Still at it

Well, believe it or not, the garden is still going.  The Americans have had time to actually make history since last I posted and there are still blooms.  

Not many, mind you.

The Zinnias, which were still going beautifully last Thursday (Sept 30) are now well and truly done.  

I don't know when they were done in because unfortunately I didn't look at that bit of the garden for a few days.  It was very cold over the weekend, though.  I don't think it really got below zero, but it did get close to it.  

The marigolds, having soldiered on through so much, gave up the ghost over the weekend, too. 
As with the zinnias, I don't know when they perished, only that they were going on Thursday and then not on Tuesday.  

But ... the gazanias are still blooming.  I really thought that they were a flower that needed a hot, sunny climate to survive.  Obviously, these guys are not absolutely thriving in the sub 10C weather, but they're blooming!
Even better, they're still producing buds.  It's like they think they'll be blooming for another week or something.  

The weather has been milder this week than it was over the weekend, but I can't believe it's going to last forever.  Somehow, it feels like it already has!  

In less gardening-goddess news, those are the un-raked leaves in the backgrounds of these shots.  The leaf-raking is a serious problem.  Normally, I like to let the leaves sit on the beds during the winter (I can't possibly get enough out of my xmas tree to cover the whole garden) but this year our maple has tar spot disease and the leaves can carry it so they have to go.  This means that I need need NEED to get out there with bags and a rake and resolve.  I did have an honest go at the back deck over the weekend, but I just filled up our compost bin and then had nowhere to dump the unwanted leaves.  So they linger. 

It's worse because my lovely neighbour does rake and all of my un-raked leaves just make his life more difficult.  They actually make his life very difficult by blocking the sewer grate at the corner which apparently is all that's required to make a puddle so large that it flows into his basement.  I've never seen said puddle in my own basement and I'm a little confused that such a thing could be possible (given how much closer to the grate I am than he is) but I hate to think that my negligence might cause him trouble.  Anyway, it's a task for this weekend, which is threatening rain.  

I wish it were still light in the evenings so that I might contemplate gardening after work.  I'm not enough into winter routines to contemplate gardening before work.  It's a form of (tea-fuelled) miracle that the pictures above got taken this morning.