Indoor Gardening

Most of my gardening this time of year is the indoor variety.  Yesterday, I visited a local garden center that has a fabulous after-Christmas sale:  50% off everything in the store.  Since the sale had been going on all week, the pickings were slim.  I did, however, treat myself to an orchid.  I hope I can keep it alive.

I have a whole baker's rack of potted plants.  They spend the summer on the front porch, and the winter in the kitchen in front of the French door.  The ones that don't fit on the rack spend the winter in the living room, so we dodge large fern fronds while navigating in there.  The challenge is to keep everything well-watered while they're indoors, without overflowing and spilling water all over the floor. 

It's nice to have plants in the house in the winter.  Helps with the cabin fever that sets in when the days are short and cold, and there's very little that's green outdoors. 

Long-term forecast

This fall, I read a weather forecast for the coming winter.  The prediction was for a warmer and drier than usual winter.  Really?  So far we've had two snow storms in December, which is two more than we usually have.  The high temperatures have been running about 20 degrees below normal, too.  The ponds are frozen over, and the streets are still icy.  So, let's see how that forecast holds up for the rest of the winter...

White Christmas

We traveled to visit family the week before Christmas.  Our mid-Atlantic loop began last Saturday with a  drive up to Virginia, across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, up the Eastern Shore to Mom's cottage near Rehoboth Beach, DE.  We spent a couple of days there with her, including one day at Rehoboth and one day at Chincoteague NWR in Virginia.  Next, we drove north the entire length of Delaware, to visit my in-laws just north of Philadelphia. Finally, back down to Virginia, to my mom's house in the DC suburbs.  After a lovely visit, we bolted home Christmas morning, ahead of the oncoming blizzard.  We had great traveling weather until the last hour.  We drove that last hour through driving snow, which continued into the night.  After a relaxing Christmas evening watching old movies on TV, we woke up this morning to over four inches of snow.  It's quite the winter wonderland out there! 

This holly tree is in our front yard.  Every spring and summer it's home to at least one robin's nest.  In the winter, it's full of beautiful berries.  Usually in the middle of the winter, we're visited by a flock of cedar waxwings for a few days.  They devour the holly berries and the berries on the Bradford pear, then they're gone, as suddenly as they appeared.  I just hope they come on a weekend, so we'll be able to enjoy the show!

That's all, folks.

You're looking at the entirety of my holiday decorating.

The Circle of Life, Again

We found this poor soul on top of the mailbox recently.  It's highly unlikely that its demise was due to natural causes.  I'm thinking somebody's dinner was interrupted.  There's a red-shouldered hawk that lives nearby, and dozens of blue jays, and several barred owls.   Now that the leaves are off the trees, birdwatching becomes a lot easier.  Maybe next time we'll catch the whole act, not just the remains.

Frost

We had our first hard frost last night.  As soon as the sun came up, I went out to try to get some photos.  The knockout roses in the front yard seem to be my go-to subjects.  Today they were salted with ice crystals. 

Even though the leaves have been changing (and falling) for weeks, the first good frost really brings home to me the changing of the season.  Today it came with the time change from daylight savings to standard time.  Very appropriate.  Winter is on the way.

My orchid is blooming!

I brought my houseplants in last weekend.  They spend the summer on the front porch each year, and I try to remember to bring them in before the first fall frost.  Most of them live on the baker's rack in the kitchen by the window.  The rest are in the living room.  When I brought them in last weekend, I noticed a lovely new shoot on the orchid.  Yesterday there was a flower scape with three buds.  Today--beautiful flowers!

I used to know what kind of orchid this is, but the label faded and so did my memory... I've had it for at least ten years.  It blooms most years, always in the fall after it comes inside.

For the record, no frost yet, though we've had a few nights in the low forties.  Our usual frost date is around October 20, so any day now I'm expecting to wake up to a sparkly white lawn.

Food Web

This is an indoor story.  About critters and not plants.  Crickets, in fact.  I hate them.  They invade the garage in the late summer, and occasionally find their way into the basement.  But not for long.  The day AFTER we dusted and vacuumed, I noticed a small spider web in the corner, between the last step and the basement floor, right in front of the door to the garage.  So I told myself I needed to get the broom and take care of it.  As soon as I got upstairs, of course, I completely forgot about it.  Next day, repeat.  The next day, however, there were cricket parts on the floor below the web.  Ha!  So Charlotte has a home in my basement as long as she wants.

Magic Lily

Once again, my garden has surprised me.  Every year I forget about the magic lilies, which, I suppose, is the whole point.  All of a sudden, one day in late August or early September, there are lilies blooming in the front bed and out near the mailbox.  The flowers are not preceded by leaves, which is why they're such a surprise.  If I remember correctly, the leaves will come up after the flowers are gone, which is completely backwards, compared to every other bulb out there.

The lilies were planted by the former owners of our house, in amongst the daffodils.  I've seen them planted with daffodils elsewhere, too, naturalized in a large wooded area in a public park nearby.  This seems like a smart strategy--they bloom at different times, and having them together makes it less likely to dig them up by mistake.  They sometimes end up traveling together--I think I managed to plant some in the front bed when I separated and moved the daffodils from around the mailbox.

They're a nice development, since the garden is looking somewhat exhausted at this time of year.  It's been mercilessly hot and humid all summer, with very little rain.  These lilies are a welcome sign of life and energy right now. 

Hot, Hot, Hot

Things are winding down in the summer vegetable garden.  The tomatoes and beans are pretty much done.  The cukes and zukes have suddenly crashed--one day they were green and happy, and the next morning they're turning brown and shriveling up.  The peppers and eggplants, however, are very happy.  This afternoon I picked a huge bowlful of all kinds of hot and sweet peppers.  In the picture, from the top, are Giant Marconi (sweet Italian pepper), Poblano (hot!), Anaheim (first one, so I don't know what they're like), Jalapeno, and Golden Baby Belle (tiny yellow bell pepper). 

Last weekend we made salsa with some Poblanos and the last of our Roma and Yellow Pear tomatoes.  Today, I'm going Italian.  I'm going to cook the Marconis, bell peppers, eggplant, and the last of the yellow squash with a few cans of diced tomatoes.  It'll make a lovely dinner and I hope we'll have enough to freeze some for later.

Goldfinches

There seems to be a rule that all suburban mailboxes (the ones out at the curb on a post) must be surrounded by some sort of flower bed.  At least that's how things are in my neighborhood.  My mailbox bed philosophy is that if it survives without me watering it, it's good.  This mindset leads me to choose mostly native perennials for out there--since they're supposed to be used to surviving our summers (and winters) without any assistance.  Coneflowers (Echinacea) are one of the most reliable performers in midsummer.  The best thing about them is that, just when the flowers are almost gone and the plants are setting seed, they are almost constantly decorated with goldfinches!

Goldfinches are small, seed-eating birds.  During the summer, the males are bright yellow with black wings and a black cap.  The females and winter males are duller and greenish, without the black cap.  They're beautiful birds, and they come in great flocks (we've had up to 45 at one time) to the feeders in winter.  In the summer, they travel in smaller groups, and they LOVE coneflower seeds.  Most days as I'm sitting in the driveway, waiting for the garage door to open or close, I can watch the goldfinches.  If I'm working outside, I can always hear them coming and going.  Unlike most birds, goldfinches sing while they're flying, which always makes me smile. 

Every year, I relearn the same lesson:  just when I think it's time to cut back the coneflowers because they're done flowering, the goldfinches arrive to remind me that there's more to a garden than just pretty flowers.

Only Mostly Dead

In April 2009, I planted two palm trees in my front yard.  I was assured by the guy at the farmer's market that they were cold hardy.  They seemed to make it through the winter just fine, even under quite a bit of snow.  When spring came, however, they both dropped all their leaves and looked completely pitiful.  Since I'm such a pathetic gardener, I just let them sit there all spring and summer.  I kept meaning to dig them up, or at least cut off the dead leaves, but, well, I never did. 

Last week I was looking at the website for the Southeastern Palm Society.  There I found out that some palms do drop all their leaves after a harsh winter, but that all hope may not be lost.  I need to cut off all the dead leaves, and maybe it'll sprout new ones by the end of the summer.  Really?  That's cool.  Sloth can be a good thing.  This weekend, I finally got around to excavating one palm from under the black-eyed susans, only to find a new leaf!  Yay!  The other one (out in the middle of the yard) has no signs of life yet, but I'll be patient for a little longer.  At least I cut off all the dead leaves, so it doesn't look so neglected.

Figs

This house came with a fig tree.  When we moved in nine years ago, it was more of a fig bush--about four feet tall, planted right up against the southwest corner of the house.  Apparently it's a good spot, fairly well protected from winter nastiness and exposed to a good amount of sun; we completely ignore it, yet the thing is now taller than our two-story house.  We can pick the figs while standing on the second story deck.  We also share the figs with lots of local wildlife.  The figs are just beginning to ripen, but the squirrels and cardinals can't wait.  It looks like every almost ripe fig is half-eaten, or at least has a few pecks.  The squirrels even leave the rinds on the deck railing (along with little piles of squirrel droppings).  Thank you so much.

Once the figs really start to ripen, we'll have enough to share with the critters.  So what do we do with figs?  My husband likes to eat fresh figs, but he's the only one in the house who does.  I've taken a bowl to work to share.  We also dry them--just cut them in half and put them on the dehydrator for a day or two.  Dried figs are pretty good in trail mix.  The owner of our local gelato shop said she'd make a batch of fig gelato if we brought her a kilo, so that's another option.  If I were really ambitious I'd look for fancy recipes, like figs wrapped in prosciutto.  But it's almost time to go back to school--so I'll probably just leave them to the squirrels.

Garden Salad

Today's dinner was accompanied by a fresh garden salad.  Here's the recipe:  go out to the garden and pick a cucumber, some yellow pear and grape tomatoes, and a sprig of basil.  Wash, peel, slice, etc.  Drizzle with olive oil and red wine vinegar.  Add a few grinds of salt and black pepper.  Enjoy!

How hot is it?

It's so hot that the lace cap hydrangea is wilting.  Every day.  Even if I water it every day.  I give up.  I've moved it a couple of years ago, to a shadier spot, but that hasn't helped.

It's so hot that the purple basil is bleached white.  I turned the pot around so the purple plant is on the shadier side.  We'll see what happens.

It's so hot that the only thing to do is to sit inside with a big glass of iced tea.  What's better than homemade iced tea?  Homemade peach iced tea made with the syrup from last summer's canned peaches.  Mmmmmm. 

Hope it rains soon.

Sadness

For the last few weeks, my family has been watching a pair of Carolina wrens building a nest and feeding babies in a potted geranium on our deck.  We watched them build, then they seemed to disappear for about a week.  We wondered if they were on the nest, or if it was just a decoy, and the real nest was somewhere else.  Then they started bringing in food, taking turns bringing bugs to the babies.  Every time one of them came out, he (I think) would perch on the deck railing and belt out a song, before taking off in search of more bugs.  We managed to sneak a few peeks at the babies--they were very small and in a very dark nest, but we saw lots of pointed yellow beaks. 

Last night everything changed.  When we went into the kitchen this morning, we could see that the geranium pot had been knocked off the table, and the nest materials were scattered across the deck.   Apparently, a raccoon made a late-night raid.  There weren't even any little feathers left.  

I get the circle of life thing.  Really, I do.  But it broke my heart to see one of the parents come flying in with a bug in its mouth a few minutes later. 

I heard wrens singing in the back woods this afternoon.  They'll try again, someplace safer, I hope.  If we're lucky, they'll bring the babies to the birdbath in a few weeks, or feed them on the deck rail.

Lawn? Bah, Humbug.

I just finished mowing the lawn.  It took a little less than an hour.  When we moved to this house nine years ago, the lawn took over two hours.  We have a lot less lawn now, and a lot more flowers, shrubs, and vegetable beds.  Which is just fine with me.   At best, our lawn suffers from benign neglect.  At worst, I actively work to get rid of it. 

Not only do I prefer other plants to grass, but I'm uncomfortable with what it takes to maintain a showcase lawn.  In my gardening, I avoid pesticides and herbicides, and use as little chemical fertilizers as possible.  That same strategy makes for an ugly lawn.  I take some comfort in realizing that my lawn is not a monoculture of turf grass, but rather a thriving, diverse ecosystem.  I noticed dozens of species of plants out there this morning, plus two enormous rabbit (I hope!) holes.  There are grasses, but also sedges, clover, violets, mosses, and the odd mushroom.  There's even some Virginia creeper and a few red cedars encroaching from the woods.  As long as it's mostly green, and it doesn't take too much time, energy, or money, I'm happy with it.

Bees

I'm writing this on my front porch, drinking coffee and watching bees. There are so many bees on the holly tree next door that I can hear it buzzing. There must be hundreds of bees--bumble bees, little tiny bees, and even a few honeybees. As they make their rounds, they also visit my lavender, and even the sunflowers.

I've noticed a small hole at the edge of my porch, between the concrete slab and the brick edging. Some small species of bees has noticed it, too. Apparently, there's enough room down there for a colony. Bees are constantly coming and going, off pollinating the flowers and vegetable gardens in the neighborhood. I'll let them be busy today--it's my first day of summer vacation, and I'm trying to remember what relaxing feels like.

Sunflowers

One of my most frequent gardening laments is about how hard it is to grow the things I'm trying to grow, but how easy it is to grow weeds. This spring, however, I have a lovely border of sunflowers that I didn't plant. Last spring, I planted sunflower seeds nearby, only to have a monsoon a few days later that washed everything away--there was six inches of standing (and flowing) water where I'd just planted seeds. So maybe the seeds landed a few feet away, waited a year, then came up this spring. Or, more likely, the chipmunks or squirrels or blue jays buried the seeds there some time this winter (after getting them from the feeder in our backyard). Either way, they make me smile every morning.

Garlic!

This weekend I dug up the garlic. It's drying on my front porch. Tomorrow, I'll put it on screens in the garage to cure for a few days. We should have garlic into next spring! It smells wonderful.

May Flowers

Peonies and irises and roses, oh my! It's true. For about two weeks in May, my front garden is awesome. Some people complain that peonies and irises are overrated--they only look good for a short time, then it's all over. It's worth it, if you ask me.

Springtime!

It's finally, unquestionably, spring here. We had a cold winter that seemed to last forever. Then suddenly it was ninety degrees in early April, so it felt like we went straight to summer. We're back to normal now and there are lots of things blooming. Just this week, I have irises, columbine, pinks, and viburnum (see photo) in the front yard. The peonies and rhododendron are going to be next.

In the vegetable garden, the peas, spinach, cabbage, and broccoli are looking great. We had our first salad with homegrown lettuce for dinner tonight! Tomorrow I'm planning to plant the tomatoes--I've had them growing (from seed) in my living room under grow lights for the last two months or so. I'll need to find room for the basil, too, but I'll probably wait on the eggplant and peppers until it warms up a bit more.

Overall, things look pretty good out there. Two disappointments--both of the palm trees seem to have died. They looked good all winter, even under lots of snow, then they turned brown and crunchy when it started getting warm. Go figure. Several branches on the lilac have died, too. I love lilacs in bloom, but I haven't had much success with this one. It's about four years old, and no flowers yet. I'm thinking about moving it to a different location, but I'm not sure what it needs.

Looking forward to thunderstorms tonight and digging in the dirt tomorrow!

Seedlings!

Last weekend I planted seeds: tomatoes, chiles, eggplant, sweet peppers, broccoli, cilantro, basil, and dill. I also went out and bought fluorescent light fixtures and made my own grow lights. This week I've been checking every day, to see what's sprouting. The broccoli was first, followed today by some of the tomatoes and the basil. Those are tiny basil seedlings in the picture. The days are getting longer--spring is coming!

Rhododendrons

Rhododendrons look a bit scary when it gets really cold. The leaves curl up and wilt. Looks like they're dead, or soon will be. But, no. All it takes is a bit of warmth and sun, and they spring back to life. The photo shows the same plant, the same day. First thing in the morning, on a cold February morning, the leaves are curled up tight against the cold. A few hours later, as soon as the sun hits them, the leaves are completely open.

It's an interesting strategy that protects the plant from snow damage. Instead of piling on and flattening the plant, the snow just slides right off. Which, finally, is what the snow around here is doing. For the first time in the fourteen winters I've been here, we've had some snow on the ground for over two months (since a big storm the week before Christmas). This weekend has been wonderfully warm--we've had the windows open all day--so most of the snow is gone. Maybe spring really will come some day soon.

Planning for Spring

I spent some time yesterday trying to figure out what I'm going to plant in my vegetable garden this spring. Not only did I have free time (snow day!), but I remembered that it's time to start broccoli seeds (indoors), so I figured I needed to buy some soon... I looked at some online retailers, then headed off to my local big-box home improvement stores. Funny thing: I found almost all of the varieties I was looking for in the stores, and the seeds were about half the price in the stores as they were online. To make things even more confusing, the package sizes online and in the store aren't the same, and often aren't comparable. One place had a packet of 30 seeds, while the other was 250mg. Go figure. Even if the cheaper packets are smaller (and the more expensive packets have a lower unit price), I'm only planting a few of each variety, so I don't need to buy in bulk for most things. I save a lot of seeds from one year to the next, so I'm only buying a few new varieties--like four different varieties of basil! I can't wait to get started!

Snow

Our second winter storm hit last night. As usual, the good people of this town emptied the grocery store of eggs, bread, and milk (and, I hear, made quite a run on the liquor stores). As of this afternoon, we have about seven inches of snow. I think it's mostly done, but it's still occasionally sleeting. And, it's windy and getting colder. Lows tonight will be around 14. Brrr. Looks like we'll be making up a lot of snow days in June...

Last spring I planted two palm trees. They seem to be thriving, even in the cold and snow, as you can see.

Warming Up.

After almost two weeks of unseasonable cold, things are returning to normal. We usually see a bit of really cold weather each winter. What we don't see is ten days in a row of high temps below freezing and lows in the teens. Ponds were freezing over! But this weekend it hit 60 for several days in a row. The garlic has popped back up. Even better--snowdrops and daffodils are peeking out of the ground! I need to get some pictures, but I'm not often home in full daylight. I've been scouring the seed catalogs and making lists. Time to make plans for the summer garden!

Baby, It's Cold Outside

We're on our second day of unusually cold weather. The highs are below freezing, the lows are in the teens, and it's really windy. They say this may be with us for a week or two. We broke the ice on the bird bath every hour or two today. The birds were very happy with us--they visited the feeders all day, especially in the afternoon, getting prepared for a long, cold night.

My garlic sprouts have keeled over in the cold. I hope they recover once things warm up. I planted two palm trees this spring. They're supposed to be cold-hardy, and they seem to be OK so far. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.