.
2. Clematis durandii, perfectly blue with sunshine yellow centres. 
3. Jerusalem artichoke or sunchokes; marsh wildings stealing space from Japanese anemones. 
4. Golden Bantam corn. The rabbit missed a few. 
5. Butternut squash. 
6. Golden fleshed first gleaning of Laratte and Desiree potatoes. 
More Six on Saturday garden snapshots can be found in the comments section of the host, www. Thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com
1. Pumpkin and squash reaching out across the marsh, looking for support from the phragmites that my neighbour so optimistically cut down to the ground in spring!
2. Wild grape growing at a mile a minute along the tops of a red paper dogwood.
3. Tall elder branches bend to touch the earth, under the weight of almost ripe berries.
4.Nicotiana sylvestris, growing full throttle, loving the late summer heat.
5. Goldenrod preparing for glory, at 6 feet tall and still growing….
6. Praying Mantis, enjoying our tropical climate. A rare and ethereal tourist.
2. Cosmos Xanthos. Those seed catalogs in January should be banned. A pale yellow Cosmos – how wonderful! Not really. Compared to “Purity’ or ‘Psyche white’ that I usually grow to fill odd patches in the sunny borders, Xanthos is underwhelming at best. Flowering early but only a foot or so high it can’t compare to the 6 foot pure white classic beauties I wish for at this time of year. Although they would probably be face down in the mud like everything else…..
4. Scrumptious Honeoye strawberries. Newly planted, mulched with straw and properly hydrated (thanks to the weather) these are the best ever.
1. It begins. Every available surface. This week I started assorted annual flower seeds and peppers. Plus a few herbs and some lettuce….
2 . This little onion propagator was once a catering pack of oatmeal raisin cookies.
3. As if it knew it was destined to be dumped back in the heap tomorrow, a bud finally appeared on last year’s red amaryllis .
4. Speaking of red, geraniums on the porch, with a backdrop of snow.
5. Tete a tete daffodils, also indoors. From a 3 dollar pack of 16 bulbs there are 3 flowers. Not very economical after all.
6. Sunrise, preceding one of 3 snowfalls this week. Just a few inches each time, to remind me that it’s still mid winter here. February can be a ‘tretorus’ month, as they say around here. Actually, so can March!
and this one is David, much taller, approaching 6 feet.
