It seems like it's cold everywhere right now. That darn Polar Vortex swinging down and turning our mild, late winter into a my-brakes-on-my-truck-are-frozen-and-it-won't-move kind of cold, cold winter.
It's that time of year when I, in 5 minutes, drastically change the look of my back garden.
Although I did bring some plants in before the first frost was forecast a few weeks ago, I left many out there until much colder weather was coming. With the temperature not going above freezing for a couple of days (it's 16ºF / -9ºC this morning) I finally had to act.
Most plants look their best in spring or summer when their foliage is fresh, when they're in bloom, or something similar. Some plants might not come into their own until autumn, when their foliage puts on a show. This Sasa veitchii bamboo though, it's different.
This is the time of year when parts of my garden surprise me. It's as if I don't really see what's there until some of the surrounding greenery fades. Leaves fall and cover the ground in browns, and then suddenly I have something wonderful here.
As I've mentioned before, I have a new strategy for overwintering this year. Well, perhaps "attitude" is a better word than "strategy", but it's a change nonetheless. The mild autumn we've had probably has something to do with it too, as does my busy schedule.
Now that Thanksgiving is in the past, I'm no longer working long, long days at the bakery. It's amazing how many people want pies for that holiday (and how many people show up or call on the 23rd trying to order a pie!), but things are back to normal now. We peeled so many apples, it's crazy. Since the organics bins were filled to the top, I brought home four big boxes of peels on Tuesday (or was it Monday?):
Things are so busy right now, writing these blog posts gets a lower priority -- hence the skipped days. It's a bit disappointing as I've been so good with daily posts for so many years (then weekday posts), but it can't be helped.
Last weekend I visited the small pecan farm that supplies our pecans for the bakery. McGraw Hilltop Pecan Farm is located in St. Charles county, and they grow some of the most delicious pecans that we've ever tasted!
One last look before the freezing temps come in at the bananas and beans in my garden this year.
I don't think there's more I can say today...
Yesterday I wondered about apple storage, today it's about a plant ID. In downtown St. Louis there are a couple of old churches that we pass while walking to the hockey arena. Both have quite nice little gardens, and this one contains an interesting Alocasia:
One of my tasks at the bakery each morning is peeling apples. I peel between 30 and 100 apples a day depending on needs (usually closer to 30), so I think about apples a lot.
I've been working on a trio of trellises for a client. Thought you'd like to see what I came up with, even though they're not for my own garden.
Most people who plant running bamboos don't realize the extent to which they spread in a single year in the right climate. Here in St. Louis the Phyllostachys species can send a rhizome 15' (4.5m) in one growing season, so rhizome pruning at least once a year is essential!
In my garden the last plant to bloom has one of the prettiest flowers: Aconitum or "monkshood".
I've been showing you my castor bean plants a lot in the last few months, with good reason -- they're really amazing this year! Today we'll have one final look at these, as I don't see them growing much more.
It's been a few months since I noticed the tears in the pond liner, keeping the water level so much lower than normal. I've been putting off doing something about it because I knew it was going to be a terrible task not so much because of the repair, but because of the maintenance needed on the pond itself -- the water quality was terrible this summer.
Fall is a great time for my garden, as the tree-shed leaves enhance the shorter bamboos that I grow.
I've been having trouble coming up with post topics lately. I don't want to repeat myself too much, so showing you the bamboo or the castor beans or the bananas or the vines, well, it just doesn't seem right.
Fall is the time for the large insects in the garden: spiders of course, but in my garden mantises are the star attraction. (Carolina mantis, Stagmomantis carolina) Yesterday I photographed a few of them, starting with this odd-colored one in the front garden:
My friend Loree over at Danger Garden does a lot of walking, driving, traveling. Well, a lot compared to me. During these excursions she keeps a look out for interesting gardens and landscapes. Some are noteworthy because they are cool or beautiful, but others fall into the "what were they thinking?" category.
The Pacypodium lamerei just keeps going. Blooming for months, providing shelter for a growing mantis (since moved on), and now, well...
Things have been busy lately, so not only have I had very little time out in the garden (hence nothing much to write about), there's no time to write.
Late summer is vine time in my garden, and today I want to show you the hyacinth bean vines (Lablab purpureus). There are two plantings of this vine growing in my garden this year, both near the southeast corner of the house.
When I posted about the turtles mating in my garden last week, I was asked if I'd ever seen baby turtles in my garden. My response was "no", but I've found photographic evidence that I was mistaken.
Yesterday I saw something that disturbed me: a very young fawn running around the front yard! It was probably a week old at most.
I sometimes marvel at how much my garden (and life) are guided by chance -- luck even. A tree falls and somehow misses everything in the yard, a volunteer or two grow in just the right spot to make things amazing, and things like this:
...and it wasn't because he was pining for some chocolatey breakfast cereal either. Walking through the maypop trellis yesterday I was startled by a flapping of wings.
Perhaps it's because I haven't spent much time out in the garden this summer, or maybe it's just been perfect weather for tropicals in St. Louis, but I'm particularly pleased and impressed with things in the back yard this year.
Yesterday a spider surprised me. Today, I surprised a pair of turtles.
It's the time of year when the orb weavers and other big spiders are very visible in the garden. I've seen the large webs in many places for the last couple of weeks, and have run into those crazy strong support strands that somehow cross paths that span 7' (2m) or more.
Time again for collected snippets. It's not Autumn now, it's not! At least the weather agrees with me on that, as it will be 90ºF (32ºC) again today, and for the next few days. Humid too -- where's my dry September that I love so much?
Time for an update on the maypop (Passiflora incarnata) vines that are beautifully taking over the "gate" pergola next to the house:
When you grow a lot of bamboo like I do (30+ varieties) and most of them are running bamboos, the rhizome pruning that I do to control them results in lots of rhizomes to pot up. Especially if I get lazy for a while and some of the plants shoot in areas that they shouldn't.
My planned post for today was thwarted by weather, with rain making it impossible to get the final "after" photo needed after a little digging project -- maybe my first of the year? Anyway, I instead noticed that a couple of potted plants have quietly become gorgeous, but they share a problem. First, the beautiful part...
I love growing cannas. Their large, mostly upright leaves and bright, towering blooms have such a tropical feel. Here's a shot from a week or two ago that shows the red canna blooms rising above everything, with upright foliage (just below the deck in the photo), and more in the foreground:
A higher percentage of my posts recently have been about mantises, but it's unavoidable. Those beneficial insects are my favorites, especially since I raise them from egg to adult in a way.
There are a few things about this year's garden that have surprised or amazed me. For instance, the Pachypodium lamerei...
I picked up this "annual" last year (Bulbine frutescens) and it has quietly rewarded me greatly in its pot on the driveway.
It's been a while since I've photographed any fungus, one of my favorite outdoor subjects. The other day though I noticed that some of the log sections on the driveway have moved from firewood candidate status into future compost and soil contributors.
The area underneath my deck was once wasted space, nothing growing there. Over the past few years I've been converting it to a fern bed, and it's been doing well.
This has to be my favorite time of year in the garden. Everything is full-sized, the humidity drops and the breezes start blowing, the katydids and crickets all start singing -- just wonderful!
A couple of days ago I showed you the garden around the patio area, how it's been growing like crazy this summer with very little attention from me. I'll show you more of the back yard now, focusing on the area to the south of the patio.
We've had a good amount of rain in August here in St. Louis -- not too much, but a bit more than is normal -- and the garden is thriving for it. It's been a month since I showed you the back garden in the patio area, but it's really time for another look.
I thought the mantis that lived on the Pachypodium all summer was gone. Turns out he was still in the area...
One of the things that gardening and spending more time observing Nature up close has done for me is make me appreciate textures and patterns and colors. Not just those found in the garden, but those found everywhere.
For the last few years the pond has been the center of amphibian activity in my garden, toads and frogs visible or audible almost from March to September. Then the army of toadlings around the garden... This year although I've heard toads out there every time it rained, no tadpoles or toadlings that I could see. Maybe the low water level took away all of the good spawning zones? This year though, a new development...
I don't like to use words like "magnificent" in reference to my own garden, but sometimes other descriptions just don't fit. Yesterday I had one of those moments where I thought "wow, this is really pretty!".
You saw yesterday how lazy I had been with the walkway, but that's nothing when compared to my approach to mowing the lawn this year. A dry July meant little lawn growth so no need to mow, but then the rains came so frequently we rarely had good mowing conditions. Then it was too long to easily mow, turtles could be hiding anywhere!
My posts about:
© Blogger template Shush by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009
Back to TOP
