GBBD: Before the Frost

It can't be October 15 already!  Where has the month gone??  We've had so many warm sunny days since the end of summer that I have been lulled into a sense of complacency that it will last forever.  Fall clean-up chores have been put off--it's hard to pull up annuals when they're still blooming.  Spring bulbs arrived last week, but my habit of planting bulbs usually involves a biting wind and layers of sweatshirts, not temperatures in the 80's.  But the forecast for later this week indicates a change is in the air; it's time for me to stop procrastinating and get serious about gardening once again.  It's also means I need to take some time to enjoy the last blooms of the garden while I can.

One of the highlights of the garden this fall has been this Encore Azalea.  Both plants, gifts from Southern Living, have been covered in blooms for the past few weeks.  They're still babies, but if they continue to bloom like this as they grow in the coming years, I will be thrilled.

I've often complained sadly noted that my one Japanese Anemone, planted a few years ago, has never bloomed.  Much to my delight, I discovered that I was wrong!  Looking more closely at the arbor bed one day, I discovered it was doing just fine, just blooming later than I expected.  I'm not sure if this is 'Honorine Jobert' or 'Robustissima,'  but I really don't care--I'm just excited to see it finally blooming.  One thing I do know, however, is that it's hidden behind some taller plants--some moving around needs to be done so that it can be better appreciated.

The ubiquitous 'Stella D'Oro' lilies have put out a few last gasps.  I usually have a couple of re-bloomers in the fall, but this is the only daylily that has re-bloomed this year.

The days are numbered for the annuals, in particular, as a killing frost could come any day now.  Most of the containers are looking pretty shabby anyway.  I've replenished a few with fall annuals like pansies, kale, and mums, but I'm going to let most of them fade/freeze away so I can clean them out.  Say what you will about mums, I like them for their fall color.

The containers that still look the best are the ones filled with coleus.  Wish I could remember the name of this one because it's been my favorite with deep magenta leaves that turn almost black in the center.  I'm glad I remembered one of the lessons learned last fall and planted several containers focusing on foliage rather than blooms.

While the coleus are doomed to go with the first frost, the impatiens protected somewhat on the porch wall may last a little longer.  I've planted this living wreath with a bargain flat of impatiens for several years now, but it's never done as well as this year.  Even though it's looking a bit bedraggled now, it has been full of blooms all summer.

The Hyacinth Bean Vine has a few blooms and its distinctive purple pods, though it never turned into the monster it usually becomes.

While many annuals have seen better days, the lantana is looking even better than earlier in the season.  This is my favorite annual for hot, dry summers.

A volunteer petunia, whose origins remain a mystery to me, is still putting out some blooms in the arbor bed.

And of course, there are still zinnias!  While cleaning up the roadside garden one day, I got distracted by two Monarchs flitting about.  I was so in awe of two Monarchs at once that I completely forgot what I had set out to do. They floated from one flower to another, but always landed on the zinnias--reason enough to plant these old-fashioned favorites.

The arbor bed is full of 'Victoria' Salvias--the 'Blues' were mostly planted from seedlings this spring, but all the 'Victoria Whites' are volunteers. Probably my favorite fall annual--it will take a hard freeze before these pretties finally lose their appeal.  And in front of them, of course, is the annual I've bragged about so much this year, the 'Zowie Yellow Flame' zinnias.  These have been blooming nonstop--and with very little deadheading from this lazy gardener--since the end of July.

As if you need further motivation to plant these gorgeous zinnias, the butterflies love them.  The Red Admirals and a few other butterflies have made a late arrival here, and I'm enjoying them, too, for as long as possible, knowing that it won't be long before they head for warmer climes.

While it's only a matter of time before the frost claims all the annuals, there will still be some color in the garden for awhile.  'October Skies' asters are full of light blue/lavender blooms right now.  I don't often show a fuller shot of this late perennial--ignore the weeds, please!--but I wanted you to get the full effect of these mounds of blooms.

Love these blue blooms--and so do the bees!

Another late fall favorite--the Beautyberry--is full of lavender berries.

Late fall is also peak time for the grasses. 'Morning Light' Miscanthus will be waving in the breeze not only after the frost, but all through the winter.

How is your garden doing this fall?  Stop by May Dreams Gardens where our hostess Carol welcomes all to join in this monthly celebration of what is blooming on Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

The Weekend That Wasn't (And other gardening disappointments)

Photo courtesy of cityofgalena.com.

I apologize to everyone for not visiting the past few days, but I was supposed to be gone for a long weekend with my husband. The key word here is supposed, because as it turned out, I was gone for less than 24 hours. My husband, who really, really needs a vacation but is not easily persuaded to leave home, and I had made an impulsive decision to take off for the weekend. I've always wanted to visit Galena, Illinois, which is described as a quaint town overlooking the Mississippi River with historic buildings and interesting shops. It's about a four-hour drive from our house, which meant we would have almost three days to spend just relaxing and enjoying the sights. Other than seeing Galena, we had no set itinerary, so if something else struck our interest, we could change our plans and see where the road took us. We left Thursday morning, in no hurry to get anywhere, taking a spontaneous turn off the highway onto more scenic back roads to visit a site along the way and to have a relaxing lunch in a German-themed cafe. But about an hour from Galena, my husband received a call that he had to return to work the next morning to take care of an important work-related situation.


"What do you mean we have to turn around and go home???" I couldn't believe it, but there was nothing else he could do. To describe my disappointment is beyond my scope of writing talent here. It wasn't my husband's fault, but let's just say he suffered my silent rage. We had just come to the Great River Road, a highway that winds along the eastern edge of the Mississippi River, but instead of enjoying the sights, my mind raced between thoughts of alternatives--including dropping my husband off at the nearest bus station to find his own way home--and the frustrating realization that the weekend I had anticipated was not going to materialize.


By the time we got home that evening, I had sunk into a morass of self-pity that lasted for at least 36 hours. Friday morning I awoke still feeling blue, but left my suitcase packed in the hopes that Husband would come home from work saying, "let's take off today anyway." But, of course, he didn't, and a couple other distressing issues came up Friday that compounded my mood. I felt so bad that I didn't even want to read blogs, which shows you how down in the dumps I was! I slept a lot, watched a couple of movies on TV, and refused to cook. Husband tiptoed around me all day, needless to say.


Life is full of disappointments, of course, and I know none of you want to listen to me wallow in self-pity, so I thought I would turn my disappointment into a topic you can all relate to--gardening disappointments. . .How's that for a segue?!






This past spring when Beckie and I attended some gardening workshops at a local garden center, I saw these scalloped wire baskets on sale and thought I would try something new this year instead of the pre-planted hanging baskets I usually buy. To plant these, you must buy some kind of liner; in this case, the center had moss liners that were pre-formed to fit this basket. Unfortunately, I only picked up one, and when I went back all I could find were the thicker cocoa mats sold in most stores.

I filled each planter with potting soil and added some slow-release fertilizer. I planted a few "Priscilla" Supertunias, Euphorbia "Diamond Frost," and Sutera "Cabana Trailing Blue" in each one. However, planting these was not as easy as it looked. According to the instructions, you can cut a hole in the sides of the mat and "side plant" for a fuller look. The Sutera, a small flowering vine, was perfect for this, I thought, but it's not easy to cut a hole in the side and stick in the plant far enough to take root without losing a bunch of soil. And the thicker cocoa mats were so thick I had to use a boxcutter, and even then had trouble getting through all the thicknesses. After cutting that mat to fit the basket, I decided to forget about side planting and plant everything in the center of that basket.


I wish I could show you a beautiful end result, but I can't. At the moment these two baskets are looking pretty "fried," so the only picture I have is one I took about a month ago. The Priscilla petunias took off pretty well, but I think I almost killed them with too much fertilizer a month ago. At the moment, the euphorbia and the sutera are really growing, but the petunias look as though they're dying. Frankly, they've never looked the way I expected. To top it off, the planters were so heavy that anytime it rained, they bent the shepherds' hooks they were on all the way to the ground. Considering the work and the money spent on plants for these baskets, I think next year I'll go back to buying my usual pre-planted ivy geraniums and just plop them into these baskets!






At the same time I bought these baskets, I also bought this "living wreath" frame. The wire frame comes complete with a moss liner. To plant it, you pop off the wire top and take off the moss topper.











Fill the inside with potting soil and add some slow-release fertilizer. Once the soil is firmly in place, you replace the moss topper and the wire top, and you're ready to plant. You must poke holes in the moss--I used a scissors--which is much easier to work with than the thick cocoa mats. You can side plant--again for a fuller effect--but I found that a little difficult, so I stuck with placing plants at different intervals around the top to fill the wreath as much as possible.

I purchased a flat of hot pink, almost violet impatiens for the wreath, and it took all 36 plants to fill the wreath. You could use any small plant you wish, but this was the sample I saw at the garden center, and I liked the finished result. The instructions that came with the wreath form weren't very clear, so I checked out some websites for more specific instructions and found many other ideas for plantings. One of the most popular was to use small sedums instead. Of course, this would be much more expensive, but perhaps you could keep the wreath for years--don't take my advice on that; I'm just guessing.

Again, the end result was not exactly what I had hoped for. I took this picture just a few weeks after planting the wreath, so it has filled out somewhat since then. But I imagined this wreath full of masses of pink blooms, and that has never happened. I've watered it frequently--a trick in itself--but the impatiens have never bloomed in the way that they usually do for me. It's hanging on my front porch, and from a distance it looks like a wreath of moss, which is not all bad, I guess. I'm not quite as disappointed in it as my baskets and will probably try it again next year. Any suggestions for increasing the blooms, though, would be appreciated!

One more, definitely minor disappointment . . .the hosta buds I showed for Bloom Day a week ago opened into these beautiful flowers on Thursday morning. I saw them but was in too much of a hurry packing for my "long weekend" to take a photo. When I thought of them again this morning and took out my camera, the blooms were already fading. Oh my goodness, one really has to "seize the day" with these blooms! The good thing, though, is that another hosta of the same variety has yet to open its buds, so I will be ready with camera in hand for that one!

To leave you with a more uplifting note, I think I have found one sure cure for a minor case of the blues. Last night I made up my mind to finally go see the movie "Mamma Mia." I was all set to go by myself because no one else was available and I thought I'd punished my husband enough. But at the last minute my oldest granddaughter, who turns 13 on Tuesday, said she'd like to go with me. She likes musicals almost as much as I do and in the last year has become my "theater date." Although the critics--mostly male, I think--didn't like the movie, I thought it was the most enjoyable movie I've seen in a long time. An upbeat plot, great music, and some comic scenes make you forget any troubles you might have and will have you leaving the theater with a smile on your face, humming the title song. Colin Firth didn't have as big a part as I had hoped, but he was still pretty funny and endearing. Pierce Brosnan can't sing, but who cares! I give him three stars for trying anyway. If you're one of the last women in the country, like me, who hasn't seen the movie, by all means take the time and see it before it leaves the theater.

And now I'm off on another trip, one that won't disappoint me--visiting all the people in Blog Land that I've missed lately. Oh, and I need to unpack that suitcase.