End of November

As the active growing season settles down, the mood in the yard has shifted, with the view of the Bay opening up as trees lose their leaves, and the dominant color is no longer green.

Relationships between plants and sections shift, as the evergreens grow in prominence, the bare branches of the deciduous shrubs become transparent, and herbaceous perennials shrink down to the cluster of leaves at the base or disappear altogether.

The view from the path circling around to its end in the center shows some of the changes.  There are only a few leaves left on the Katsura, while the crape myrtle directly ahead is still dark green with leaves.  The very dark green of the Japanese cedars appears almost black, while the blue-green leaves of the false indigo at the bottom/front of the photo are losing intensity.  The two evergreens behind the crape myrtle are shifting.  The Dawn Redwood, just to the right of the crape myrtle is shifting color from green to bright brown, soon to a golden brown before the needles are dropped for the winter.  Then further to the right, the Franklinia has yet to move into its dominant winter role as the only large evergreen visible in the view to the Bay.   So, as the trees that block the view of the Bay during the summer become bare branches, other trees step forward.  Soon much of the foliage will need to be cleaned out, creating an openness that is refreshing.

Turing to the right, the mixture of shapes and colors of the border hedge along our neighbors yard attract much more attention.  The yellow-green of threadleaf false cypress, the narrow vertical shapes of the Sky Pencil hollies, the irregular masses of the Chesapeake hollies, the red berries of the Winterberries are all playing against each other.  The Osmanthus, which are still small and cannot be seen in the spaces in front of the white fence on the right side of this photo.  Eventually they will fill that area in with a mixture of green, white, and red accents. 

I will end with the view over the heather garden toward the Bay.  It is a mixture with a sprawling rosemary in the front, grasses, spirea, clethra, and all of the trees.

Remaining November Flowers

There are a few plants still producing flowers at the temperatures cool.  I suspect this Oxalis regnelli is a bit confused since it is supposed to only bloom in the spring time.  However, since it is barely winter hardy in the North Garden where it resides, there is a struggle in the spring for it to get going again.  Since it can be an aggressive and invasive plant in milder climates or locations, I am not bothered by how colder winters can radically reduce the size of the colony to a few plants. I am not sure whether to move any to the warmer sides of the house on the South and East, where it would likely be more of a nuisance. 

As the photo shows, the color of the leaves does shift to the more blue color seen in this photo in the fall, while the leaves display a much warmer purple along with warmer temperatures.

A plant in the North Garden finishing its first full season is Tinantia pringlei, the Speckled Wandering Jew, which I bought from Plant Delights.  It has been an amazing performer.  In this close-up shot, you can see the combination of features such as the dark purple stem, the freckles on the leaves, and the small pale flowers.  The plant has spread out about three feet in a low, loose mound with the stems mixing themselves into other plants, such as the Japanese painted fern in the photo.  I am hoping it will be winter hardy, and a few seedlings appear to try in other areas.

Over in the labyrinth, on a harsh site near the road, there is the Aster oblongifolius 'Fanny' which is also a new purchase from Plant Delights.  I have been trying to find more late fall blooming plants, and this is certainly the last aster to bloom, long after the native ones.  The descriptions in the catalog says it will eventually become quite large, but for its first year it has only grown to about 18 inches in diameter.  I like its loose, informal look, and look forward to seeing what happens next year.

Just so you don't think that I have a blue/purple bias for flowers, the dwarf reblooming German Iris Baby Blessed is putting on its late fall display.  I only wish I had these near those other blue flowers because I like combining blues and lavenders with this kind of light lemon colored yellows.  But this iris needs lots of sun, which would be a problem for the Tinantia and the Oxalis.  Once I get a sense of the final size of the aster, which does like sun also, I might be able to put the two together.

My final shot doesn't have any fall flowers, but it is doing so well, I just had to put it in.  It is an Agapanthus "Stevie's Wonder," also from Plant Delights, that started as a single plant.  It had a single flower stalk, with a long lasting cluster of flowers on the top in July.  David was quite surprised by it, never having noticed an Agapanthus before.  I fell in love with them from spending a month at the Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA where I did my training as a spiritual director.  It has developed at least three and maybe four plants, and they are going strong.

The Finished New Shed

So the contractor is done, and the new shed has siding, a roof, trim, and a door.  As this first picture shows, the majority of the walls are well hidden behind the retaining wall when viewed from the street.  I am particularly pleased that the Bay is still visible behind it.

While walking around the labyrinth, the shed is tucked behind the bush clover, and we expect to add more plantings along this side to further distract the eye from it.  Actually it does even more, since it is hiding all of the utility area on that side of the house, including the propane tank, compressor, electric meter, and septic tank cover.  While I don't particularly like the trim color on the house, which is a faded red color, they did a very good job matching it so that the visually fits into the same appearance.

The flower beds in the labyrinth area are slightly past their fall peak. We have begun trimming out the dying brown leaves and tops as the perennials pull back for winter.  The photo from this spot looks more like a jumble of plants, since only small sections of the grass path are visible.  I will show more of this with the next blog post.

Walking further back into the yard, the front of the shed becomes visible, along with the utility area.  There are a number of things we need to do, like putting blocks inside the front edge, so we can fill in the soil up to the edge of the shed.  We want to keep the soil out of contact with it to avoid rot.  The wood beams supporting the shed are laid on concrete blocks to keep them above the ground.  I am not sure what options there would be to prevent termites from climbing around them.  On the left side we also need to dig more soil out and put in a low retaining wall to keep the soil away from the side.  Of course, we now want to put in a nice, secret shade garden into the utility area, which is visible from the sun porch and kitchen sink.

Stepping further back, and looking up the hill, the shed now plays a very effective role of providing one of the most private areas of the yard.  The only other equivalent area is the North Garden, which I also consider a secret garden, since only one neighbor has windows overlooking it. This is much better since it has the view out toward the bay, shade from the crape myrtle tree in the morning, along with the nice sense of separation and enclosure from the shed.  Maybe we could put in a small patio area, which would double as a shed work surface?