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Are stores getting bigger or am I imagining things?

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Chris had the day off today since it was Remembrance Day, so after going to a memorial down the street from us, we took advantage of his extra day off work and went out to do some shopping. Actually I made an appointment to get my haircut in the afternoon so I guess shopping was just an add on.

The mall where I get my haircut just had a new drug store put in. Well the drug store that was there moved to a different area of the mall and expanded in size.

The new store is huge! Why do drug stores need to be so big these days anyway? I mean, one area there was a wall with one diet supplement after another, two rows of just hair products and of course every drug store seems to have a grocery section these days!

Speaking of huge stores we also went to Costco (That’s like Sam’s Club in the US). I both love and hate going there. They have some great prices, but everything is in such large packages that if we buy something it lasts 6 to 12 months! That’s a good thing – unless we have too many supplies built up. We do have a small house with absolutely no closet space or rather almost no closets (we have two!). The joy of living in a 1920’s house.

Do you also think that stores are just getting bigger and bigger these days?





Beautiful Autumn Asters and Roses

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My garden is still having trouble recognizing that winter is on it’s way.

There are still a few roses and Asters happily blooming away, but most of my plants are finally starting to go dormant for the winter. A few other late bloomers like the Monkshood and Toadlilies only stopped blooming sometime last week.

I guess, after looking out my kitchen window, I could say that the New York Asters are mostly gone now too, but there are still a few blooms on the plant. Maybe a quarter of the plant is covered in flowers now (which means there are still about 100 blooms!).

Fading New York Asters 5

The picture above was taken during the last week of October when the Asters were just starting to die down a little bit. They still looked gorgeous and vibrant from a distance, but as you got closer you could see a few dead or dying blooms beginning to show here and there.

I grow some roses near the New York Asters (correction- I grow roses near all my plants! I have 60+ rose plants!). Here’s a photo of a fading Scent-Sation Hybrid Tea rose blooming near the Asters.

Scent-Sation rose and New York Asters

Scent-Sations pink, rose and creamy white petals look lovely beside the pale mauve asters, don’t they?

Has your garden finally become dormant in preparation for winter or do you still have a few plants blooming away?

It’s November and my garden is still puttering away

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I wrote a post on my gardening blog earlier today about how my roses and other plants are still blooming even though it’s becoming quite cold here in Toronto. Can you believe that some of my Cleomes are still blooming?

This is a purple Cleome:

Purple Cleome
Purple Cleome

It’s actually growing in my garden, but it’s poked through the fence and the flower is blooming on my neighbors side of the fence.

This is one of my White Cleomes.

White Cleome
White Cleome

I like the dark moody sky behind the flower, don’t you?

How is your gardening doing right now?

My neighbors Halloween yard decorations

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A few years ago I noticed that one of my neighbors had really gone all out and decorated their whole front yard for Halloween.

Faster than you can blink I had my camera out and I took a series of Halloween pictures.

These are a few of the decorations in my neighbors yard, and yes, they did their property up again this year, with a few changes of course.

bottled heads!
Bottled head!

and then there’s the Mummy?

The mommy
The Mummy!

I hope that you’re having a great Halloween! What are your plans?

Mmmm I love Dahlias

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dahlia5

I’ve always loved Dahlias. They are beautiful flowers and they come in many different sizes and styles. Over the years I’ve grown everything from Dinner Plate Dahlias to Cactus Dahlias like the one pictured above. I think I like the cactus dahlias best.

I actually hadn’t grown Dahlias for about two years until this past summer. I’d forgotten to buy bulbs and the few that I’d left in the ground had finally died out. (They do occasionally overwinter in the ground here in Toronto, but not always). That reminds me, I’d better go outside later today and dig up my Dahlia bulbs or else I’ll have to remember to buy more next year! Might as well save some money and try to keep the bulbs in the basement, right?

Do you grow Dahlias? What kind?

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