Autumn Progresses

It's November and some of the deciduous trees in my garden stand bare while others are are covered with colorful foliage and a few haven't started changing color at all yet.  How nice it would be if this time of bright colors could last longer.

We've set our clocks back an hour which means that the time of coming home in the dark has returned and I'll only be seeing the garden in the light on weekends again for a time.  Come with me on a Saturday walk around the garden. 

Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood' was a small tree when we moved to this garden 21 years ago.  I considered removing it many times but now I'm so glad I didn't.  It's coloring up for autumn and a few leaves have started falling.

Maybe this cordyline will get dragged into the greenhouse if the weather gets really cold.  It's such a nice large specimen.

Ditto for this one. 

 What's this yucca thinking sending a bloom spike up at this time of year?  Fingers crossed that Agave 'Mr. Ripple' doesn't rot this winter. 

Trevesia aff. palmata or Brassaiopsis dumicola has put on a lot of growth since leaving it's six-inch pot. 

While it's sad to see the growing season coming to an end, winter and the following spring clean-up will do a nice clean-up of the cacophony. 

Mahonias blooming to the delight of our year round hummingbirds. 

 Tick-tock Tetrapanax buds,  time is running out for you to open!

Cotinus 'Royal Purple' gets cool patterns on the undersides of it's leaves as they change into their autumn outfit. 

Clematis 'Nellie Moser' didn't bloom much this year as she got clematis wilt. She sprang back and somehow found a stem of Cornus sericea ‘Hedgerows Gold’ giving it some nice autumn blooms.

Looking toward he bamboo grove. 

 As the leaves begin to fall, the buddha at the top of the pond is once again visible. 

Cardiocrinum giganteum seed pods ripening.

Maybe I should pick the persimmons before they're all eated by the damned squirrels. 

Meanwhile, out on the sidewalk...

I just got done raking and blowing the leaves off the walk in time for a bit of strong wind on Saturday night to cover it again. 

Looking the other direction. 

There are too many plants in the parking strips but how to choose what to get rid of.  Euonymus europaeus 'Red Ace' is definitely a keeper for it's great seed capsules.

Cylindropuntia  found free by the side of the road four years ago is doing it's cold weather drooping thing.

 These two always look happy.

Viburnum x bodnantense 'Dawn' is starting to bloom which it will continue doing through spring.  I'd never want to be without this sweet plant.

We'll end as we walk back in the side gate to the back garden.  

Hope you enjoyed this little walk about. 

Feeling Blue?

It's become a bit of a joke at our house.  "Do you love me?"  "What did you paint blue today?"  I love color; bright, saturated, clashing color and my garden favorite for the last few years has been majorelle blue.  I painted one exterior wall of the garage, now greenhouse, that color many years ago. This is all that's left of that wall. 

I was thrilled when my pal Loree suggested I paint the rafters in the greenhouse this color and paint the walls yellow.  I got the paint and tried it out on this door but the greenhouse filled with plants fairly quickly so the rafters were left natural.

 
This old cabinet and the table on the left got the blue treatment. (They're really the same color but light does strange things.)  Also in the greenhouse are several bird cages found in free piles on the side of the road that have become blue prisons for a variety of plants.

These chairs looked a bit dirty in this earlier picture so they got painted the darker blue color.


These garage-sale chairs we white and the glass-topped table was green.  It was nearly impossible to paint just the metal undersides of the table without getting paint on the glass part so it got painted too.

The back gate was looking a bit shabby, like the fence around it so...

Just the other evening, painting this handrail seemed like a fun activity to do while talking on the phone with my niece. I had some nice black rust-oleum paint and the best of intentions but somehow the brush found blue paint instead.  Alison talked me into painting the metal grate on the top step as well. (Actually, she suggested painting the stairs - black treads, blue risers but settled for just the grate.)

Watch out, I still have a half gallon of this paint left and so you may not wish to stand still in my garden for too long or you too may be painted blue.  Perhaps it's time to open that gallon of lemon yellow.

Have a colorful weekend everyone!

Making Progress

I was able to do nothing but play outside in the glorious sunshine for most of my four-day weekend. Hooray. While  some things got done, there are still a lot of projects to tackle.  However, when doing one thing a gardener notices that something else needs to be done and gets involved with the other thing for a while.

You may recall the Danger Gardenette looked like this on Friday.  

Now it looks like this.  A few things need to be finished but most of the plants have migrated.  The forget-me-nots growing in the spaces between the bricks will be removed once they're done blooming. 

The Danger Gardenette flows into a collection of bromeliads.  There are more of these that are houseplants but probably wouldn't mind joining their friends outside for the summer. Agave, cacti, bromeliads, and ferns all growing in the same area.  Is it too jarring?  

The other side of that gray/blue round water thingy. The brick needs to be swept.

The table and chairs have been cleared and washed.  Most of those plants have actually found places in the ground or in pots. 

Now it's time to weed between the bricks. 

Still a pot or two to plant.  The begonias stay here where I can see them during the summer.  Since there are still about 20 in the stained glass room and greenhouse, there may be a rotation.

Hey look, no sixty-pound bale of pro mix.  It's more than half gone and has been hauled to the greenhouse to pot up the tomatoes.

No stash of pots here either.  The one pot in the picture will be planted in this area. 

I'm easily distracted by Acer palmatum 'Ukigumo' whose white leaves stand out beautifully in the midst of all of the dark green in a shady area.

Having started so many begonias, I decided to throw a few in with the hostas to hide the pots. 

The pot ghetto is still, and probably will always be the pot ghetto but the pile of plastic pots has been moved, organized by size and will disappear soon .

 Green goodness. 

As this vacation draws to a close and I sit on the back porch, I'm happy to have gotten a good start on the garden and can see a lot more that needs to be done.  For instance behind those Welsh poppies is a little water catcher that needs to be saved from the encroaching plants but those sweet yellow flowers are so cheerful.  It just never ends, does it?