fall

Pots and Seedheads

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A collection of nursery pots I painted (using outdoor-rated paints), that will be fun to cluster on the patio, along the paths, and here and there in the beds. The largest sizes I’ll use for vegetables. Next year, I plan to do tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, potatoes, kale, and gourds in pots, with stakes and deer netting. Every year I refine a little, though I haven’t got a good harvest yet. I have two-year-old strawberries that may produce, and Romanesco cauliflower that looks like it will keep growing into the winter.

 

 

The two photos above show our native aster in seed, and looking like snow. It’s a love/hate plant for me because it sprouts up in droves in all my flower beds, and has to be weeded out everywhere, but it’s wonderful for pollinators, and really beautiful, both blooming and finished. The grass in the lower photo is pennisetum, which makes fabulous seedheads in fall, but is also a little problematic. The seeds are like burs and stick to your clothes tenaciously, plus the leaves are super sharp. With gloves and scissors, pennisetum sprouts have to be taken out of flower beds all the time.

Below, tiny leeks coming up, where I scattered seeds from one I grew last year. They can grow a little throughout winter and be good for harvest in June or July next year.

 

Sights in the Garden

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Photo of male downy woodpecker at suet feeder

Male Hairy woodpecker at the suet feeder.

Photo of northern flicker at suet feeder

Female Northern Flicker (woodpecker) at the suet feeder.

Photo of English Ivy leaf with fall color

Pretty fall color, and striking vein pattern, in an English Ivy leaf.  

Photo of ageratum in half shelter

Here we see the microclimate effect. The exposed half of the ageratum is shriveled from nights in the 20s, while the side closer to the garage is still alive.

Photo of sheltered garden border acting as microclimate

Here again, nicotiana looks fresh along this sheltered border, where underground water flows down from the hills, keeping the soil temperature above freezing for a longer period.

Photo of burgundy fall privet leaves

A privet in the brush pile, from a seed delivered by birds. The deer bite the growth off, leaving these fringe shrubs scrappy looking, but this one has produced excellent color.

A Strange Seed

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This was lying at the foot of one oak tree, a seed found someplace by a squirrel or bird. The only thing I’ve seen online that it much resembles is from the cocao pod. Which could have got into the local environment by a few means: someone’s potted tree, a health food store’s “grind your own chocolate” display…

Plants rescued from garden

A few of the garden plants that I’m overwintering: coleus, impatiens, and one sweet pepper. They should be all right for temperature in the garage window, and I can’t have many in the house because of cats.

A path in its fall state. I’ve used branches dropped by my trees for bordering, which should help block the leaves from blowing away. Over winter the weather will decompose and settle the branches, and in spring fungi will reduce the leaves to a thin layer. Preserving leaves preserves your insect population; a healthy insect population feeds birds, reptiles and amphibians, small rodents, bats. My other plan is to cut off seedheads from coneflowers and rudbeckia, and place them among the branches to make flowering edges.

Something interesting. Deer ate all the leaves off this nicotiana. But it grew back these strange ruffly stem-leaves.

A pretty little grass, that has blueish leaves, and spreads slowly in clumps.

Garden Bits and Plans for Next Year

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One slightly raggedy Morden Blush rosebud that finds the weather too cold to open. And a bright sweetgum leaf that landed where it makes a nice contrast.

A few annuals will hang on and flower until a hard freeze. Even then, microclimates may allow a vestige or two to carry on until December.

An ornamental grass seedhead that, as you can see in closeup, has an extravagant quality of awns (the parts that look like hairs). A fall treasure, but this grass starting growing voluntarily, so I don’t know what it’s called.

This big branch fell off my dead ash tree, making a nice gift for defining the border between the bed and the path beside it. And all these logs I use for bordering make miniature habitats in themselves, also protecting the root systems of my perennials.

 

 

Bulbs I’m Planting This Autumn

 

Allium aflatunense (lilac-flowered onion)

Apricot Beauty Tulips

Dordogne Tulips (coral-pink)

Eranthis (yellow-flowered small bulb)

Galanthus (Snowdrops)

King Alfred Tulips (sunny yellow)

Little Beauty Tulips (red with blue markings)

Mt. Hood Daffodils (pale buttery white)

Salmon Impression Tulips

Silver Smiles Daffodils (white with pale yellow center)

 

 

Wish List Perennials for Next Spring

 

Artemisia

Astilbe (assorted colors)

Campanula persicifolia

Columbine (assorted)

Dalmatian Peach foxglove

Ferns (assorted)

Georgia Blue Veronica

Heuchera (a few pretty leaf types)

Hollyhock

Johnson’s Blue geranium

Old-fashioned Bleeding Heart

Poppy

Primrose

Pulmonaria

Rodgersia aesculifolia

Southern Charm Verbascum

Tall phlox (assorted)

Tall Sedum

 

Annuals from Seed

 

Ageratum

Bachelor’s Button

Cleome

Coleus

Datura

Double Impatiens

Marigolds

Meadow Sage

Nasturtium

Petunia

Salpiglossis

Scabiosa

Sunflower

Tithonia

Zinnias