While eating breakfast this morning, my wife and I observed a red-tailed hawk perched on the tree lilac (Syringa reticulata), only a few feet from our kitchen window. This low branch is not an ordinary perch for hawks that are ever present soaring high above the garden, though with most trees bare in late November the…
Category: gardening
Opps, what about the aconites
Earlier, I mentioned that alliums and Dogtooth violets (Erythronium ‘Pagoda’) were planted over the weekend. More time was spent trying to figure where they should go than time spent planting, but that’s behind me with a lesson learned (unlikely). Now, the thought has occurred that in early spring I planned, but later failed to order fifty…
Planting alliums
Several hours have been spent on this cool and blustery Saturday planting an assortment of alliums, though only an hour in digging. I fear I have miscalculated, and too many bulbs have been ordered for the too few sunny spots available for planting. Not that my schedule is hopelessly backed up, but time has been…
An annual chore
As certain as winter’s cold and summer storms, leaves will fall in autumn to cover much of the garden. Now, I must plan to mow, rake, or shred to remove a large portion of the leaves that drop from the forest that borders the southern edge of the garden, and the dozens of trees that…
A splendid start to November
At the start of November, the garden shows mixed results from recent frosts and a single night of twenty-eight degrees. While brightly colored leaves of ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) and blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica) have fallen, stewartia (Stewartia pseudocamellia, above) has only recently changed color, and it is as lovely as in any autumn. Earlier, I observed…
Purple and white, on one bush
The purple beautyberries (Callicarpa dichotoma, above) berried heavily in the garden this year, while I’ve observed that fruits on white berried types were a bit more sparse. White berries on the variegated beautyberry ‘Duet’ (below) are barely seen, even with a heavy crop, due to the exceptional vigor that hides the small berries, and due to…
The colors of autumn
Most likely I’m mistaken, but around here it seems that autumn foliage colors are late and more muted than usual. Until the past week there was not much at all to see, but now, after a week of cold, dogwoods (Cornus x ‘Celestial Shadow’, below) have turned to crimson, and just about everything else, to…
The garden’s ponds in early autumn
I don’t write often about the garden’s ponds because nothing particularly exciting happens from month to month. Typically, there are a few dozen new hatchling fish in spring, irises and pickerel weeds that appear and begin to spread by late spring, and then sometime in autumn the ponds must be covered with nets so they…
Sadness and late October flowers
This is a sad day. For several years I’ve anticipated the demise of the Franklin tree (Franklinia alatamaha, below), and finally this treasure has been cut down and chopped into pieces to be burned along with twigs and branches that have accumulated in piles through the year. The cause for the death is uncertain, though…
28 degrees
Damage from frost was slight in this garden. Caladiums and heliotrope shriveled in the cold (as the gardener should expect when these are left outdoors), but there was little injury to flowers of azaleas and hydrangeas. The freeze the next night was a different matter. Flowers of Encore azaleas wilted, and blue hydrangeas (above) turned…
Frost and freeze
Gardening would be so much easier if the complications of everyday life did not intervene. Cold temperatures often come suddenly in autumn. Occasionally, I am surprised by a forecast of frost, and hours are spent one chilly evening lugging dirt covered pots of elephant ears and agaves into the basement. Not this year. The forecast…
Finally, a final update
I suspect that family and friends (and readers?) possibly grow weary as this impassioned gardener prattles on about one plant collection or another. Certainly, others cannot be expected to share this enthusiasm, but with the garden moving into autumn, with frost soon approaching, the gardener is compelled to offer one final update on his assemblage…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 