August Blooms in My Garden

I know it is the end of September and I am very late with my "August Blooms" garden post, but I thought you'd like to see its one last hurrah anyway.  All these pictures were taken mid-August, then my husband and I went to Door County for a four day anniversary trip, and when we returned it did not look this way anymore;  as you will see at the end of the post.  A horrific storm moved in while we were away and knocked trees over, threw tree limbs all over the yard, and pretty much destroyed my flower garden.  What wasn't crushed by tree limbs was knocked over by fierce straight line winds.  But I fared better than a lot of people in the area who had trees come down on their house and/or cars.  

It was so ironic because I took these photos right before I left and thought the garden never looked more beautiful.  But I guess Mother Nature had something different in mind for my garden.  Well let's walk through the "Before" pictures, and then I'll show you the "After".

The Shed Garden

Black Eyed Susans, Hydrangeas, and Phlox are the stars of the August garden.  The sedum is looking good, but won't be in bloom for at least another month.

In the Shed Garden I have a very tall Rudebekia Laciniata growing in this garden.  This flower can grow nine feet tall and makes the perfect back of the border plant.  In front I have the common rudebekia with some purple coneflower.

This plant grows like a weed in my yard, but I don't care, I love it! It has such a long bloom time;  over a month!  Not many perennials can claim that. 

I love to sit on this bench during my garden breaks and look at this garden.

The butterflies love the Rudebekia too.  Here is a short video showing the plant covered in little butterflies.

The Front Yard Garden

I grabbed a lot of different coleus this year and mixed it in with my hosta.  I love the contrast of the colorful coleus leaves with the green hosta.  I will take cutting of the coleus before the first frost so I can try to overwinter some of the plants as these large coleus plants can be pricey.

I have to show you this photo because it drove my daughter nuts that I didn't pull the sunflower out.  I don't know why, but I just can't pick stray sunflower plants.  I feel if Mother Nature put it there, she has her reasons.

These tall red Salvias did excellent this year.  In fact, they did so well, I'm planning on buying a lot more next year!

The Septic Mound Garden

The Septic Mound Garden stole the show in August.  It was absolutely jaw dropping this year.  

I love this color of Phlox.  I wish I had more this color.

I have a lot of wild orange dallies on this garden and I just let them go crazy.  I don't care, it's my septic mound.  I just move whatever gets in their way, if the entire septic mound becomes day lilies, so be it. 

The day lilies are so beautiful when they are in bloom and I love the lush green foliage when they are not.

The contrast of the bright purple/pink phlox with the orange/yellow rudebekias is so striking.

Street view of the Septic Mound Garden.

Here is a very short video of me walking through the garden.  Sound up so you can hear the sounds of nature. 

The Western Hill Garden

In the spring this hillside is covered with daffodils, but then in summer the hosta takes over.  It was a lot more shaded when I planted all this hosta, but then hubby chopped a lot of limbs off this tree so now it gets more sun.  Surprisingly, the hosta still did well.  There was only one plant that seemed to dry up.

Looking down at the Septic Mound Garden from the top of the West Hill Garden.

Hanging Baskets

I need so many hanging baskets that I can't spend $50 on one basket so I have to make my own.  I save and reuse my own pots then I just add a few annuals.  I normally don't fertilize my baskets until after the 4th of July because the soil has fertilizer in it and it is usually enough until mid summer.  But this year, they really fizzled out early and I thought I lost them.  I decided to cut them way back and fertilize them, and wa-la they sprung back to life!  They were pretty embarrassingly hideous for a few weeks though.

After The Storm

And as promised, here is what that same beautiful Septic Garden looked like after the storm.   Oh, it was so depressing to come home from a fabulous weekend in Door County to this mess.  I said "That's it.  I'm done for the year",  and I haven't been out there much since.  But frankly, it is the harvest season so I am busy canning and freezing.  I have gotten out there for a few hours here and there just to cut things down, but it still isn't what it was when I left and won't be again this year.  Here is to a better 2026 flower garden!

I will be back with a Vegetable Garden post soon and hopefully if I ever get the garden tidy again, I'll do a fall garden post to end the year.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

 

A Weekend in Door County: Sturgeon Bay

This is the final post of a travel series of our anniversary getaway to Door County Wisconsin.  To start at the beginning, go HERE.

On our last day in Door County the weather looked kinda iffy so we decided to stay in the Sturgeon Bay area close to our hotel.  I was a bit nervous about the weather because the weekend before Door County had a horrific storm resulting in straight line winds, loss of power, water spurts, and even a tornado and the  weather reports were scaring us with a "repeat this weekend".  I didn't want to get trapped somewhere like the people on Cana Island did the weekend before.

But as what usually happens with weather-fear mongering it ended up being much ado about nothing (in Door County at least, but not in hometown as you will discover in a future post) and we actually had a very nice day for most of the day.  It did drizzle a bit in the late afternoon and early evening, but not enough to ruin our plans.

We started our day with a visit to Potawatomi State Park.  They had an observation tower we wanted to check out.  This tower was closed for renovations for a while and recently reopened.  They did a great job on renovating this tower, although I will say the steps were kinda steep.

You can hike to this tower on the Ice Age Tower Trail, but we did it the easy way and just drove to it and parked our car right underneath the tower. 😀

The views from the tower are stunning.  We were especially enamored with the islands that had a house on it.  Once again, we wondered who owns it, is it a vacation home or do they live there year round, and what do they do for a living? 😆

Here's a short video taken from the top of the observation tower.

Next we decided to check out downtown Sturgeon Bay and to our surprise they had a farmer's market.  Apparently, they do this every Saturday, but I couldn't believe how busy it was and how many great vendors they had for a weekly event.

Here's a short video of me walking behind my husband through some of the farmer's market.  

What I liked about downtown Sturgeon Bay verses some of the other towns in Door County, was that it is more of an actual city street so the shops are closer together and you don't have to walk as far to visit all the shops.  In Sister Bay for example, you can't comfortably walk from one store to another as they are spread out far apart.  And, parking is also difficult in Sister Bay, so you might have to park far away and then walk quite a distance back to get to the shopping/dining hotspots.  In Sturgeon Bay because it is a bigger 'city' they have public parking lots in addition to street parking. 

This was the only time I actually spent shopping in Door County, because it was so much easier to shop here.  I ended up buying a beautiful necklace from Reclaimed & Co. Jewelry because I loved her story so much and I wanted to support her business.  I rarely spend a lot of money on jewelry as I wear more costume jewelry, but I was inspired by her and  her amazing designs.

Photo borrowed from Reclaimed & Co

We checked out the local candy store of course, and this two story home decor shop.  They had the cutest things!

The Old Bell Tower is a modern rendition of Sturgeon Bay's original tower erected in 1900 and removed in 1939.  The original bell was acquired with the cooperation of the First Baptist Church of Sturgeon Bay where it had called congregants to worship since 1946.

Such a cute toy shop!  Love the hydrangeas out front.

I loved this old building, which is now a restaurant.

We did enjoy some treats from the food vendors.  I especially love these crab rangoons!  Oh I never had anything so delicious!  They looked and tasted so different from the usual crab rangoons.  We also had egg rolls but those were just ordinary.

As we were headed back to our car we saw that the Door County Museum was open and free to the public, so we decided to check it out.  

The museum employee was so nice and spent a lot of time talking to us and telling us about the museum.

They had natural displays like this one showcasing all the different types of animals in Door County.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Door County is in this museum;  from its landscape, to its animals, to its history...it has it all.  This would make a great first stop if you're ever visiting the area.

They had a movie where you could choose whatever topic you were interested in.  My husband and I took turns picking the movies.  I chose the "Cherryland USA" and my husband chose "Loggers of Door County".  I found the history of the cherry trees fascinating. Long story short, it was discovered that the land wasn't good for farming so someone planted a cherry tree and that worked out very well and wa-la the cherry tree industry in Door County exploded!😀 There's actually a lot more to this story, but you'll have to google it if you're really interested or go to the Door County Museum and watch the movie yourself.

We were completely stunned at how extensive and huge this museum was!  It looks so small on the outside, but there is a second level too.

There were so many displays of Old Town Door County.

They even had a spot for old firetrucks, a jail, and a hearse!

Door County is famous for its Fish Boil's so there was a whole section devoted to that too!

We spent hours in the museum while it rained outside.  We were suppose to go to the Door County Maritime Museum but after spending so much time at the Door County Museum I was kinda museumed-out, so we decided to head back to the hotel, and spend some time in the pool and relax before our evening fish boil.

Door County Fish Boils are famous!  This was my very first time at a fish boil, and I was so excited.   We chose Waterfront Mary's as the place to enjoy a fish boil because they are the only Door County restaurant who use cod in their fish boils;  everyone else uses whitefish.

You need a reservation for any fish boil in Door County because only so much fish fits in a pot.  

Now if your wondering what a fish boil is, AI describes it as "a traditional Scandinavian-style single pot meal where whitefish is boiled with small red potatoes and onions over an open fire in a large kettle, then a small amount of kerosene is thrown on the flames to create a dramatic "boilover" that clears films and fish oils."

Our fish boil was held right next to the bay so we had a beautiful view while eating. 

Yum, yum, look at all that delicious fish!

Here's a short video showing our fish boil.  All fish boils involve a demonstration;  it is part of the fun of attending a fish boil.

Everything was absolutely delicious, except the carrots.  They were still a little hard.  I ended up taking them home and cooking them some more.  Waterfront Mary's even included a piece of cherry pie a la mode!

Here are some more photos of this casual waterfront restaurant.  It's a pretty popular place as it was packed at 5:00.  They have a restaurant/bar in addition to their fish boil and a lot of people were there just to eat in their restaurant. 

I loved this old willow trees.  Its roots were so shallow growing more above ground than below.

There were sure plenty of spots to rest and relax after your meal.

And this concludes my last post of our weekend in Door County.  Next week I will start a new travel series of our fall trip to Branson Missouri!

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

                                                                            More Posts In This Series:

                                                               Sheboygan Wisconsin:

                                                                                 Bookworm Gardens

                                                                            An Afternoon in Sheboygan

                                                                                       Door County:

                                                                     Cave Point and Peninsula State Park

                                                                    Sister Bay, Gil's Rock, and Cana Island