We have had the most idyllic weather the past week. I finally found time to spend in the garden. Most of it has been clean up and raking leaves. I still have a lot of color, from summer annuals, fall and winter annuals, fall foliage, and late blooming plants. What is in bloom in your garden?
My more tender summer annuals need to go asap, they are ugly and need to be replaced with winter color. Even though we only had a light frost one day, several species of coleus, pentas, and periwinkle all got zapped and need to go.
Some species of coleus were undamaged, as are several species of impatiens
and the cupheas
look untouched.
I still have plenty of flowers on mandevilla and hibiscus,
and the geraniums are loving this weather,
rebounding with lots of new blooms. Even one of my orange echinacea decided to make a late season comeback.
Many of my container plants on the deck continue to thrive and bloom. My cape honeysuckle, Tecoma capensis
is loaded with buds and I have quite a few open blooms. It was light orange when I bought it,
and now I have pale orange to reddish orange blooms on the same plant. I have late blooms on roses,
plenty of open blooms with tons more to come on my tea camellia and the sasanqua camellia,
and the pineapple sage is in full bloom.
The love/hate relationship with the invasive clerodendrum (Harlequin glorybower) is in my love stage.
I just adore these blue seeds with the pinkish red calyx. I just wish it didn’t spread quite so readily.
I was thrilled to find my first saffron crocus in bloom this week,
with more to come. I thought the squirrels and chipmunks had eaten them all when I found several half-chewed after planting. To my surprise, some survived. Kyle harvest some of the saffron strands. Now you know why saffron is so expensive. Can you imagine picking this commercially? I have tons of bulbs to plant, and I need to get them in the ground before I plant my winter annuals.
I typically leave the spent blooms on my big leaf hydrangeas for late fall and early winter interest. Look at the intense color they have turned at the end of this season.
The panicle hydrangea blooms are only brown, but I do have some nice yellow fall foliage on them.
Speaking of fall color, I think we are having one of the prettiest falls in recent years. I have great color on Japanese maples
and dogwoods, but even my common post oaks are a nice yellow this year and the crape myrtle foliage is stunning. Go take a drive to enjoy even more fall color.
I hope you have had time to enjoy your garden this week. There is plenty of work to be done, from raking and cleaning up, to planting, harvesting and WATERING. I have had to water my containers almost daily with the warmer, sunnier weather, but even the raised bed vegetables got a needed drink. Happy Gardening, it is definitely weather to make gardeners happy.