Yesterday (Sunday) I brought up the other 2 over-wintered geraniums to join the other 2 already in the living room bay window.

All looked great with lots of buds forming.

Today I brought up the 3 overwintered B&B salvia and the carton of New England asters seedlings (from saved seeds).

Hmmm.  Too crowded in the bay window.

So out to the sunroom for all.

Really?  Unheated sunroom?  So early in the season?

It was bright and the sunshine had warmed the room to near 50F which is fine for these sturdy plants.

The room was so lovely I joined the crowd and had breakfast.

After breakfast I stepped outside.

Nice!

So out went the plants.  They will probably stay outside all week.

Whaaaaa?

Sure.  Why not.  Check THIS out:

Crazy, huh?  And check out those nighttime forecast temps vs the 'hist avg' temp.  Wow.  I enjoying this now, but am a tad concerned about summer.  How about you, weather anomolies your neck of the woods?

10:45 a.m.  Over 50 and balmy.  Time to get out the 2016 garden jeans and put 'em to work.  Wonder how long these will last.  I've got big plans for them this year... woohaha

========== u p d a t e ==========

Found info on U.S. 2016 late spring/summer weather forecast.  CLICK HERE

Scroll down for all the maps and the final summer forecast video.

It's a lovely time of year - Thanksgiving is over and Christmas hype is weeks away.  (Around here Christmas/New Year is barely a weeklong affair.  Period.)  Time to catch up on housework, paperwork, and spending some quality time with a bloated DVR from months of program capture.

We've been having some spectacular night skies what with Venus, Jupiter, Mars, the Moon and even a comet to grace early morning risings.  And when the sun does come up (late, oh so late this time of year) the skies are magnificent. 

Inside, the kitchen window is already hosting something green - a celery heel is sprouting new leaves for January soups.

And downstairs, the saved geraniums, black & blue salvias, a dozen English lavender seedlings and some schefflera cuttings are snug under lights for the season.

 

So while I try to adjust to this years time change (boy, it's been hard this go 'round), I'm doing as little as possible.

Still taking mom to PT 2ce a week and that makes for a good excuse for some good coffee time after.  She was encouraged to re-up for a whole year so we can go as weather permits this winter.  That way she doesn't lose all that she's gained and have to start over again in Spring.  Beside, at 91 she's quite pleased to be told how she's an inspiration to other seniors at the center.  Fact is, she's really enjoying the machines and how she's been feeling these days.

Otherwise, I'm hanging in there - just on the down-low right now.  Hope y'all are getting a chance to kick back before the holiday rush.  Take care.  Back soon.

Only 15F this morning! Good grief. I knew it was going to get cold, though. Yesterday it barely got out of freezing (even though bright and sunny) and by 2:00 pm the birdbath started freezing over again and was solid by 4:00.  A bitter north wind sure didn't make things better.

The garden jeans made it to the end, but only just.  Toward the last I stopped sewing on the patches and used pins and Gorilla tape to help keep the dirt/leaves out. LOL  These will be retired.  The back of the legs are still nice and will become next year's patches.

The B&B salvia have held up to low temps, but I'm sure they will eventually succumb. (Yep, totally toasted this morning.)  The Veronica (blue bomb), however still blooms and will stay evergreen over the winter.

The deer shredded the last butterfly bush (Pink Delight) in the ring bed last night.  They stripped the main stem down to pith.  I hate those damn vermin.

Meanwhile, I am warm and toasty inside the house (thanks to all that work I did to my furnace heat ducts and cold air returns early this year  CLICK HERE).  Also warm and toasty inside me thanks to a freezer full of veg broth, frozen beans, turkey & chicken stock and lots of cubed meat for soups.

Another frozen turkey is thawing in the fridge and will be roasted up on Wednesday.  Friends down for the holiday on Thursday.  Then on Saturday my Mom and her brother here for leftovers.  Weather will 'warm' up through Friday so travel should not be anyone's issue.

Hope all get to spend time with friends and loved ones over Thanksgiving.  That's the best part of the holiday.  Enjoy.

Between Saturday afternoon through Sunday night we got a total of .6" of much needed rain.

Yippee!   I managed to collect 1.5 barrels of rainwater off the garage.  Talk about treasure!

It's really a pittance, though.  Even with the .6" we've only gotten a total of .8" all month.  Pretty toasted around here. Thankfully we've had some pretty cool nights and some very overcast days.  There was a 3-4 day span when it never got more than 60F during the day! Honestly, the house got down to 66F one night and I quickly made sure the furnace wouldn't come on.  Brrr.

Only good side - the grass has gone dormant so I'm not having to mow except every couple of weeks.  Sure has helped my bad elbow get better - not having to pull on the shift stick on the Snapper all the time.


And look, back in the swing bed.  Those transplanted, then trampled down, then regrown Black & Blue salvias are in bloom.  Wow.  I had no idea they were that tough.  Let's see if they can make it over winter.  I'll cut them back later and mulch heavily.

The cukes are making a comeback.  Post on the Veg Page.

You may remember that I started an avocado tree from an Hass pit last summer.  I overwintered the plant inside and then put the tree back outside for the summer.   It kept growing - taller and taller and I knew it couldn't come back inside with me this winter.  What to do with it?  I could compost it, sure, sure.  But then I had a thought.

I called the owner of my now-favorite organic nursery and asked if she wanted it.  She was tickled!  So off went Avo to her new warm greenhouse for winter.

The deck bench didn't remain empty, though.  I was gifted with 3 Black & Blue salvias to join the one I already had, an annual that will bloom and attract bees and hummingbirds until frost.

What a great swap.  Happy happy all around.


As for what else I've been up to lately, check out the sidebar blog entries. :-D

============== 
Monday update:  3.6" of rain in 16 hours.  Thankfully, even though over half of it came down within an hour, there where no harrowing results like the previous deluge we had in June.  ==================

You'll remember how I grew salvias (Yvonne's and Blue Bedder) back in one of the compost bins.  How I kept them netted to thwart the deer.

Then, when they came into bloom I festooned the bed with 'deer spears' (thanks for naming them, Tammy) so as to keep out the deer, but allow bees and hummers access to the blooms.

Well, I also grew a row of Yvonne's behind the privacy fence.  Deer ate them, too, until I draped them with netting.

They've started to bloom, so in this case I've tented the netting to create a tunnel to allow 'nice' critter access from the open ends. 

Haven't actually seen any bee or hummer activity there yet, but I'm sure they'll figure it out.  After all, what's the point of growing flowers if they don't do any good but look pretty?

Hey, speaking of pretty...

Click the pic to read the latest post on the flower page.  ===>

Remember the salvia bed back by the asparagus?

How I would throw nylon net over the Yvonne's and Blue Bedder salvia every night to thwart the deer?

How I would remove the net during the day so hummers and bees could get at the blooms?

And how, one day, the deer came during the DAY and ravaged the bed?

Well, by keeping the net over the bed 24/7, most of the plants have rebounded and started to bloom again.

Trouble is, having the net on during the day is driving the critters crazy.  The bees are smart enough to find their way UNDER the net.  Alas, they can't find their way OUT.

The hummers, meanwhile, get nothing. :-(

What good are flowers if you have to cover them up just to save them from the fracking deer?!

I remembered from somewhere (reading? conversation? forum?) that deer don't like uncertain footing and getting poked in the eye.

Hmmm, the footing around here is as sound as it gets - baked hard and easy on the hooves.

But - poking in the eye?  Well then  ...  let's try THIS! 


We'll try the porcupine approach. *snark*

At least now the GOOD critters have a chance to get at the blooms.  Keep your fingers crossed.

The agastache has gone to seed and it has made a big difference in bee dynamics in the gardens. For much of the summer the Golden Jubilee and Anise Hyssop have been the goto grub for most every kind of bee. I planted lots this year.

But no more bitty blue flowers on the bottlebrush blooms. As I mentioned before I'm seeing fewer bees now. Those that remain are now visiting plants that previously only the hummingbird used to visit.

Take the crab bed, for instance. There are bees on the salvia splendens and the 2 tubular hyssops (Apricot Sprite & Apache Sunset). The s. spendens have the largest flower and even native bees can shove their little selves in for a sip. As for the hyssops, they are really small and it's fun to watch larger bees push themselves in. Some types just slice in from the outside.

In the morning the s. spendens in the arbor garden are all a-buzz, as are the red lobelia. In the background you can see lots of geraniums in the veg bed, and they are getting some honeybee traffic. I've grown geraniums here for years and to date they have only been eye-candy for the gardener. I'm not sure why this year is different. More bees? More flowers? Last year I had less bee forage so wouldn't the geraniums been more attractive since there was less to be had? I don't know the answer. I'm just glad they are enjoying them now.


As for other tiny tubular flowers, the same can be said for the salvia subrotunda. This plant is 98% foliage and 2% flower. Teeny tiny flowers. But now, without the agastache, the bees are chewing into them like candy.

Even the marigolds (which, like my geraniums never got any traffic in past years) are enjoying daily visits from natives and honeybees alike.

The agastache attracted a ton of bees this year: natives and honeybees. It's unfortunate that the plants did not bloom longer. (Yeah, I'm really disappointed (ha!)that they only lasted 3 months in spite of the extreme heat and drought! LOL)

Well, while I (like the bees) am missing the main course forage, I'm glad that the 2nd string blooms are getting their fair share of attention. After all, it's hard for me to justify indulging in too many plants that are just pretty faces since starting the sanctuary. It's good to know that some of my fave eye candy are making the cut!

Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and unload. Doesn't matter if it's as simple as taking out a plant or as complex as letting go of a long-held goal. There just comes a time when you realize that not only has something (or someone) not lived up to expectations, but is, in turn, holding you back.

The crab bed bugged me. I couldn't really enjoy it even though I babied a couple of the dying English lavenders up front. Finally I just tore them out and wondered if I should put in new ones. Thankfully it's time for mums. Ah, just what was needed - a shot of gold in that pale blue bed. And right about then the red salvia started to bloom and now it's all happy-happy joy-joy in that bed.

And there there were the tomatoes behind the wall in front of the privacy bed. Due to the pervasive heat they produced early and then suffered from the same heat. They still had tomatoes a'comin', but I wasn't all that thrilled. Besides, I was burned out - it's been an oppressively hot and humid season.

So today I picked off all the rose quartz grape tomatoes and pulled the plug on the plants. They were more work than they were worth.

And now look. A wonderful view of the magnificent display of the 6+ foot sprays of salvia subrotunda back against the privacy fence frame. Waaaaay better than looking at a couple of skanky tomato vines.


And for almost a year I've lived with this pile of wood stacked against the same wall. The guy was supposed to come and split them last fall so I could burn it this past winter. Never came. I called this spring. "Will get it soon." Never came.

It's coming up on fall again. Yesterday a kid came by looking for work and offered to split it for me. Yay! But it was too late. The stumps were riddled with ant and some kind of icky grub. So I paid him to haul it away instead. *sigh*


Holy cow is this better looking or what? Well worth the bucks. Too bad I didn't get to enjoy some nice fires out of it last winter, but trust me, the last thing I wanted to do was introduce bugs into the house or garage.


And here something else. Every few years I am seduced by the romance of an herb garden. So I grow them. But I never use them! Why am I wasting this great space with something I guess I really don't want?

So I cut them to dry, pulled out the roots and planted something bright and cheerful. You may have read that I rescued 72 geranium plants (click here for full story) from a nursery dustbin some weeks ago. They have recuperated under my tender ministrations and beginning to flower. Perfect for these bins. Presto-chango! -- lots of colorful blooms that will go until freeze.



The view from the deck has improved 100%. The beds look brighter and the plants look healthier, happier.

I, too, have set aside some things that have been keeping me from growing. I've got my groove back. Now, after this bit of divesting, we're all looking forward to the future.

There might even be a promise of rain....

I've not shown a pic of the new (made last year, planted this year) crab bed lately. With the weird weather this season (early heat, early deluges then just heat and no rain) it's been slow to fill in.

From front to back, the center contains a line of English lavender, a line of purple basil, a line of golden jubilee hyssop and (out of sight) a line of lilyturf. The end caps have a central planting of salvia splendens flanked by two tubular hyssops varieties - 'apricot sprite' and 'Apache sunset'. There are also a couple of bedding geraniums that are struggling. And let's not forget the bed's namesake - the 2 Robinson crabapples.

The salvias are just now starting to bloom as are the golden jubilee. The tubular hyssops - well, maybe soon. Or not -- like I say, the weather is playing havoc.

Overall, I'm not happy with this bed. With the grey-green lavenders (small blue flowers), the grey-green catmints (small blue flowers), and the grey-green tubular hyssops this bed looks faded, washed out. Then there is the sharp contrast between the purple basil/golden jubilee (small blue flowers) that is kinda jarring.

I know that the salvia splendens (Yvonne's salvia) will soon bloom and I'll enjoy the red (which I crave but so far have gotten very little in any of the beds this year).

It's redeeming feature? The bees really go for the golden jubilee and the cabbage butterflies practically lived on the lavender & catmint when they were in bloom. (Unfortunately the tiny, almost invisible basil blooms aren't getting any action.)

Anyway, I'm not happy so, bottom line, I'll probably redo the whole thing next year.

Except for the crabs, of course.

Even though we had a cold September with early frosts & freezes, November (so far) as been one heck of an Indian summer. Lovely mild days (sometimes near 70!) has encouraged me to go the 'extra mile' when it comes to Fall projects. And I'm not the only one who seem to be over-achieving right now....

Take, for instance, the Robinson crabapple I posted about earlier. Remember how surprised I was to find it blooming in September? Those blooms actually set fruit (see pic). And now, two months later in mid-November, that branch is blooming again! I've never seen the like. I hope it's not an indication of some tree disease or danger to it.

These warm days actually motivated me to address the problem of weeds in the ring bed. I had gotten so caught up with other chores that on nice days I found myself out there pulling weeds just to be outside in the good weather. Good grief!! Most of the perennials have pretty much shut down due to the many freezes we've had, but some are either holding their own and actually excelling at this time of year.

The "Blue Bedder" perennial salvia still sport new flower stalks. These things have bloomed all summer from this season's WS'd seeds. I'll definitely start more of these blue beauties next year.


The native asters have been blooming for 7 weeks now and going like gangbusters. They seem to laugh at nighttime temps that dip into the 20s. I have an 8-foot strip of these along the far side of the ring and show off as a dusty blue mass of petals. I'm going to collect seeds and plant perhaps another 30-40 feet of aster on that far side of the ring. Who wouldn't want a couple of months of color like this late in the year? And the bees? Oh yes, the bees are on those blossoms. (Sorry the pic is blurry, but click on it and you'll see a more focused pic.)

In Fall there is lots of bird activity as flocks of over-winterers or passers-through visit the feeders and birdbaths.

I love crows.


And no one loves a bath more than a robin. Unless it's a bunch of robins. At one point 10-12 birds where splashing in the bath with more waiting around in the Japanese maple nearby.

Of course here at Melissa Majora we cater to the entire food chain. Here our resident (and magnificent) female red-tailed hawk keeps tab on all the lesser critters....

There are still leaves to gather/shred and use as mulch, but, bottom line, I'm pretty much done outside. I still have some deck furniture that needs to be stored in the shed but with weather like this - and the arbor rebuild - you can be sure I'm still using it on a daily basis. ;-D