End of October

It is the season to to shift attention again, from the large effects and colors to the smaller details.  For example, this is just one of the two praying mantises, one in the juniper and the other in the yew.  While I will admit they are not small, when the garden is full of foliage and flowers, they are much harder to see or find. I always have felt a certain magic when I have found just one of these, and this year there were two within a few feet of each other.  How can you tell which are the males or females?

I have seen the same yellow beetles with black spots that I saw last year in Fall Details. This year there were a couple on a spike of salvia.  The camera didn't focus on the beetle, but on parts of the flower, so it is a bit fuzzy.  You can barely see the second one further down on the stalk.  These seem to drink the nectar from the flowers, but I still haven't been able to find out anything more about what they are. 

The final picture is a plant that first arrived as a stowaway in a pot with another plant.  The sorrel is usually considered a weed, but this variety with bright red veins is a small, low to the ground grower..  I have not had any problems with it becoming a pest, even though it is a self-seeder. It has been easy enough to dig it out where I don't want it. So, it stays in many places, and probably it could be harvested and used for soup.  We tried sorrel soup one but didn't find it very interesting. 

The New Shed

After a long wait, the construction on the new shed has begun.  Originally ordered in the early summer, it was several weeks until the contractor got to ours on his list of orders.  Then there were small problems like hurricanes and heavy rains in between vacations and trips to Haiti.  So, two weeks ago construction began, and the roof has been added since these pictures were taken.  It will house all of the garden tools, pots, the two electric mowers (one is battery), stakes, netting, and the other assorted materials. The first picture shows how it sits in behind the concrete retaining wall.

The picture on the left shows how it will look from the front porch.  This area is the closest we have to a back yard, since it includes the propane tank for the kitchen, the HVAC compressor, and the septic tank cover.  It is the most hidden from any road. This has been our vegetable plot for for ten years, but as the crape myrtle has gotten over twenty feet tall, it is casting too much shade. I am sure we will be planting bushes and vines to provide more screening once it is finished. 

The view from the side shows how it will actually hide most of the utility area from people who are walking the labyrinth, which will be very good.  I expect we will do something on the side with the door and windows to make it more friendly, but there is plenty of time to live with it over the winter before we decide upon anything.  It might even be possible to make a small, "secret" garden, with lots of shade which is very rare for our lot.  As long as we put in some fencing to keep out the long legged rodents that wander in from the nature preserve, we could grow some of those Hostas that David likes so much. 

September Showers bring October Flowers

Well, maybe that is not totally true since there are not a lot of new flowers to be seen.  All of that rain has had its impact, at least in keeping the grass green and growing much later than usual. In this early morning shot, the tops of the 'Karl Forester' grass glows in the nearly horizontal sunshine, a very nice complement to the over 7' tall Miscanthus sinensis 'Gracillimus' visible at the background.

To the left of the photo above, and to the left of the photo on the left, (I guess this proves I am really very leftist!) you can see the early fall color of the Parrotia persica.  This Persian Ironwood has been slowly and steadily putting up more vertical branches and has endured drought without  problems.  It doesn't change color all at once, so it provides a wide palate over several weeks.  Behind it, and to the right, is a Lespedezea Liukiuensis, or Bush clover.  The variety is "Little Volcano" and originally was bought at the National Arboretum sale 4 years ago.  The second year in this location, it has grown to 8 feet tall within the year.  We cut out the short, weak stems in March, and left in the tall ones.  Most of what you see is new sucker growth.  It would keep spreading out wider and wider without our digging out chunks in the spring and giving them away to neighbors.  The flowers are good for 3-4 weeks in the fall when little else is blooming, and leave a purple haze in the grass when they fall off.  Here is a close-up of the flowers.

Staying in a very similar color range is the Echinacea, Katie Saul, a new addition from Plant Delights Nursery.  This was just added this summer, and has already done much better than other Echinacea that we have had for years - I think it is time to give up on those that have continued to be disappointing with short blooming times and flowers that quickly became ratty looking.  I had read that breeders were pushing out Echinacea before thoroughly testing them, and from now on will only purchase them from nurseries like Plant Delights that test them before selling them to the public.  The local garden center has failed me a number of times in providing plants that are appropriate for our climate.  So, I am much more cautious about spending money there.

I am still undecided about this next plant, a lime green leaved version of Pheasant Berry, Leycesteria formosa - the label listed the formal variety as "Notbruce" while in large letters calling it Golden Lanterns.  Why not Bruce?  I have a personal interest in that!

It dies back to the ground in the fall, and only this year has it gotten quite sizable for its third year in the labyrinth.  It does create a spot of bright yellow-green, and the very top of the growth is stained with red.  The flowers do not start appearing until about the middle of the summer, and continue emerging at the plant grows larger.  The bracts are a purplish red and not particularly attractive close-up.  The seeds are supposed to attract birds, but I have not seen any birds eating them so far.  Some places warn that the seeds can get spread around and become invasive, which I have not seen yet, and if it begins, I will grub this out to avoid that happening.  Probably being on the edge of its hardiness zone will avoid that problem.  However, I am curious that if it really has the danger of becoming invasive, why was I able to buy it at the National Arboretum sale?  The deer have left it alone, which gives it an advantage since the deer regularly wander through for a snack. It is pleasant enough, and probably will be fine where it is growing - for now at least.

So, since I have not been keeping up with the blog as much as my readers have expected, I will throw in one last picture.  An arty shot of the sunrise sen through the flowering grasses.  This is one of the great pleasures of growing these tall grasses, along with seeing them sway in the wind, like the waves on the Chesapeake Bay.

After Irene

Yes, I know, Irene passed through at the end of August.  But amazingly, there was no significant damage to any of the gardens in the yard, and only a small hole poked into one porch roof by a falling branch.  Our next door neighbor told us that one branch was "planted" about 4 feet away from our sliding glass doors out of the basement.  We found a deep hole created by that branch.  Our neighbors moved it away, so the picture on the right may be it.  It was about 30 feet long, and the butt end was about 6 inches in diameter - amazing when I consider how far it must have traveled in the wind!

The front of the yard had shredded twigs, with leaves still attached, that had been pulverized by the heavy wind.  The leaves included both oak and tulip popular, and Mike from next door told me that he had looked out in the middle of the night and saw many of the trees between his house and the bay bent at 90 degrees!

The rain arrived first for 24 hours so that the sandy soil was saturated with water when the high winds hit.  Many of the trees were pushed over sideways ripping roots out of the soil.  But other trees had been damaged with some micro-burst patterns, because the trunks were severely twisted.  They had been wrung out like a washcloth, all twisted and splintered.  I am just as glad we were not at home when it all happened, especially since the power was out for a week.  Debbie, from next door, counted 26 trees across the road between our street and the main road.

There is one major improvement for us, thanks to Irene.  Many of the tall, weedy sumac trees that grow on the steep slope between our house and the "flats" were blown over.  This shot of a sailboat seen between the trunks of the crape myrtle show how much more open the view has become.  There is still one ugly sumac surviving. I do hate them because the roots are very in-effective in holding the soil in place, and they are constantly breaking off in much milder storms.  I don't have a picture of the wild cherry that is near the top of the hill, but the top of it was severely broken up.  While I like the cherry for the sake of the birds, the top keeps getting shattered in every wind storm.  Weak sucker growth fills in the top of the cherry, then it is partially broken or bent, and hangs there, slowly rotting before finally falling off.  We want to get a permit from the county to cut it down, and replace it with some smaller, deep rooted trees.  But I know the birds will miss feasting on all of those cherries as they ripen every summer.

 So, the labyrinth seems to have survived the heavy wind and rains.  I am very glad we put in the 10 tons of rock earlier, holding the soil in place at the top of the ravine.  There is fresh color from a new aster and echinea, and some of the foliage is turning colors in anticipation of the cooler temperatures.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  There are more photos to finish up for the next entry.