Yesterday morning, with the temperature around 12ºF (-11ºC) I was not outside. Instead I was cozy indoors with a fire in the stove and eggnog french toast on my fork. A flash of brown caught my eye out the window...
Yesterday I took my nephew to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial here in St. Louis, home of the Gateway Arch, or as it's more commonly called, "The Arch". It has been a few years since I've done this, so was looking forward to having a look around.
Some of the plants that are overwintering under the grow lights indoors have pest problems every year. Whiteflies, aphids, mites, scale, mealy bugs, and fungus gnats are the culprits, and the first outbreak is happening now: mealys and aphids.
Christmas Eve morning was quite cold here, with a surprisingly low temperature of about 5ºF (-15ºC) when I awoke, a bit below the forecast low of 9ºF (-13ºC). Cold, clear, and sunny, I noticed that the pond looked a bit strange...
Well, I won't be having a blue Christmas, but my pond will. You see, although there is apparently some debate about the effects of adding beneficial bacteria to garden ponds, I do it.
Or more accurately, "What will be new in your garden next year?" For me the holidays mean it's time to put some seed catalogs to work and to pick out something new to grow.
It's been quite a long time since I converted my terrarium to succulents -- almost three years -- and almost a year since I've even shown you what's going on there (when I replaced one of the plants).
One last book review for you last-minute holiday shoppers, this time on a subject that is a favorite of mine: bamboo. I own a few books on bamboo, and although they have their merits this one is probably my favorite.
One of my favorite things about having snow on the ground is being able to see the tracks of whatever creatures visit. When I first moved here about 20 years ago, seeing deer tracks in the snow was exciting. Deer sightings were a rare event.
It's been a week since I potted the divisions of Pennisetum 'Vertigo' and Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum' (purple fountain grass) and put them under the lights of my growing table.
The snow certainly is pretty, but the 4" (10cm) or so we received Friday night is heavy! It started as rain then turned to snow as the temperature dropped.
Today I turn from books that are filled with beautiful photographs of plants, to a book that is jammed with beautiful information about how plants work. (I'm not saying that those other books didn't inform because they did, but they can't compete with the level of education you'll receive from today's book.)
Another book review, this time on a subject that seems to trigger strong positive feelings in every gardener and even non-gardeners: heirlooms. What vegetable do you think of when you think the word "heirloom"? If you're like me, you think "tomato" first, but then what?
Continuing with my holiday season book reviews, today I'm looking at a book that I got a couple of years ago, and has helped fuel my branching into the sometimes spiky and spiny world of growing succulents: Hardy Succulents by Gwen Moore Kelaidis.
I finally cleaned up the growing table in the basement (at least the top table -- the lower one for seed starting won't be needed for a while and therefore is a mess) in preparation for getting my grass divisions going.
In other words, sometimes plants surprise you and die, and other times they surprise you by living.
Awoke this morning expecting it to be cold, and was not disappointed. About 10ºF (-12ºC), which makes it the coldest morning of the winter so far.
With many of us dealing with temperatures well below normal right now, a little contrast might be helpful.
Our mild weather (it was 60ºF when I took these photos yesterday morning) will be swept to the south, replaced by frigid air and ice, sleet, or snow -- or probably a mix of all of them. Temperatures are expected to hit single digits F on a couple of nights, which means it's time to mulch.
Today's book is different than the rest in that it's a reference, field guide, and has been around for quite a while. It's Missouri Wildflowers by Edgar Denison.
Continuing my book reviews, I turn from one single man's year-long view of a tiny piece of a single "garden" to a book that involves 30 gardeners and at least that many gardens.
Yesterday I started my small series of book reviews with a history of the Garden Club of America, a book I concluded would be best appreciated by those who either loved history or the GCA -- but it probably wasn't for everyone.
With gift-giving season upon us, I thought it would be a good time to review some of the gardening books I've received or read in the last year.
It's been a cold start to winter for us in the Midwest this year, as temperatures are about 10ºF (-12ºC) below normal and have been for the most part of a few weeks.
Looking out my home office window I see my walkway garden, complete with bird feeder and the I'm-not-letting-it-freeze water barrel. The combination of these two means that quite often there's something to see when I glance out there -- the birds are always fun to watch.
You already know that I bring lots of plants into the garage to overwinter in a semi-dormant state. Although those take up the most room, they're simple -- just let them sit for five months, maybe watering once in a while.
Although I'm quite proud of my garden and have a good amount of success with most plants I try, the indoor greenery is another story. Too little light and a maddening design that puts all of the heater vents right in front of the windows means that houseplants face a challenge in my home.
We've had one really cold night in St. Louis so far, when it dipped down to 16ºF (-9ºC) ten days ago. It didn't stay that cold of course, and we even had a record high temperature of 80ºF since that cold night, but cold is coming again.
The Iris pseudacorus in the walkway garden is certainly impressive in the summer, with its strappy, upright foliage adding a structural element here.
Although you'd think that my dozens of posts on our August roadtrip would have been comprehensive, leaving nothing out, that's not the case.
As I was raking the leaves from under and around the maple in the front yard the other day, I took a look at the cactus bed, wondering how I was going to get most of those leaves out.
Like many suburban and rural gardeners, I share the garden with deer. They're not as much of a problem for me as they are for some, even though they come through my yard at least twice a day -- usually when I'm not around to see them.
Sometimes I have little hope of turning certain garden activities into a post. They're either too small of tasks, something I've posted about before, or just not very interesting. I had one of those this weekend when I removed the netting from over the pond.
You know you're in for an interesting day when you open the front door at 7:00 AM and outside is warmer than in, and almost hot, humid air rushes into the house. It was 70ºF (21ºC) at that time, and I knew two things: first that I was going to take advantage of the warmth to get more garden tasks finished, and second that it was probably going to storm.
Does anybody else reading this watch The Simpsons regularly? I've been a big fan of the show since its inception, not only for the outright humor but for the ongoing social commentary and unbelievable attention to detail.
Continuing my look at things I need to prepare for the winter, let's take a quick look at my front garden water feature.
Although I do lots of work to prep plants for overwintering: digging up elephant ears, tropical bananas, and several others that wouldn't take our zone 6 (or maybe 7 now?) winters, mulching others, taking cuttings, and so on -- the quickest solution for many plants is for me to just bring them into the garage for the winter.
Continuing the documentation of my overwintering efforts, today it's my hardy banana, Musa basjoo.
I'm currently showing you some of my overwintering techniques, important because as I type this it is 16ºF (-9ºC). Sunday's high is forecast to be 77ºF (25ºC), but that doesn't help a plant that has been killed by the cold -- so unless I want to buy lots of new plants in the spring I need to protect some of them.
Regular readers know that I love flowering vines, growing at least ten different types every year. Many of them are annuals grown from seed each year (on purpose or as volunteers), but a couple of them I like to try and overwinter as they don't produce seeds.
As reported earlier the netting I installed over the pond was working, but not perfectly. Although some leaves were getting into the water, most of them were not.
The light coming in through the west-facing windows this morning was so bright, I knew that something was different.
I've got an early-morning blood donation appointment at the Red Cross this morning -- seemed like a good idea to make it for the morning, but as I groggily type I'm not so sure now.
Technically, the pond netting I installed for the first time this year is working. It's catching the leaves and keeping them from sinking under the water.
As each leaf in my garden loosens its hold and floats to the ground, I'm delighted and depressed at the same time. It's an inadequate and almost unnecessary understatement, but the garden certainly changes during autumn. On the bright side, that means that tree silhouette season is almost here, when shorter days and barren trees mean I can actually see the sunrise (and sometimes sunset) revealing the fractal forms of the now-visible branches.
Simply put, today's post is about the fall beauty in the process of turning into fall chores -- namely raking.
After months of being surrounded by greens of all shades, the fall blush of color lasts for such a brief time -- usually just a few days or a week at most. I've been paying more attention this year to these colors in my own yard than I usually do, taking a larger number of photographs than normal.
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