Buried in leaves

All fall I stood ready with rake in hand, poised to whisk away the leaves.* When I left town last week, the oak trees were stingily hanging on to their brownery, but when I returned, ALL THE LEAVES HAD DROPPED. So much later than previous years!

Unrelatedly, I keep meaning to make this note about one of the plants I put in this fall: I selected the Hydrangea paniculata Strawberry Sundae from White Flower Farms for my front garden because it was described in their catalog as needing full to partial sun. The label in the plant when it arrived, however, said "Shade or partial shade." Will it live? Will it die? Only time in full sun will tell.

*I wasn't exactly keen or particularly fastidious, but I had a general air of readiness, I'd say.

Fall tasks

I continue to grind away at the fall tasks. Raking and mowing even just a fraction of my yard made me very weary today. It would be more pleasant if it were a little warmer (high around 50 today) and I wasn't subjected to the incessant droning of leafblowers on properties in a who-knows-how-many-blocks radius. Seriously, it's all day long, and it gets to me. Fall is the worst, but it starts around March and doesn't stop till December or so. There was a vicious debate about leafblowers on the neighborhood website a couple weeks ago. People are crazy and cruel on both sides.

I noticed this morning that the anenome in front had white fluff on its stems, and on looking closer, I found the fluff to be covered in tiny delightful seeds. It would be lovely if this plant self-sows!

In addition to some rakin' and mowin' today, I pulled out some dead annuals (we had our first frost last week), and scattered some grass seed in a bald patch by the front door (same spot I planted grass a couple years ago - why did it die this summer?). And I pulled up one of my honey locust transplants in the pots - they looked dead, and sure enough it had not formed roots. Whatevs. Guess it would need some rooting medium were I to try this again. I did read that locusts are very aggressive spreaders, so it probably wouldn't need too much chemical encouragement.

White Flower Farm responded very promptly to my email about the moldy bulb (see last post), and noted that they were sold out of allium so could not offer a replacement, so they refunded me for the allium packet of 3, which I thought was very accommodating of them.

I took all my seeds from the past two years that I never planted - about 7 or so packs - and scattered those in the dirt between the artemesia and the phlox in the front. Don't have much optimism they'll come up in spring, but what do I have to lose? The packets included hot peppers, lavender, basil, portulaca, and parsley, that I remember. I was inspired by this missive from Pinetree Garden Seeds:

Fall is a great time to get a head start on annual and perennial flowers for the next gardening season. Direct sowing flower seeds in the fall can be beneficial to the busy spring gardener; we tend to have more time, weeds are not as much of a nuisance, no need to start them indoors under lights, and the flowers bloom earlier on more robust plants. Here are a few flowers that are best for fall sowing and these ones will often continue self-sowing each season.Sow the seeds when the ground is near frozen, after a killing frost, but before it snows.This keeps them from germinating so they can lay dormant until spring.
Choose a site and prepare soil 1-3 weeks before sowing seeds. Weed, cultivate shallowly and add compost.

​Mixing the seeds with sand can help with a more even distribution or simply sprinkle the seeds from the package over the ground. Water in the seeds or wait until rain is the forecast. Do not forgot to mark your spots so in the spring you can thin them out if needed and keep the weeds down.

Fall plantings completed, and my promiscuous locust tree

On Friday I stuck the last of the bulbs into the ground. A few weeks earlier I had planted my new hydrangea and peony, too, and while the squirrels targeted the site of the former, I am hopeful the root remains in the ground, ready for spring.

We haven't had a frost yet and the darned grass keeps growing, so I keep raking and mowing.

Unfortunately one of my allium bulbs was moldy. I should have looked at it as soon as it arrived a few weeks prior, but did not. I have asked White Farms whether a replacement is nonetheless possible. Anyway I planted the sad on lowest on the hill, for my future reference.

This shows where the allium bulbs went - in between these three salvia plants

To either side of the geraniums on one side of the sidewalk is where 12 of the daffodils went

And between and above the geraniums on the other side of the sidewalk went another 12

I was delighted to see that all 3 poppies (foreground) got leaves again after dying back in the hot summer! Can't wait to see how well they return next year.

Front yard

There is an interesting story about this tree, which I think is a honey locust breed without thorns. In my garden, close to the driveway, it appeared to have spawned a child. So I went to dig it up, and when I did so, I saw that there were several separate stems, so I assumed several seeds had sprouted.

Wrong! What I found was a big old root, presumably all the way from the mother tree, and four mini-trees had sprouted from it.

So I stuck the root in a vice and sawed all the sprouts apart, then stuck three of them in dirt in pots, and the fourth (below) in water. I thought, they may well die, but let's see if they grow roots.

A few days later, the one in water is on the verge of death. So I cut off the main root and will see whether the sprout alone forms roots. And probably the ones in the pots will die. Eh, whatevs.

Unrelatedly, my little baby peony in the back has done just fine so far.

Anenome, aster, and mystery purple flower

I don't know what this mystery plant is, in planters in downtown South Orange Ave., but it's lovely. UPDATE: this is globe amaranth, which is deer resistant!

The asters in the back plot have been blooming sooo much better this year than last year. I still don't love them, but I like them a little more.

The anenome! So perky and beautiful! Would love to have more of these.

Fairies and spiders and cat pee and whatnot

The serious business first: I have placed my order for spring bulbs, and a couple perennials to plant this fall. It did not come cheap, but these plants are, one and all, long-term investments for the front yard. I am not doing anything more to the back because with both walls falling down, this winter we will be plotting major renovations.

The hydrangea and peony are to fill some good-sized spaced in the front - probably on the back on the right side of the sidewalk as you're facing the house. Both are mid-sized plants with pink flowers that will offer some nice greenery even when not blooming, and they will not bloom at same time, so they can be close if needed. When I walked out there, though, there is a lot of open space. Might even put one of them on the left side.

The tulips are a small hardy variety that will hopefully be perennial.

Now for the more frivolous stuff: first, Emma and I made fairy houses for the back yard. Mine was sticks that I tried to weave together with vines and it was a good idea, but I needed more vines. Emma's was stones and things and she was not all bothered by the idea that it wasn't actually providing any shelter. I was very pleased with her imagination in this respect. She seemed pretty confident the fairies would figure it out.

How about this large creepy spider that made an enormous web over my back plot?

And my final PEEce (get it?) of news: some rude neighborhood cat sauntered around our patio and then PEED IN MY BACK PLOT. Pee just gushed out of this cat onto my begonias. I leapt to the solarium door and the interloPEEer was frightened away. It was traumatizing. For me, anyway. I don't know about the cat.

Quite a lot of migratory bird action in the bush today. I saw two Carolina wrens (together) and a Confusing Fall Warbler.

Late bloomer

The anenome has started to bloom! And the bloom is beautiful.

Garden Happenings

A few notes from my garden to keep in mind for next year:

• The basil from the Maplewood Garden Club plant sale has been great in the front. Oregano and rosemary also did fine there, but I used them farrrrr less frequently.
• The back plot needs more plants with height. The foxglove is good but short when not blooming.
• Begonias did great in the back plot and the lungwort has been a terrific performer.
• The front needs larger plants. I love the brachyscome and portulaca, but they're very small. 
• The verbena, of which I think I planted 5-7, did a great job filling in and bloomed all summer, so that's a winner if you can do enough of them to get a mass effect. But again, very short plants.

Anenome has still not bloomed, though buds have long been present

Basil, portulaca

Brachyscome, portulaca

The crepe myrtle is blooming

Lavender, artemesia, brachyscome

The mini-lilac is blooming again! Did not see that coming.

This is not from my garden - it is a fungus in the reservation. But isn't it pretty?

Nameless inspirations

This flower, at my mom's care home in England on Aug. 6, might be a cheery addition to my garden.

And while this is a wildflower in upstate New York on Aug. 20, I think it is the same one that blooms prolifically around the marshes to the west of NYC, which I looked admiringly at from a train in late July and early August.

Garden happenings

This unnecessarily large katydid was perched on the sun umbrella on our back patio a few days ago. By morning it was gone, much to my relief. Bugs....I don't love them.

Emma and I did some weeding, pruning, and deadheading today.

The salvia is having some secondary flowers so I deadheaded them to see whether that helps encourage more blooms. The dead heads had a ton of seeds - note for next year in case I want to save them.

This is the house on the east side of Wyoming Ave., just south of South Orange Ave., that has a lovely overflowing garden in front. I thought the pink flowers in the back were pretty and would look great in my garden. They're quite tall.

They had some echinacea leaning up against these unobtrusive little fences, which I thought was a good solution to the plants falling down as mine are.

This moth was on the outside of our solarium window a week or so ago, and I photographed its underside from inside the house. Pretty! Now go away, you creepy insect.

Finally, I spotted a purple finch outside the solarium this past week. No photo.

It's not safe to be a squirrel

A couple weeks ago there was a dead squirrel in our yard with one of its front limbs ripped off. Grisly. We called the town's animal control office and the very nice Melanie came and bagged it and carted it off. She suspected a fox killed it.

Today, a red-tailed hawk swooped onto the ground outside the solarium, and flew into a tree a few seconds later, then off northwards a few seconds after that. No time for a photo, but in going out to investigate, I found another dead squirrel. So either the hawk killed it and left it there, or the dead squirrel attracted the hawk. Melanie again came by and removed it. She was surprised to see no marks on it.

I think we all know how I feel about the squirrels so I'm just hoping that whatever is killing them likes it here. Welcome, squirrel assassin(s).

Gaps in the front landscaping

This pic just shows some of the spots where I could plant next year (and bulbs!) where there currently isn't anything.

Garden happenings

Despite earlier attack by what might have been a deer, the echinacea is now blooming beautifully.

And this is a balloon flower, which also got chomped on a while back but has likewise recovered. It is pretty but it looks way too much like the perennial geraniums that cover a lot of the bottom of the hill. Side note: this is one of the many species that did not appear on the list of things Birch Hill was going to plant, but here they are! 

Below some views of the front yard.

Verbena in front.

Again verbena. Portulaca on left. Lavendar and peony as you move back.

Artemesia, brachyscome, basil. The basil has been great. Lots of pesto!

Brachyscome and portulaca.

Portulaca.

Remember the late-blooming rhododendrons? Well hold onto your hat when you look at THIS: the magnolia tree is now blooming. IN JULY. It's the end of the world as we know it.

Forgive the photo taken through the window screen.