The freeze hit.
Autumn colors have departed.
In honor of this freeze, let’s look at some “afters” and “befores”.
Joe Pye Weed and Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’
Joe Pye Weed and Panicum ‘Northwind’
Ironweed
Amsonia hubrichtii, Joe Pye Weed and assorted ornamental grasses
As anticipated, the frost hit yesterday and zapped the blooms on the annuals and degraded my cherished fall colors.
Half glass empty: noooooo!!!
Half glass full: the frost can be pretty.
We’re allegedly getting a hard freeze this evening, the winds are picking up and peak fall is about to leave us. I had to capture it all before it departs.
Enjoy.
I purchased Molinia ‘Sky Racer’ after my main gal Tracy DiSabato-Aust suggested it in one of her books.
I credit Tracy with really getting me into gardening after I read The Well Tended Perennial Garden back in the early aughts (translation: early 2000’s). She had me pruning, pinching, deadheading and cutting back my perennials for the first time and I recorded my results in a spreadsheet that I somehow lost along the way. I was hooked. I felt like I was in on a secret that only a few select gardeners understood. When I managed to chat with her via email a few years back, I was a true fanboy.
Sorry, back to Molinia (Moor Grass) ‘Sky Racer’.
It kicks ass.
I’m sure I’ve shared other photos of this grass in previous posts, but wanted to highlight the beautiful golden hue it’s holding right now. When back lit by the sun, it’s stunning.
If you want to read more about it, click here and my friends at Hoffman Nursery will get you all caught up.
For those of you into baseball who have been watching the playoffs, here’s my son, the prognosticator, before the playoffs even started.
The kid is good.
Autumn is still killing it.
From left to right:
Acer rubrum ‘October Glory’ (Red Maple)
Miscanthus purpurascens (Flame Grass)
Betula nigra (River Birch)
Hello reader, are you ready?
The race is on.
I vaguely remember planting this a few years back and had given up on it. Then it bloomed last year as a um, I guess, pleasant surprise?
Well it’s back again and it doesn’t fit in at all in its current location. And the flower is kind of ugly and ok, fine, I don’t like it. But I can’t just dump it, right?
Sorry, the race.
What the hell is the name of this? I feel like …
I swear on my children I just thought of the name. So funny. I was going to say the word “bone” or “hood” was in it and that prompted the answer:
It’s Monkshood.
Sorry to have fired you up to only let you down. But since you’re here, do I have your permission to remove it? Anyone want it?
It’s technically not a “DGP” (Daily Garden Photo) but we’ve already established this will occur from time to time. My garden isn’t THAT interesting that I can keep you entertained daily on just plants.
Like for today. What you’re looking at below is the base for a hammock.
It’s kind of gigantic. I bought it for my wife years ago assuming it would fit comfortably on our deck where she could lay back, read and relax while looking over the garden I’d so amazingly curated.
It was too big. And yes, I’d read over the measurements ahead of purchase and still got it wrong.
We tried out in the garden. Nope. Still too big and gaudy.
So it ended up underneath the stand of pine trees you viewed in my previous post. And it’s still there, where no one else knows it’s there but me. Until I figure out what to do with it next.
Spoiler: there is no “next”.
The end.
The first thing I wanted to add to our blank slate of a landscape 19 years ago was a wind break. I don’t recall my logic or if there was actually wind to “break” but I’d convinced myself it was a necessity. So we added five white pine trees (roughly 6 feet in height) along the northwestern facing part of our yard.
Oversharing alert: I know these were added at the end of March that year because I have clear memory of limping through the front yard to check out my new trees. Why was I limping? Because I’d had a vasectomy the day prior. There is something poetic about the dichotomy of a vasectomy and the planting of new trees, right? And yes, that’s the first time a vasectomy has been dubbed “poetic”.
Moving on.
Here are those trees today, all near forty feet in height and tightly packed together.
And you know what? They really do block the wind.
Go me.
“Forgive me Father for I have sinned.”
Inaudible whispering.
“Time since my last confession you ask? Um, is never okay to say?
Deafening silence.
“Well here’s the thing. I’m not technically Catholic. My wife and two kids are but not me. We agreed to raise them Catholic but I never converted. We good?”
A simple head nod.
“Oh great, thank you Father. Appreciate it. Here’s the thing. Yeah I’ve sinned here and there, sure. But this one is kind of big and I’m hoping this doesn’t keep me out of the pearly gates when the time comes.”
A barely audible gasp.
“No, no, nothing like that. But it’s bad. In my eyes at least.”
Gesture clearly indicating to get on with it already.
“Fine. Brace yourself.”
A very audible yawn.
“My bad. You’re a very busy man. Here it is. I’ve embraced the use of … fake plants.”
Pointer finger raised pointing towards the church exit.
“Don’t you want to hear why?”
He didn’t want to hear why.
But I need to let you all know why:
I got sick of watering the ferns or boxwoods that sat in containers near our front entrance. My time could be better spent elsewhere. Yes, that is a fake boxwood but doesn’t look like it, right? Shape is decent and it’s even sitting in real soil.
So no harm, no foul, right?