But now that the fall rains have arrived I am amazed at how the garden rebounds, and rebounds way beyond expectations.

But it's not the garden as a whole I enjoy the most. It's the small things that make up the garden, like the rich green rippley foliage of the cannas that were planted from seed this spring ...

And the white-turning-pink bougainvillea I treated myself with after vowing not to buy any more 'expensive' plants, but it WAS on sale :-)

Plus the old favorite thyralis rewarding me with a fresh burst of bloom ....

Ditto almond verbena which flushes all summer scenting the whole yard puts on it's biggest flush to date ...

The desert plants on the deck backed up by pink trumpet vine and bougainvillea ...

Tropical alocasias by the front door not being bothered by the heat ...

Seeing that the strawberry pot fared well through the summer. The succulent pot didn't do so well. Many of the plants couldn't take the full blazing sun. Not sure if I underwated or overwatered them ...

You might not notice it, but I love the way the coral vine rushes to the top of the tallest trees even with so little water. See the 'red' one on the right, which is really just a darker pink ...

Laughing at the antics of the fur babies as they romp and run ...

And how did your garden fare?

Carrie, leaf roller caterpillars certainly are a problem with modern cannas. The leaf rollers I have become skipper butterflies (in some parts of the country the cats on cannas become moths) so I don't like to kill them, but I don't like them messing up the looks of the cannas either.

The species cannas are resistant to them, but the flowers are small. However the hummingbirds really like them :-)

I didn't have many leaf rollers on any of the cannas this year. There just haven't been that many butterfies of any kind due to the drought so it wasn't a good year to test out varieties, but I think the variety pictured above is a resistant type and if so it will make a good foliage plant. I love the dark red stems and veins.

As for the modern big flowered varieties as soon as I see young caterpillars I move them to a 'catch plant' that is out of sight so the cats can live to make butterflies. They are plain little brown guys, but I like to see them 'skipping' around.

You could also mist the foliage regularly with B.T.which as you probably know is a bacteria that is specific to caterpillars and not a poison.

If it weren't for the caterpillar problem I'd have more cannas than I do. There are so many wonderful varieties that have beautiful exotic looking flowers.

I am really impressed with how wonderful the Red coral vine looks at the top of the trees in the back ...

For some reason they don't show up along the skyline, but they are just as bright there. To the left is the Yellow Mexican Pride of Barbados. It blooms all summer long ...

I painted the plant stand white that has the White/pink bougie. It looks much better, don't you think? ...

The Pink passion vine has just gone crazy. It's in a pot and I had no idea the vine would grow so big ...

Does anyone know if this red dykia can stay outside all winter? I just love it. That's the Rainbow Knockout rose above it ...

And finally Miss Dent Back Turtle. She was hatched with a dent in her back and then she disappeared from my yard for about three years. A neighbor found her walking down the street and knowing I had turtles brought her to me. She has been someone's beloved pet all this time. I know because she now wants to be hand fed instead of picking it up off the ground, plus she'll nip me on the toe if I don't feed her fast enough LOL! I wish I knew who had her so I could return her. Evidently they gave her a lot of attention ...

All for now. Hope you enjoyed the show and tell. Hopefully it might give you some ideas :-)

Can you eat them? Well, the recipe for orangeade is a barrel of water, a barrel of sugar, and one trifoliate orange. In other words they are very sour! LOL!

Schumachers has them for sale.

So it is gar-on-teed to aim high and leap tall buildings too!

The nice thing about the vine is that though it freezes to the ground in winter the foliage crinkles up to nothing and the stems are brittle and easy to pull down so it's not much trouble to clean up after. It's my favorite vine!