I spent some time digging more elephant ears and cannas yesterday just before dark. I left some cannas in the ground as an experiment, and thought I would remove half or so of one large planting.
Because it's been so mild, there has not been any urgency in digging up the tropicals. Yes I dug and brought into the garage some of the papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) and the upright elephant ears (Alocasia macrorrhiza) quite a while ago, but the plants with tubers or rhizomes I've not worried about. Elephant Ears (Colocasia esculenta and others) and various cannas have been fine out there -- the ground has not yet frozen.
Eleven inches (28cm) of rain this month in St. Louis (officially), with at least 9" (23cm) of it coming in the last four days. What follows heavy rains in late December?
So much of the country is having a bad time with extreme weather, it seems wrong to complain about our own weather here in St. Louis. No blizzards, tornadoes, or anything else violent, but we have been getting more than our fair share of rain.
The other day after cutting down the bananas and preparing them for winter I decided it was also time to remove the pond netting.
My Wednesday Vignette this week is a question...
Sunny winter days are when I really appreciate the bamboo in the garden the most.
Although temperatures still don't have me concerned -- it's just been so mild, just barely getting below freezing a few nights -- I figured that it was time to get the Musa basjoo banana ready for winter.
Not much going on around here recently, so I thought I'd take a look back to a time before I had this blog, to a place that I'd much like to visit again: Kauai
Why does it seem like I've been doing the "random" posts more often lately? Probably for two reasons: the first being that I've not been doing much in the garden lately of course, so there's not much to post about out there.
The other day I did some pruning of the terrarium succulents, leaving me with lots of propagation material.
One benefit of having to bring so many non-hardy plants indoors for the winter is that I get to look at them a lot more than I did when they were out in the garden. One plant that I'm looking at a lot (and loving what I see) is the totem pole cactus (Lophocereus schottii f. monstrosus).
This is one of the times of the year when the invasion is most apparent here in Missouri, at least in the St. Louis area.
It's time again for my annual (or biannual?) terrarium refresh, where I do some pruning, digging, planting. I have to warn you, the images in today's post won't be so pretty.
Anna at Flutter and Hum hosts the Wednesday Vignette meme, and today's vignette is a scent. For whatever reason the last few nights we've been out later than normal, and entering the house each night gives me quite a shock.
Today is at least partly sunny, with temperatures reaching about 15ºF above normal.
Like many gardeners, I buy a lot of seeds -- especially in the mid-to-late winter months, when seed catalogs hint at the excitement that next season's plants will bring. The problem is, I rarely use more than a few seeds from any packet each season -- maybe half a packet in a crazy year.
One of the pre-winter tasks that I did get done is bringing the potted succulents indoors. Because of some furniture rearrangement since last winter, there's not the room for these upstairs that there was before.
I realized something this morning when looking out the bedroom window over the garden.
It's been a while since we've seen the sun in the morning. It seems like it rained for at least five days straight, and has been overcast and grey. Yesterday afternoon was nice and sunny though, in that wintery way.
Time for more random observations.
I overwinter a lot of succulents indoors: agaves, aloes, euphorbias, cactus, and most of them are quite easy as long as they get a little light and are kept relatively dry.
In the US we had our Thanksgiving Day holiday yesterday. This for most of us means making lists of things to be thankful for, a gathering of family and/or friends, and big meals.
Anna at Flutter and Hum brings us weekly vignettes, and this week I chose something that sort of illustrated how I feel right now:
I always have mixed emotions about going out into the garden after the first hard freeze -- and we had a hard one on Saturday. After previous lows that just barely dipped to freezing or a degree (F) below, it was 19ºF (-7ºC) Sunday morning when I awoke.
As I bring in all of my non-hardy plants for overwintering in the garage, basement and house, there's something missing this year.
With a hard freeze a day away, it's time to take some drastic steps. This hurts every year I do it, but this year less than usual since it's so late.
With the first hard freeze expected Saturday evening, I thought give you one last look at the stars of my late-season garden: the castor beans (Ricinus communis).
Anna at Flutter and Hum hosts the Wednesday Vignette meme, and today I thought I'd showcase my jam-packed, overgrown succulent terrarium.
This mild autumn is helping me to procrastinate, so I thought I'd remind myself of the things that I have not yet done that I need to pretty soon. Our first hard freeze is coming this weekend, and that means that I really do need to get moving.
Last week I talked about the leaves in my front yard, and how I needed to get them out of the cactus bed at least -- even if I wasn't going to rake them all up right now. Gerhard agreed that the leaves had to come out of that bed to protect the cactus from winter rot. (They're all cold-hardy but only if they stay relatively dry.)
Friday the 13th, a good time for a post about a scary (for many) gardening topic: spiders!
Yesterday I wrote about my dilemma with regard to the bananas and my leaves. Most of the suggestions in the comments were in line with what I was thinking already...
I've got a problem this year. It involves the maple leaves that currently blanket half of my front yard.
Every autumn brings with it not just the colors that we all love, but for me, a scramble to get non-hardy plants indoors. You'd think that this year with its lingering mild temperatures I would have things under control, getting the growing tables in the basement ready in time, having a place for everything.
I tweaked my back recently moving a too-large load of soaking wet leaves, so I have no desire to go walking around the garden with the camera. Also last night I had a very strange dream about my cats shrinking, so I thought that I'd go "back" in time and collect my garden cat posts for you.
For most of us, autumn means color. We look for it, remark on it, share it. Why is color so important to us, especially at this time of year?
I was looking through the photos on my phone this morning and realized that I had quite a few things that were worth mentioning but didn't warrant a post by themselves. So they piled up.
Although some of my earlier posts have hinted at this news, I'm excited to report that today it's official: I've got a new company and website, focused on garden furniture and related items -- the kinds of projects I've been posting about every so often this summer (like this, this, this, and this)
I've been hearing that this winter in the Midwest (remember that I'm in St. Louis) has a high probability of being a mild one. As a zone 6 bamboo grower I hope for a mild winter every year, as it's important for the plants to keep their green leaves in order to have any chance of a "size up" next year -- meaning larger, taller culms emerging in spring.
The leaves are falling in my garden, which makes me happy in some ways and sad in others. Rather than lament the end of the growing season, I'm going to look at the leaf carpet as just another aspect of the garden.
This summer I traded some muscle power for clay pots -- terracotta of many different sizes.
I'm on the road today, but thought I would show you some of my favorite views of my garden before autumn eats it.
I'm quite happy with the Alocasias this year:
I've started bringing some potted plants indoors, and since I haven't really looked closely at some of these for a month or two (or all summer really), there are some surprises.
I noticed something momentarily exciting yesterday:
A dragonfly is to thank for today's post. Strangely enough you won't be seeing any dragonfly images though, but what was to be a moment's stop at the edge of the pond after bringing some perilla cuttings to the compost pile became a half hour of exploration of the garden.
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