Heather's Garden

CREEPY!

On this last day of September there are too many signs of the rapid approach of Halloween in my garden:

 

That's a morning glory leaf the spider's hiding beneath:

 

It's a beautiful web:

 

This is some of the last planting I'll do this year.  Rhododendron 'Purple Gem' and creeping jenny in matching containers flanking the front door (don't you love the slope of our parking area?):

 

This is hysterical...I clipped some basil and left it in water in a container on the kitchen table.  For weeks we grabbed from it as needed until one day I noticed that roots had developed on the stalks beneath the water.  Well I wanted some to grow in the kitchen over the winter, so I potted up 3 stalks:

 

The large vegetable garden around the corner is looking pretty sad:

 

Their zinnias are large, but they just scream fall to me: 

 

Crafty people must drive by and covet those drying cornstalks:

 

Are the signs of autumn in your garden throwing you into a fall funk like me?

IT FEELS LIKE HARVEST-TIME AROUND HERE

I am actually awed that I have red Red Peter peppers (try saying that sentence fast):

The Big Early Bell peppers are big, but they weren't that early: 

I still have eggplant blossoms (calendar-worthy?): 

 

And Ichiban eggplants:

 

Skip this one if you're squeamish.  I found this hanging off a branch on the tomatoes -- at least it's dead:

 

This is a much prettier photo -- I'm getting a second crop on the Husky Cherry tomato plant:

 

Isn't it interesting how 2 photos of the same subject can be so different in mood?  Taken about 20 seconds apart and of the same plant.  One reads spring:

 

The other fall:

 

The harvests are really slowing down:

 

But the veggie garden still looks good (ignore the pile for the compost bin in front of the hose cart):

 

I'm going to miss fresh tomatoes so much when they're done.

MUMS THE WORD (Blame VPH for that pun)

The carefully constructed annual containers were seriously lacking in color or excitement, so I ripped 'em out.  Remember how I put smaller, plastic containers upside down in the bottoms of the large ceramic planters?  Well I guess the annuals worked fine in an artificially shallow container, but they certainly were root-bound since they lifted out whole:

The zinnias were in a similar state and even stayed whole when I took out the upside down plastic pot:

 

The one thing I have blooming in abundance is dahlias.  The first Ebony Starr: 

 

 The Aitara Majesty in full bloom (and a pilsner glass for a sense of scale):

 

This has nothing to do with anything else, but I loved this tiny little mushroom at the base of my cherry tomato plant (that tree trunk on the left is what the cherry tomato stem looks like when I use my camera's macro setting):

 

So to bring this thing full circle...I needed some more color in the garden.  The 8 mums I bought not too long ago had to get into larger containers since I obviously can't remember to water them every day.  Note the new location for the birdbath and the lovely yellow mum in the former home of the zinnias:

I replaced the petunias in the hanging planters with mums:

 

And staked the dahlias more securely than they had been:

I know some people hate mums (Elizabeth), but at $10 for all 4 of the plants in this photo, you can't beat them for inexpensive late season color: 

I even put a mum in a hanging planter on the hook by the shed and filled up the bird feeder: 

 

Still to do...divide the creeping jenny and plant it and the 2 little rhododendrons, one each in matching containers on both sides of the front steps:

We still likely have a month until the first frost in this area, but with highs only hitting the low 70s and nights falling into the low 50s, it's definitely not summer anymore.  Windows closed, but no need for heat yet.  How is it in your neck of the woods?

ODDS & ENDS

It's been a busy week for me with not much time for gardening or photographing the garden.  However I do have a bunch of shots leftover from the weekend.  Wondering if I'll get sunflower seeds or not:

I love the pollen and raindrops on the dahlia petals: 

This might be a calendar shot, but is it too creepy with the bee all wrapped up in the foreground? 

Too bad this is a portrait-oriented photo or it would be calendar-worthy.  I may enter a photography competition this winter though and it might be a good shot to use: 

 

The ivy is nicely taking over this section of the fence: 

I took this photo to show how all the rain was splitting my tomatoes for the first time this summer, but now looking at it, I'm proud of my dirty thumbnail: 

 

Obviously I found this spider endlessly fascinating to photograph: 

 

I'm going to have to get back into the garden, not just to come up with new posts (and plant those darn mums), but also to recharge after this long week and get ready for another busy social weekend.

HOW TO CREATE A GARDEN FOR UNDER $100

The easiest way to create a new garden on the cheap is to have friends who are giving away plants.  That's how you end up with a trunk full of day-lilies:

Then if you wait just long enough you can get perennial plants for 20% off at the local nursery, but still have enough time before the first frost to get them established.  Let's cross our fingers that the Feather Reed Grass that I picked up on Friday thrives.  It was a tight fit, but all 5 containers fit in the back seat with yet more day-lilies from the best gardening friend ever...Mary:

 

We had just set the plants out in a likely configuration when it started to rain:  

VPH fled inside as I clicked away.  I figured I could stare at the photos all night and scheme away:  

  

It stopped raining early Saturday morning and we finally wandered outside around noon.  VPH started turning over the old wildflower patch which I will now call the patio garden:  

 

Look how lovely that soil is -- lots of worms: 

 

Then VPH mixed in a wheelbarrow of finished compost.  Or at least we think it's pretty much finished.  It was a little stinky before he turned it into the garden, but full of worms:

The other pass-along plants from Mary -- irises, lavender-colored reportedly:

 

We got the grasses in and the day-lilies planted (we divided the two largest clumps, but kept the medium-sized one as it was, making five clumps out of the original three) and planted them all before we called it a day: 

It's a little straight lines and balanced, but that's the kind of people we are, remember that the wildflower patch was too chaotic for us:   

The patio is a shambles (and filthy):  

A quick trip to Home Depot for mulch and an impulse buy of 2 trellises later, not to mention a surprisingly large amount of math and sweat expended on planting the irises, it's done:   

 

The reverse angle:

 

A few highlights...I left the open space in front to plant a river of bulbs in a month or so.  When they finish, I'm thinking this will be a good spot for a zucchini vine or two next summer.  The copper birdbath in the front of the photo was a humongous bargain at 75% off, could be because there was no stand, it's a little dented, and tarnished, but I don't care, I love it:

I also love that I was able to use the lily-pad stepping-stones that I already had.  Now I just need to decide what I want to grow up the trellises:

  

There are 4 groups of irises.  2 between the grasses along the wall here and two to the right of each of the day-lilies.  You can just see the tip of an iris poking out of the mulch above the birdbath:  

A better view of the stepping-stones.  We think the day-lilies will be pink and yellow with a possible red thrown in, we'll see:   

VPH said (and I agree) that the garden is very zen.  We spent about 20 minutes sitting just staring at it: 

It looks like a much larger space now.  I'm not sure what, if anything, I will do with that white trellis over there (I may also move it), but I'm thinking a row of sunflowers along the wall actually growing in the ground.  A shorter variety though:

It really did cost under $100 if you discount labor.  $12 each for the 2 trellises, $43 for the 5 grasses, $11 for the birdbath, and 7 bags of mulch at $3 each gives us a grand total of $99 for this beautiful garden:

 

Many thanks again to Mary for the day-lilies and irises.  I'll spend some money on bulbs, but I think I'll be treating them more like annuals than trying to naturalize them, so I'm not counting them in the total out-of-pocket expenses.  I'm happily taking suggestions for what to grow on the trellises (they're about 5 feet tall).  Remember I like low maintenance.

LET ME BRIGHTEN UP YOUR DAY

Another dahlia is finally in bloom.  This one is the Platinum Blonde:

And two days later:

 

Now it and a few of my other dahlias seem to be covered in ants.  Should I be worried?  Should I do something about it?

This Aitara Majesty dahlia is so close to blooming for the first time: 

 

Some of my containers look like crap after 5 months.  Time for some new color.  At 4 for $10 I decided there were 8 mums that had to come home with me: 

This mum bloom (lower left side of the above photo) looks so much like a dahlia:

This bell pepper pool made me smile imagining it as a watering hole for the bug population: 

This creepy spider was on the underside of a Red Peter pepper leaf: 

And the last bit of color is Wednesday's harvest.  The red bell pepper from above, 4 Brandywine Pink tomatoes, beans, dahlias, and zinnias make for a colorful composition: 

 

And pretty tasty meal or two!  We're knee deep (well ankle deep at least) in planting the new patio garden, so I should have a pretty good post for you Monday morning.

VPH'S BIG DAY

Careful readers will already know that I've pretty much made up my mind to get rid of the wildflower patch.  But making that decision and actually pulling out the plants are altogether different.  Every time I went out to the patio the ever expanding wildflower patch threatened to attack:

 

It was so bad here that you couldn't sit in the chairs at the table: 

 

So I asked VPH to pull it out while I was at work the other day.  He started by pulling out the birdbath (could the bowl be any nastier?):

 

Despite lots of pouring rain, VPH, as usual, got the job done: 

So now I have this space that is 15 feet wide and almost 5 feet deep.  I'm thinking perennial flower garden.  My friend Mary has a bunch of day-lilies already dug up waiting for a home.  I have that bee balm from Layanee, an astilbe that really wants to be out of the pot it's currently in, and then I'm thinking I'll invest in a bunch of perennial grasses along the back of the bed to hide the ugly foundation (note how the stucco follows the old pitch of the yard) and allow me to reach all the way into the bed to weed:

VPH is so good that when I came home I found this...the last of the wildflowers:

And this...ratatouille with our own tomatoes, eggplant, and red pepper (only store-bought zucchini): 

  

He's such a good husband!

I'VE HEARD THAT THEY CAN BE INVASIVE

I noticed Sunday that the morning glories had spread to the wind-chime hanging on the trellis that they call home:

I had a lot of fun taking shots from different angles: 

Lots of lines and colors and shadows: 

From below:

I can't decide if this is my favorite shot:  

Or if this is:

What do you think?

WE MADE IT THROUGH THE STORM

Tropical Storm Hanna (and the thunderstorm that preceded it Friday night) brought us 5 inches of rain in about 24 hours.  There were high winds, but other than a few downed branches:

 

And a near miss or two:

 

The biggest inconvenience was a 30-second power outage during Hanna.  Best of all my tomatoes seem to have come through unscathed:

  

They're good and bent, but no fruit lost:

  

Even the jungle mess looks good in its own way (on the left you can see a glimpse of the white trellis I picked up cheap at WalMart -- stay tuned for its intended home):

I just loved the different textures on this eggplant blossom and leaf: 

 

And the funky shapes of the Red Peter Peppers: 

  

Most of all I'm loving the ongoing harvests we're getting from our little veggie garden:

   

And yes, that's this year's first red pepper, carefully harvested before Hanna hit because after watching it ripen for a month I wasn't taking any chances!

IT STARTED OUT RAINY

The holiday weekend started out with a rainy Saturday morning, but the remainder was glorious.  I took some photos of the garden mid-day Saturday and then spent the rest of the weekend doing nothing, which is what Labor Day is all about. 

The sunflowers are really enhancing the view from our favorite late-summer sunning spot:

The sunflowers also provide endless opportunities to photograph bees: 

That really tall dahlia finally bloomed, I'll have to check the label and see which one it is: 

The micro-mini is going strong:

I like how they look as they age: 

I realized I haven't shown you yet that the heather plant is thriving (not to mention the rosemary next to it): 

And the various shade plants in containers are also holding up quite well: 

That's about all the effort I feel like putting into anything other than grabbing the aloe to sooth my slight burn.  Hope your weekends were as lazy as ours.