The Schlumbergera bus are opening. It's a nice show so far.
They don't get much special treatment. I keep them on the North side of the house for the summer, bring them in during fall. Give a little flower fertilizer. Several are cuttings from older plants that became too big, a couple of years ago.
Edit - here's one more.
A couple of others are not blooming yet. That will extend the show.
Lots of fall color this year.
This is a Japanese Maple that I dug up as a volunteer from my old yard, on the left. On the right, the lower yellow leaves are a ginkgo I grew from a seed, and the higher yellow leaves are an aspen tree that I planted ten years ago.
Here my truckload of leaves from my generous neighbor.
Some of these went onto the refurbished, topped off, raised bed, after I mixed chicken bone meal, crushed eggs, and coffee grounds into the top layer of soil. Now that will sit until Spring to mellow and settle.
More will go around the miniature fruit trees and onto containers, as a mulch, then the rest onto the fig tree and forsythia and wildflower border.
Tree leaves are the best soil protector, enricher, weed prevention, soil conditioner on this green earth.
I harvested the last of the ripe chili peppers. They were a mixture of about 1/2 Serranos, and the rest about half Cayenne and half Thai with some Tabasco peppers too.
This is the recipe I used, mostly. It's from the this website.
1 pound washed and sliced chili peppers (as above)
1/2 cup peeled garlic cloves, sliced into 1/8 inch thick slices.
1 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp fine sea salt.
I sliced the chili peppers to about 1/4 inch slices. Then mixed in the salt, sugar, and garlic in a pyrex bowl. Then I added the vinegars, stirred, and covered with plastic wrap. The recipe called for letting the mixture sit in the fridge for one day. I let it sit for two days, because I needed some rest the next day.
Then I transferred the mixture to a stainless steel pot, used the outdoor stove to bring to a boil, and simmered for 40 minutes with occasional stirring.
Then I carefully transferred to the big blender, put on the top, put a towel over that, and blended to make a smooth puree.
Here's how it looks.
I pruned and cleaned up the main clump of Triple Crown blackberry. I removed all of the spent canes from this year. I had already tipped the new canes at about 5 feet high. I left those in place.
The main weed problem is a wild clematis. It vines around everything and sends long underground runners. I pulled out and cut off all I could. Then I applied a tree leaf carpet, about six inches or so thick. I left last year's in place, they have mostly rotted away.
That's most of the maintenance I do each year. Maybe two hours today, maybe an hour of little things in the summer.
I also cleaned up the newer clumps, the same way. That area has two younger Triple Crown clumps and a dwarf variety, Ponca. I didn't add the leaves yet, because some grass clumps need to be removed.
