Garden's Last Bounty

On October 24th, I took this arrangement to garden club for the horticultural display.  I used the last of the blooms in the garden to fill the small Nantucket lightship basket:  mums, Sedum 'Autumn Joy', daisies, balloon flowers, lavender, heuchera leaf, sweet potato leaf, a gerbera daisy, some fountain grass, sage and rosemary.  I called it "Last Bounty".  The basket now sits empty on my windowsill reminding me of the scents, and colors, and textures of the garden that filled my summer but will just be memories until spring comes again.

Speaking of hunters--Where are those turkeys?

If you've been following this blog, you might remember that the wild turkeys started the idea of blogging.  I haven't seen them all growing season, but one late afternoon in October, they appeared.
I ran to get the camera and caught them as they disappeared in the high grasses across the street. You can see a tail of one and the neck and head of another one further into the laurels.  There must have been a dozen of them.  Many less than I had seen in April.

It interesting to see them again after so long--and at the end of my garden year.  The blog is winding down as the plants notice the shorter days.  The planter boxes on the deck were still supporting some bloom when the snows hit--and the electricity went out here for two days.

I pulled them into the garage before the storm and they are still blooming on the front porch, safe from frosts (after the snow?!) and getting some sun in the mid-afternoon before the sun goes down by 4:30 even though we've left Daylight Savings Time.  Neighbors remark when they see the Sunny Susans still budding! I plan to use the rosemary and sage next week for Thanksgiving.



Full Moon October--Hunter's Moon 10.10.11

It was a beautiful evening!

And a great year of gardening!

November 17th Fall is really here!

It's been a long time since I last posted. The garden has been overlooked for most of October after Hurricane Irene and more recently the nor'easter in late October.  It was hard to see the garden under 10 inches of snow on Halloween.  Now, the snow is gone but we had some pleasants days during October. I was kept from the garden by some sewing projects and a back that couldn't do winter clean-up. I hope to get the garden put to bed this weekend since the sewing projects are in hiatus.

I'm posting some photos I've taken in the past six weeks but didn't have a chance to add to the blog until now.

Visit to Lee May's garden in East Haddam 10.9.11

A creative use for tomato stakes--Chinese ribbon dance in the wind!

Old fence parts as trellises

Broken urn becomes two planters.

Old bottles reflect light on an old fence rail.

Cairn or inukshuk in CT woodland garden.

No mowing necessary with moss and gravel and stones.

Bonsai garden by the back door.

Beginning of CT autumn color.

Morning Glori--ous!

The sun was out and the skies were clear blue. It's a little chilly but the morning glories are blooming.

It was so glorious that a bee decided to visit as I took the photograph!

There was other life in the garden today.

A cabbage white.  One spot means it is a male. Females have two spots.

I found a great web site for identifying butterflies by shape and color and size.

First of Fall, Part Two

Here are some photos from yesterday:

Leggy mums, a few vibrant buddleia blooms, a new hydrangea looking more upright among the artemisia, and the Adriondack chair half-hidden.  It is all symbolic of the end of summer--and an unusual one at that? We had a blizzard with record snowfall in the winter, an earthquake in the summer and a hurricane at the end of the growing season.  During the month of September we have had six more inches of rain than normal; we are 20 inches over for the year. I rolled up the soaker hose for the season!

The lavender looks better than it did early this season.  It should bloom in July, not September! I thought it liked dry feet and hot, sunny days, but it is now thriving in the planter in the landscape bed.

The False Indigo or Baptisia australis finally formed its black seed pods.  It is drought and heat tolerant, so it, too, was confused by the excessive water and lack of extreme heat this season.

The Montauk daisies were pinched back too hard and too late by some confused gardener, but the asters are doing fine.  They, too, hard a hard pruning late in the season but recovered.

And the sedum 'Everlasting' by the garage door looks good also.  It was very leggy so I pinched it too. I didn't know if it would recover, but it was going to be very limp with full bloom if I didn't do something.  The plants can be forgiving if other factors play into their success.  As a gardener, you just wonder sometimes what the success factor is...

First of Fall 2011

September was not a good time in the garden. The plants did not do well after the hurricane. Leaves were stripped by the wind. The weather was humid and wet for several weeks. It wasn't officially fall but somehow it looked like fall and felt like August with the humidity and bugs. Suddenly, last week everything perked up. I had planted mums and gerber daisies in the planter boxes on the deck--and they finally looked good.

I took out 15 divisions of daisies, hostas, rudbeckias, and artemesias for the garden club fall sale in late September. They looked good after being in their plastic containers for two weeks under the deck with wet conditions, but the sale was on another rainy, humid Saturday.

Today I put composted manure around all the plants and transplanted a few plants to better locations. I took out a huge pile of dead stems, leaves and spent blossoms. With cultivating the manure into the soil and redistributing the mulch around the beds, the garden shows some energy again. The peony hasn't turned its beautiful copper color. The butterfly bush continues to bloom, although it's still propped up with twine and a metal post after the hurrican uprooted it. The mums are blooming, but I didn't get them snipped again before the end of July and, as a result, they are leggy. The roses are blooming well now in cooler temperatures of the past few days. The daisies have a second bloom, but they're sparse.

Here are some photos from a week ago:

A sun "shadow" breaks the shade in late afternoon.

The 'Walker's Low' Nepeta or Catmint blooms among

the Chrysanthemum 'Golden Helga'.

Up the side landscape bed, the 'Stella De Oro' daylilies are still blooming with the asters (I don't know the name) and the Montauk daisies and the sedum 'Autumn Joy". The Montauk daisies are sparse because I pruned them too late. The sedum recovered from a late pruning and is standing erect and full of bloom. Sometimes the garden recovers from the gardener's mistakes--and sometimes not.

The bees were busy in the asters on the first clear day in weeks with some late afternoon sunshine. I had pruned the asters severely twice during the summer, but they looked all the better for it!

9.11.2011

After watching the memorial services on television this morning, I had to be outside in the sun under the clear, blue sky.  Not as clear, nor as blue as that sky ten years ago, but a close reminder of how perfect an early September day can be.  Of course, ten years ago, the day turned to terror and horror that is difficult to remember.

The butterflies were busy in the garden.  I've noticed the monarchs for the past couple of weeks, but have not been able to capture them with my camera. Today after dividing some perennials and deadheading and weeding, they didn't seem to mind me near the butterfly bush with my camera.  Maybe they were enjoying the day as much as I was--or just focused on preparing for their migration.

Hurricane Irene

Well, we were not here in CT for the hurricane, but came home from a week visiting relatives in Ohio to no power, all our garden furniture safely tucked away inside our house, and everything swept clean in the garden beds by the high winds.  The only damage was to the butterfly bush, now at least eight feet tall.  It was leaning forward in the bed almost to the ground.  I was able to trim some blooms that had faded from the top finally!

After some pruning, I wrapped some twine around it and pounded a stake into the ground behind it.  As I pulled it back, I stamped the ground back down wher there roots had pulled up and been exposed above the soil.

 I anchored the twine to the stake and the butterflies were back on the bush in moments.  They didn't care if it was leaning, but I did. It will keep on blooming until early October if the frosts hold off.

A Menagerie in the Garden, Late Summer

With a week of rain and being away for a short while, I haven't had many moments in the garden in the past two weeks.  This afternoon, I spent some time just watching from my window.  This is what I saw in just a few moments.

A chipmunk spent some time under the bird feeder.  I also saw him shake a sunflower but ths seeds were not ripe and did not tumble down upon him.

A male and female goldfinch threw down cracked sunflower seeds.

A couple of sparrows drank poolside from the bird bath.

A duo of Great Spangled butterflies fed on the butterfly bush.

Just a great moment to spend
in a summer garden!

We Have Bloom

I'm plant-sitting a neighbor's hibiscus for the summer.  Today, July 31st, it has bloomed!

Manure Tea and Soaker Hoses Do Their Magic

Now that the heat wave is over and we are back to just hot days of summer and lower humidity, I sprayed the plants with The English Lady's Manure Tea.  I seems to be working well, greening the plants up and giving them the strength to recover from the heat and tolerate the active insects. It's a foliar feeding so I just mixed it up in the sprayer with a 1:10 ratio manure tea to water, gave the sprayer 20 pumps for pressure and gave the plants a spritz on a calm morning with no rain in the forecast.

The soaker hose is also working well.  I've used it twice a week for 45 minutes each time.  The leaves and blooms of the plants stay dry and the water soaks in deeply to encourage deep roots for times of drought probably ahead in August.  The herb planters and flower containers on the deck, patio, and front sidewalk and the hanging pot still take quite a bit of time to water in well. 

After an initial spray with soap insecticide after the rainy, cool June days, the plants are looking very healthy.  The leaves are whole and dark green, not chewed by insect mandibles or weakened or discolored by sucking insect mouth parts.

But, once again, am I ahead of myself? Overconfident?  Thinking I'm in control of this thing we call "Nature." We still have August ahead in the garden--and who knows what damage weather and the little beasties can still do!



July Bouquets--Indoors and Outdoors