Showing posts with label viburnum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label viburnum. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

November Bloom Day

'Queen Charlotte' violet

 

By mid-November there aren't a whole lot of flowers outdoors in my Zone 6b Virginia garden to celebrate Bloom Day on the 15th of the month (hosted by Carol Michel's May Dreams Garden blog). My 'Queen Charlotte' violets are among the few flowers that persist this late in the season. There would be none if I didn't cover them with a wire cloche because the deer like to eat them ( I remove the cover to photograph them). 

 

Aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium)
Aromatic asters among the leaves.

 

Some blooms persist on the aromatic asters even after the first few frosts, but it's the leaves that are most colorful at this time of the year. I love the colors of the trees in the woods behind my house! This shot was taken a few days ago, most of these are native oaks. The hickories have lost most of their leaves.

 

The woods in early morning.

 A few shrubs in my garden are still colorful too, like this dwarf Nandina that doesn't fruit (I've forgotten the name of this variety), and the Viburnum 'Brandywine'.

 

Nandina
Viburnum 'Brandywine'

 

The witchhazels in the back woods are also blooming at this time, although two other varieties in my garden don't bloom until late winter or early spring.


Native witchhazel trees in the woods.

My back yard in November.


To make up for the lack of flowers outside, there are plenty of blooms in my indoor garden. The  yellow hibiscus my sister gave me is still offering a flower or two after being brought indoors. I brought in the white heliotrope plant hoping to keep it alive during the winter for a larger plant next summer. The begonias next to them are among the plants I keep alive indoors from year to year to decorate the back deck in summer.


Yellow hibiscus
White heliotrope with begonias in back


One of the small Phalaenopsis orchids I bought for one of my botanical art classes a few years ago decided to re-bloom for the first time, along with a miniature Dendrobium. The two orchids in the master bath are usually very prolific with their blossoms--I can't believe they're blooming for the second time this year!


Phalaenopsis orchid in bloom.

Dendrobium orchid

Orchids in the bathroom.

My Bearss lime tree is covered in blooms too, and setting fruit.

 

Bearss lime blossoms

 That's about it for November's Bloom Day.

Saturday, November 5, 2022

Late Fall Color

Viburnum 'Cardinal Candy'

 

This year we've had a very colorful fall and the show isn't over yet. There's still color in them there leaves! 


Fothergilla with aromatic asters.

Some plants are just beginning to reach their peak of color now in early November, like the Fothergilla in the photo above. I wish the asters next to it were a bit bloomier, but the color combination never fails to amaze me. 

 

Aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium)

My original aromatic aster continues to produce prodigious blooms--the pollinators love it, it's about the only flower that lasts this late into the fall.

 

Japanese maples on east side
Japanese maples l. to r.: Bloodgood, no Id, Full Moon


Much of my labors in the garden each fall consists of expanding and consilidating my flower beds. This year it was time to dig up the Mount Hood daffodils under the Japanese maple 'Amber Ghost' that were over-crowded. I extended the bed out and joined the 'Texas White' redbud tree to make it part of the same bed before replanting the daffodils and grape hyacinths beneath the trees.

 

Reworked bed with 'Amber Ghost' and 'Texas White' redbud.

Next spring I'll consolidate this enlarged bed with the one behind it, for one much larger island bed. The Shasta daisies in the Badlands bed didn't bloom much this year, despite the generous summer rains, so I'll probably transplant those and put them in the grassy strip that will unite those two beds on the west side of the back yard.

 

The "Badlands' in late October.

Other spring-flowering bulbs also need to be dug up, thinned and re-planted. I hope the glorious weather will hold out long enough for me to get this done before the ground freezes hard. I wonder what sort of winter is in store for us?

 

The front yard in late October.

Friday, September 21, 2018

Presage of Fall



Hardy Begonias

Another very rainy spell brought almost five inches to our area this past weekend. The welcome cooling was a presage of the fall equinox rapidly approaching. Other signs are present in my yard as well.

Hummingbird Clearwing Moth caterpillar?

I noticed that something was eating the leaves of the lovely Viburnum 'Brandywine' and found the culprit--a caterpillar I've never seen before. After consulting an insect identification site I think this may be a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth caterpillar. The coloring is a bit different than the photos on this site, but the small spots on the sides are identical, and we have seen these moths flying around our yard, so it's likely this is one. My first impulse was to get rid of it, but since this is part of the moth's life cycle, I don't mind sacrificing my Viburnum leaves for its sake. Butterflies and insects are, after all, part of the balance in a garden.

 
Beetles on Hoary Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum incanum)

Some are nuisances, like the milkweed beetles which feed on the seed pods of the Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) but are also appearing on other plants such as the native Hoary Mountain Mint. I read that these beetles a not a threat to the plants except for its seeds, so I'll probably just pull off the seed pods and see if that doesn't get rid of the beetles.


Seed pods of Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) covered with Beetles

Other fall-bloomers are beginning to make a show, like the sedums and mums. Crabgrass has multiplied like crazy during this unusually-wet summer, and it's been just about impossible to keep up with the weeding.

Sedums 'Neon' and 'autumn Joy'

Chrisanthemums

I guess it's time for me to get to work digging holes for all the new plants I bought this spring that summered on the porch and the deck in pots. Tomorrow is the fall Equinox, and I'll be painting Plein Air with a group of local artists at Shenandoah River State Park.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Fall Garden Interlude

Swamp Sunflower (Helianthus angustifolia) with Russian sage (Perovskia).

As a break from the postings of my Montana adventures, today I wanted to post a bit about this year's late summer and fall garden and share photos of some of my flowers. Most of my plant purchases from late spring (and even one from the previous fall) had been held over in large pots during the summer, since my travels and the merciless biting bugs had not allowed much time for planting them earlier.

Plants awaiting new homes.

This fall has been the warmest since we moved to this area, with very spotty rain, so the first focus of my fall gardening frenzy was to get all these plants in the ground. This meant expanding my flower beds considerably to accommodate them. I'd bought a dwarf butterfly bush (Buddleia) with pale lilac flowers and a spirea (was it coincidence? I didn't know I would encounter so many of these plants in Glacier N.P., but now this plant will remind me of those others).

The Little Indians border in October.
Planting the Buddleia and the Spirea.

I decided to put the Buddleia and the Spirea towards the back of the Little Indians bed, near the Asclepias, in hopes of attracting more butterflies to the back yard. The Aster laevis which had been eaten to the ground by deer the previous year, finally bloomed, thanks to the garlic spray I've been using, as well as the camouflage the Asclepias provided. Finally, a few butterflies are starting to show up!

Buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia) on Itea bush.

This shot looking at the east side of the house gives a good idea of the expansion that has taken place during this year's growing season. If only I could speed up the growth more! But Nature has its limits, even with lots of fertilizer.
 
The east garden.
 
Viburnum 'Brandywine' with Gaillardias

I'm partial to the berries of this variety of Viburnum 'Brandywine' at the stage where the berries start turning pink. As the season progresses the berries gradually turn blue. 

Backyard bed with pink dogwood and hibiscus.

The bed I laid out in the back yard last year is developing nicely--the pink Kousa dogwood 'Rosy Teacups' has gained a couple of feet in height and width (with protection from deer depredations), but the star of this summer was the pink hibiscus that our neighbors gave me, grown from seed from their plants.

Pink Hibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutus)

Such a knock-out color! This variety of hardy hibiscus can be deceptive--it dies back over the winter and is very late to start growth in the spring, so for a while I thought it was dead. Good thing I left it alone, it eventually re-grew. I like it so much I bought another one this fall, a white variety with a red center. They're wonderful flowers that blossom at a time when very little else is blooming. 

Pink Asian lily with Bouteloua grass clump

This bed was also planted with about a dozen Asiatic lilies, but I'm afraid I got this bargain purchase in the ground a bit late, and they didn't grow until late in the summer--one plant actually bloomed in late September, but the rest, despite a few buds, were too late to open before the first frost cut them down a week ago. The ornamental grass Bouteloua 'Blonde Ambition' in front of the lily is another plant that has been struggling in my garden, but it seems to be making some progress. Perhaps next summer I'll see an explosion of bloom in this bed. There's still so much empty space to fill...

Back yard looking east.

To remedy that I bought another bunch of native perennials at the Arboretum's Arborfest, including more of the lovely Swamp Sunflower, and asters. I'm currently working to plant those, along with more spring flowering bulbs, before it gets too cold to work outside.