Late November patchwork

It's almost Thanksgiving but we still have a few things in the garden adding some rich color. The Bald Cypress tree that thrives in a damp fence corner is gorgeous this morning with the sun shining on it. You can see the Red Twig Dogwood strutting its red, too. And on Rock Garden Hill, the sedums, yarrow and speedwell form a carpet of jewel-tones...so beautiful against the backdrop of the limestone and dried tallgrasses.

More bringing the outside in

A few weeks ago, we finally brought our favorite garden pot - a combination of lantana, coleus and ivy - inside for the duration. And it's not very happy inside. I've been cleaning leaves and flower petals off the hardwood floors multiple times each day. But I'm not ready to give up on it quite yet. The ivy will eventually be planted on the other side of the shed. And I'll take some cuttings of the coleus and try to keep them going until spring. It's hard to say good-bye to a favorite flowerpot!

More fall colors


The fall color is almost gone after a couple of frosts and several days of relentless wind, but I captured this last gasp of color from our front porch early in November as a rainstorm rolled in.

Gifts from the compost heap

We spent a few hours working to put the garden to bed this week, but a nice surprise from the compost heap has kept things looking spring-y for a while longer. When we raked Rock Garden Hill this spring, we filled the wheelbarrow with the debris and tossed it in our garden compost heap behind the garden shed. When we went to dump some of the pots the frost killed, we discovered a lush variety of sedum growing on the compost heap. I dug some of it up and popped it in the bare spots in our remaining pots. So now our deck doesn't look quite so naked. Who knows, maybe next spring, instead of a trip to our favorite nurseries, we'll go "shopping" at the compost heap.