So yeah, another day lost to endless rain… I actually cleaned the kitchen and cooked some food for the fam instead of escaping to the garden. Nothing healthy was cooked, I’m a maestro with the deep fryer, but for a gloomy and gray, chilly day it seemed appropriate. Now it’s 9pm and after several apathetic attempts at a blog post throughout the day, I suppose a firmer tone should be set and anything should be posted. Photos were taken yesterday for just this purpose, so maybe something good can come of a day with no garden time.
Allium thunbergii ‘Ozawa’ has finally opened. Although I’m the only one to notice so far, I’ve been checking him each day waiting for just this moment and that’s exciting.
The biggest news is that after years of no Allium thunbergii, I’m suddenly basking in the joy of four separate plantings. One of them really doesn’t count. It’s the miserable patch of seedlings which I’ve been nursing along for at least seven years, and has only bloomed once in all that time. I don’t want to talk about it. I do want to gush on about the two I picked up at a NARGS plant sale, and then the one which showed up a few weeks later when a friend was nice enough to send me a division as well. From a thunbergii desert to a garden flooded with October blooming alliums was more than I could hope for, and now in their second year here I’m quite pleased. My friend sent the cultivar ‘Ozawa’ and the other two are maybe a straight species form, and the white ‘Album’, and all three are putting on a great show.
The small white Allium thunbergii album with another A. thunbergii which was just labeled ‘pink’. These two are showing off just inches away from another patch which rarely flowers… It’s hard admitting that one of your babies is a little ‘lacking’.
Now before I start mulling over the idea that an early fall-blooming snowdrop would complement these alliums wonderfully, lets check off the last of the colchicums. In this garden the long-blooming, double white C. autumnale ‘Alboplenum’ finishes off the season, and this late favorite now comes up in a couple spots around the yard. It should be a couple more, but the colchicum transplanting steam has cooled off, and it looks like these are going to have to wait until next summer to get a little more space and maybe a little more sun elsewhere.
Colchicum autumnale alboplenum looking slightly sparse and tired, but still giving a decent show under a dwarf white pine. I always like how the falling needles blanket the ground for the colchicum, but the dry shade doesn’t always please the colchicum.
The steam on a few projects has cooled down, and maybe that’s where the rain is coming from, but the focus is now turned to embracing the new wheelbarrow and moving dirt again. Pickaxe a few square feet, shovel them out, wheel them back, repeat… and then go sit down for a couple minutes. No sense in wearing yourself out, and absolutely no reason that a gardener should be working so hard as to sweat in mid October.
One of the rest seats faces the end of the front border. Things are beginning to wind down, but as long as frost holds off there’s still plenty of color.
As I’ve probably mentioned way too many times, this garden isn’t built on the deep, fertile soils of a lush river valley, it’s just a few inches of topsoil skimming the top of construction fill, which sits just above rocks and bedrock… and then if you keep going coal mines will be the only other excitement down there. Roots do not go deep, and I’m always trying to improve on that, even if it’s in ways which often do more than they should to avoid anything which seems like real work, or even worse, sound like they could be costly.
At least the newly seeded lawn has been enjoying all the rain. This area was completely dug up and bulldozed and I’m counting on mulches like lawn clippings to bring life back and re-create some topsoil.
Sifting out rocks, double digging beds, working in amendments and soil conditioners, and buying in ‘topsoil’ are all great ideas, and I love seeing other gardeners do it and then watch as their spades slice through a delicious chocolate cake soil to plant things, but there’s about a zero chance that will ever happen here. Here my main method of attack is (1)dump organic matter on top and (2)wait for the worms and other creatures to work it into the soil, and (3)grow lots of things. Growing things have roots, and the roots work through the soil, and when they die they leave a path and organic matter… so let me alter that and say (3)grow lots of things and then kill them but leave the roots there. You can probably guess I’m not one to worry about removing stumps, and pulling things up and getting all the roots? Also not a priority.
Of course some roots have to come out, but wherever I can I try to smother weeds with a layer of mulch first. Lately lawn clippings have been my mulch of choice, and from snowdrops to daylilies to boxwoods, they’re all getting a nice inch or two.
The lawn alone doesn’t give enough clippings, so this is when the meadow gets a scalping as well. All the rain has it pretty lush so hopefully it’s more clippings than weed seeds, but even a few weeds are worth it.
A cleaned out bed is easier to mulch, so chopping back has started and where better to throw the spent stalks and fading foliage than on the lawn? It all gets mowed up and thrown back onto a bed elsewhere and all that organic matter stays around the plants which produced it. Things doesn’t look 100% fancy, but is so much easier than hauling it to the compost. It’s only the hellebores which don’t get their own shredded foliage returned to the same bed, and phlox stems also go elsewhere. These are the only plants which give me any kind of build-up of disease concerns. Everything stays in the garden, it just moves to a different part with other plant species.
Isodon effusus, formerly rabdosia, formerly plectranthus, is flopping all over the snowdrop bed and in full bloom. It’s impossible to photograph, and the name is impossible to remember, but it does bring in some excellent color, even better when the red maples begin dropping their leaves alongside the blue.
Golly does the rain have me chatty. I’m moving dirt, building soil, and the only other thing I still want to mention is power washing. The spotted lanternfly is into its third year here and is about as bad as last. They’re mostly annoying with their clumsy hopping and bumbling flight, but their honeydew pee is beyond annoying and enters irritating. The sweet pee is gross, but the black mold it grows is disgusting. The black mold is the reason you haven’t had to endure endless succulent wall photos, since most of my succulents are blackened by the drizzle they get under the aspens. Pretty much anything around the bases of trees is sticky and black, and of course the white birches don’t show well either when they’re dripping with pee and mold.
Hopefully a November once-over with the power washer will clean this gunk off.
According to most Lanternfly information I should be stomping and spraying and controlling the beasts as best I can, but I’m not. When the mold started getting bad I briefly considered pulling out the shop vac and making a brush attachment to sweep the trees clean, but you can guess where that ended up. Cracking open a beverage, pulling up a lawn chair, and vacuuming up a wasp nest is fun, but running the vacuum up and down trees for the lanternflies seem like work, so no thanks. I’ll take this first hit in stride and hope it balances itself out similar to the Asian ladybugs, Japanese beetles, stinkbugs… hmmmm there’s quite a menu of invasive pests which have come this way over the years…
Spotted lanternflies beginning to lay eggs at the base of the tree, alongside the blackened foliage of a peony.
Let’s leave off on a good note… as the patter of rain on the roof has picked up yet again…
Each fall I keep wanting to transplant a few of these hardy garden chrysanthemum seedlings to more spots around the garden and each spring my attention is elsewhere. Today this double orange is my favorite. I should collect seeds when they’re done and play that game again 😉
So that’s a post, for better or worse. I hope if anything it entertained, and I also hope that your Sunday is sunny and enjoyable!
sorta like suburbia 
You still have lots of lovely colour in your autumn garden, so much is still flowering. Frosts are due any day here too, that;s one thing we can’t stop! Endless rain is no fun at all, hope you soon have a break and can get on with essential jobs.
I did get some sunshine today, even though there were a few rain showers between. Some dirt was moved and I was happy for that, plus for us there isn’t any frost in the forecast (yet) even though this is when we should begin to expect it.
Even though you might get your frosts I’m sure you’re already looking forward to quince and camellia, viburnums and then soon enough… snowdrops 😉
Wow, you know me and my plants far too well, amazing! I am half way through weeding the woodland so that it will be ready for snowdrops in February, must make it presentable for them!
It was entertaining – and informative – and the Sunday here (southeast Ireland) is bright and cheery with our first light frost of the season.
Thanks Paddy. Hope the sun and chill dry things out a bit!
I like your soil transformation strategy, Frank. It obviously works well, as your gardens look lush and abundant. Fall color is lovely throughout your beds.
I love the look of Isodon effusus, too bad it isn’t hardy here, rats.
Lanternflies sound like a horror, and though I wish fervently that they won’t come here, it is only a matter of time I expect. 😦
Your foliage must be peaking, hope it is better than here, kind of a washout this year.
The color here has been nice this season, we had enough late summer rain to bring things along, even if they did put a damper on pool plans!
I heard someone saying that outside the first wave that they weren’t nearly the Armageddon which had been predicted. I hope this really is the case since my garden experiences are probably much different that those of a vineyard or peach orchard.
No signs of frost yet. I’m fine with that, but in another week or two I’ll want some cold to clear out the cannas and make things feel right for tulip planting 😉
Same here, as long as there are annuals in the garden, I’m letting them go on. I need to plant garlic, though!
Nice atmospheric post. I can feel the drips. I know rain is depressing, especially with the cooler temps. We should remember to be grateful for all our rain. My brother in Louisville said they’ve only had one small rain in the past 2 months.
What is the plant with white horns (blooms?) in the upper left of your first photo?
Ok. I’m grateful for the rain and would hate to have one of those droughty autumns where the soil is hard and dusty and you’re trying to get the last few plants in and get some tulips in the ground.
I think the plant you’re talking about is Orostachys iwarenge and I’m seeing hardiness ranges from 5a to 10… although it’s also sold as a houseplant and they say it can’t handle below the mid 30’s… it does look miserable after a snowy winter but somehow it survives!
I’ve tried to grow that isodon/rabdosia/plectranthus three times and it never winters over for me. Sigh. We had intermittent light rain here yesterday so I finally brought all the houseplants in, and took cuttings of coleus from the non-singed parts. We had a very light, patchy frost and a few coleus leaves were all that was damaged, but it was the warning I needed to get the houseplants in.
The isodon manages to overwinter here, but hasn’t self-sown as it does in warmer climates. Let me know when you want to try it for a fourth time…
I’m down to about 20 pots which still need to come in. Unfortunately they’re all bigger pots and they’re nearly all up on the deck and the easiest way off is through the house… and now they’re all wet and someone did a major clean this weekend and would probably loudly object to large, wet plants being rolled through the house so they can go out the front door and into the garage…
We actually did have a bit of sun today. Can’t say much for the rain. I am still ever hopeful the rain will arrive in relief quantities. We did get almost a quarter inch a couple of days ago. That makes our are a whopping 1 inch for the month. Our area is a good 6 inches behind this year. Needless to say our garden looks a bit bedraggled.
Your garden looks lush and so full of color which is fabulous. I do like that double orange mum. I don’t believe I have seen that color or form around here. Have a good week.
I hope you’ve had more rain since. We keep getting it and of course it’s always on the weekends when I have other plans!
The color of the garden is fading now that we had those warm days followed by rain and cold. Still no frost, but I think Wednesday is the day, and honestly once the trees start to lose their leaves I’m ready.
Looks good, Frank, as always! I am a fan of using grass clippings as mulch in the vegetable garden, but for some reason, it never occurred to me to use them in the flower beds. I am going to start using leaves as mulch more and more–goodness knows I have enough of them! (Maybe not 6 inches worth, though, lol!) I’ve heard that we have the evil lantern fly in Wayne County, but I personally have not seen one, or any evidence of one, here. (Knocking on wood as I type this!)
Oops, forgot to show you the lanternfly egg masses on your last visit. Only a hard core gardener would ask to see bug egg masses as part of their tour lol.
Actually only a hard-core, slightly obsessive gardener would look for egg masses and also bring a few bags of autumn leaves when visiting. Haha, you know me too well when you bring gifts!
Just got home from three days in Milwaukee where it was chilly, very rainy and windy. Luckily we were there to hit art galleries so that made it OK. Got back and discovered it had rained almost 2 and 1/2 inches here. So I’m in heaven though the garden looks rather beaten down, not nearly as floriferous as yours. I love watching Monty Don put in plants but his loamy soil seems like sci-fi to me. Even years of leaf mulch still hasn’t broken down all the clay here. I dig in a good spot and a foot away it’s sticky clay. No coal though.
My garden has been on a fast-track to winter since my last post. The leaves colored up nicely last week, but the warmth and now rain and cold are making it a short show this year. In another week or two I’ll be contemplating winter interest and trips to warmer climates lol
I can’t believe your soil is fighting you like that! By the look of it I always thought you had a perfect loam which goes down for feet and grows just about everything, and the years of mulching and groundcovering plants made it into chocolate cake all by themselves.
I can’t imagine ever gardening on a patch of perfect soil. My eyes sometimes go wide on trips to Pennsylvania farm country when I see how different ‘happier’ plants can look. When I get home I have to side eye everything because it’s so embarassing!
Ooh yes, those Chrysanths are gorgeous Frank. And I had no idea there are Alliums that flower in autumn…. must look into that! Your garden still looks very much like late summer and not autumn yet. I don’t like the look of those lantern bugs. Still, better than the mice and voles we have this year! And the Plectranthus is lovely, with all that blue draping itself elegantly over your box edging. Hope you get some good gardening weather soon!
We had some nice weather which pushed autumn along, but now it’s cold and rainy for the end to the weekend. Frost is coming as well which is late for us but somewhat a relief now that the trees are losing their last leaves and the garden wants to call it a year.
We will both be looking at “winter interest” in another week or two!
GREAT POST as always! I am so glad your beds are doing so well and that you are getting rain. I know, it may mess up your plans for a while, but here we have had very little moisture at all. The temps have cooled off since it is October, but we have still had very little rain. We did have a few sprinkles on a couple of days, but neither time was there any water in the rain gauge to even notice. Great news about your Alliums. I thought they only flowered earlier in the summer… Take care and thanks for sharing!
Thanks, I might gripe about too much rain here and there but it’s always the better alternative to a season of too-little rain. Hope you’ve had plenty of time to wander the fields and enjoy the last bits of autumn!
We are getting rain now and cold temps. YIKES!