flower photos

Hi everyone!

The last couple of weeks have been a bit crazy — we had a death in our family, and the rhododendron society where I volunteer is presenting an international online conference in ten days. As the resident techno-geeks, Hubby and I have been pouring intensive hours into organizing the IT end of the conference, so there’s nothing left in my brain for a blog post this week… unless you really want to learn the sordid details of video compression, PowerPoint shows, and organizing Zoom webinars for time zones all over the world…

(What’s that you say? Sorry, I was temporarily deafened by the chorus of “No, for the love of all that’s holy, please NO!!!”)

Anyhow, if you’re interested in gardening and/or rhododendrons, we’re hosting some amazing international speakers and it’s free (pre-registration required). Click here for the American Rhododendron Society Fall Conference 2021 schedule.

Meanwhile, here are some photos from our garden — its last show of colour before winter closes in. Happy fall!

(Note: If scrolling makes it hard to see the photos, you can click on each photo to get a full-screen view.)

The last bloom on the ‘Beverly’ tea rose.

The tiny-but-tough miniature roses are still going strong.

The hydrangeas are fading to pink, but the burning bush is ablaze!

I was lucky to snap photos of the dahlias on Monday, just before the first frost damaged them.

It’s hard to believe these are all dahlias – they’re so different!

And then there are the colours: Bright red…

Bicolours so intense they barely look real…

And understated singles that are beautiful in their simplicity.

The last of the zinnias glossy with rain.

A tiny rudbeckia sheltered by a giant geranium.

The crazy spirals of Cyclamen hederifolium albiflorum.

A dew-spangled moth rests on the flower of a carrot that went to seed.

Even the veggies are putting on a show – bright red peppers with pumpkins in the background. (Oops, I guess I should have weeded before I took this photo!) 🙂

Writing update: As you may have guessed, no fiction writing has taken place in the past couple of weeks. But the screenplay for Book 1, Never Say Spy is being shopped around in hopes of finding a producer; the audiobook for Book 5, How Spy I Am has just been completed and will soon be released; and Book 17 is taking shape in my head. (In all my spare time, ha ha!) Assuming nothing else blows up in my life, I’ll start posting writing progress for Book 17 in early November. Stay tuned…

It’s FINISHED! Woohooo!!!

I wrote “The End” on Book 13 this week, and I hope to have a title and cover soon. And wow, did it ever turn out to be a long book! Now let the editing begin…

My brain is temporarily drained of words, so for this week’s post I decided to ‘say it with flowers’. These are photos from our garden and from Milner Gardens and Woodland, where the rhododendrons, camellias, azaleas, and magnolias are putting on a show.

Happy spring!