Oh horror! We’ve just got back from a month away. Someone’s been mowing the lawn while we were gone, but we’ve had quite a bit of rain and the temp has been high, so the beds are a JUNGLE. Many thanks to the nice people who have commented while I’ve been gone. I shall rejoin the human race when I get just slightly caught up with the weeds.
These are the seed heads of some 8-foot high Helianthus angustifolius that I have yet to cut down.
Yesterday, I looked out the window and they were shaking like crazy, although there was no wind. They were covered with American goldfinches, which obviously love the seeds.
Thom says, “Hey. There are thistle feeders in the back yard, you know.” But the birds didn’t seem to care.
I’ve decided I am weary of garden blogs that show everything perfect and weed-free. They are like Martha Stewart–making everywoman feel guilty, or the reason Nancy and I never visit the houses that are on show during the Holiday Tour of Homes. It’s all very well to show most plants only when they are in flower. That’s when most of them are most interesting. But the rest of the garden ought to be remembered when it looked terrible, so that we can enjoy it the more when it looks great.
This is the vegetable garden and shed this December, after 2 years of neglect during my arthritic hips stage. I have at least removed and replaced (in concrete, which goes against my grain) the near fence post on the left, although I haven’t yet replaced the lattice in the top half of the fence. This I need to do because a Zepherine Drouhan is destined to scramble through that fence as soon as it arrives at the end of the month
I need to get the vegetable garden ready to plant the pimientos de Padron in late February or early March. The soil is in lovely shape thanks to generous dollops of manure, compost, peat moss, newspaper, and pine straw. But trumpet vine invaded while the garden was unplanted last year, and is a monster to remove. I have (belatedly) planted sweet peas along the dog fence on the north side of the garden.
It’s now so late in the season that getting plants in the ground is more important than finishing the paving. On the right is the Yoshino cherry in flower with the ‘Nelly Stephens’ holly looking very tiny on its left.
This trellis (left) hides the mess around the back door from the patio. I decided it was unrealistic to think the back door’s surrounds would ever be attractive. It is where everyone washes paint brushes, and drops pipes, hoses, junk when coming in for a meal or escaping from the rain. Better to hide it than hope to tidy it up. The main vine on it is Bignonia ‘Shalimar Red.’
In retrospect, this was a mistake. Crossvine is native, and gets much larger than I realized until I saw one climbing 3 stories up the naked concrete wall of the parking lot at the South Carolina Aquarium. Two years later, I am still hacking it back twice a year to prevent it taking the roof off the house. Why does it grow toward the house instead of our toward the sun as I’d hoped? I need to replace it with something more manageable. I also stuck in some morning glories for a little rapid cover.
To the right is the planting area by the breakfast room steps. (I have already started tiling the steps.) It contains the Lady Banks rose (Rosa bansksiae), which has languished in the front bed for two years because it gets no sun, as well as Gelsemium Rankinii, (swamp jessamine, from Secret Garden).
This is native, but less common and larger-flowered than the Gelsemium sempervirens (Carolina jessamine or jasmine) which scrambles all over our pine trees in February and March. As its name suggests, it is supposed to like lots of water, which it won’t get here.
The little boxwood on the right hides the outlet from the a/c system.
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