A Warm Fall in my Garden

Colchicum 'Waterlily' bud.

 

Nothing says "fall" like the fall-blooming crocuses: two days ago I saw the first bud of the Colchicum 'Waterlily'  peeking out of the ground. Today, the flower is fully open! I hope there will be a few more flowers, the bulbs have been multiplying slowly. I must plant more fall-blooming crocuses! Maybe try some golden-flowered Sternbergia next year?

Colchicum 'Waterlily'

 

Some seasonal flowers are appearing, but the deer have been so voracious this year, there's not a whole lot left to blossom. I found a few flowering spikes on the smooth blue asters (Symphyotrichum laevis), but by the time I took this photo, the few yellow mums in front had been devoured. This year the local deer have eaten plants I've never known them to touch before: mums, Asian lilies and salvias?

 

Smooth blue asters.

 

I did come across an unusual find--a beautiful deep purple wild aster hiding among the tall weeds in a hard-to-reach area in back. I wonder where it came from? Last year I collected a couple of dead flowerheads from some wild purple asters I found in Warm Springs to broadcast in the back yard, could this be one of them? Or is it a natural hybrid of the wild asters with the smooth blue? I definitely want more of these beauties, and will try to transplant them to more visible locations in my garden.

Volunteer wild aster in a weedy area.

The blue prairie sage I planted this spring hadn't become very tall, but was starting to bloom when the deer devoured them--all that is left are a few bare stems. I hope the plants make it through the winter and have a chance to become established. I've been working on establishing my very own "Postage Stamp Prairie" in the area we call the badlands in back.

Blue sage (Salvia azurea)

Another lovely surprise was to see some buds on the Japanese Anemone 'Honorine Jobert' I planted last year. The deer had been eating this one so much I had to put a wire cloche over it or it wouldn't have lasted very long.

 

Buds of Anemone 'Honorine Jobert'

 

I think this red salvia is 'Royal Windwalker Red' and not 'Texas Red' but I'm not sure--will have to look at my collection of saved labels to find out. This one was munched by deer too, but not badly, and is only now starting its display. The weather predictions say we should be having a warmer than usual autumn, with no frost until the end of the month, which will give these flowers a chance.

Salvia 'Royal Windwalker Red'

Only a few flower buds of the tall swamp sunflowers that usually bloom so profusely in my fall garden escaped the depredations of the deer. Ditto for the Sedum 'Autumn Joy' and the Beautyberries.

 

Swamp sunflowers (Helianthus angustifolius)

Beautyberry 'Early Amethyst' (Callicarpa dichotoma)

Not very noticeable, but I finally found one or two red berries on my 'Berry Poppins' hollies in front--it seems the 'Mr. Poppins' I acquired last year turned out to be a male plant for real. The previous specimen I'd bought had turned out to be female, so let's hope Mr Poppins grows bigger next year for a nice crop of berries..

A berry on "Berry Poppins' holly.

The foliage on the Viburnum 'Brandywine' is turning beautiful shades of red while the berries turn from pink to blue. The white lilac which didn't bloom at all this past spring has put out a few buds now, after the 2.5 inches of rain that tropical storm Ophelia left us. That's the second fall this shrub has bloomed, isn't that odd?

 

Viburnum 'Brandywine'

Pink and blue berries of viburnum 'Brandywine'

White lilac blooming in fall.

Next week I'll be away at the ASBA Conference so I won't be around for the Garden Blogger's Bloom Day on the 15th, but this is what is blooming in my garden now. It's not the masses of flowers I'd hoped for,or even the modest displays of the past, it's been a bad year for gardens here in the northwest corner of Virginia.

November Dawn

My back yard at dawn.

 

The fall color this year has been outstanding: the oak trees in back have never been so red as they are at the moment. I took this photo just before sunrise from my studio window a few days ago. It's been unseasonably warm since the beginning of November, but earlier in October, the overnight lows were near or just below freezing, which brought out the colors.

 

Red 'Simplicity' rose

 

With this weather, it's a joy to work in my garden digging up spring-flowering bulbs that were overcrowded, and replanting them in newly expanded flower beds. And adding a few new bulbs too, of course. I bought two Imperial Fritillaries (Fritillaria imperialis)--a red and a yellow--and some pink-cupped daffodils. I'm looking forward to seeing my handiwork when it all begins to emerge next spring.

 

A vase of my roses

 

It's so rare to have this many roses still blooming in November, that I picked one of each of the varieties in my garden for this bouquet: Molineux (yellow), red Simplicity, pink Petal Pushers (in back), New Dawn (pale pink), and red Double Knockout.

 

The east yard

The Viburnum 'Brandywine' on the east side of the house is still sporting some leaves along with its now blue-black berries, and the Japanese maples had some leaves when I took this photo, but after yesterday's rain, I doubt many will persist.

Oak trees in back yard

Fothergilla with purple asters.

The woods in back have been really glorious all week. Many other unexpected and stunning color combinations crop up in my garden at this time of the year--the orange leaves of the Fothergilla against the lavender of the purple asters and the silvery stems of the Caryopteris, with the Diervilla... everything takes on particularly lovely hues in the late afternoon as the sun is setting.

 

Re-blooming iris 'Blatant'

 

The re-blooming iris 'Blatant' has produced several flowers, and there are more blooming spikes. If the weather keeps up, it should continue to bloom for another week or more. It's also time to fence off the most susceptible plants, like this double-flowering quince, one of the deer's favorite snacks--there really is no other way to keep hungry deer away from some plants. I've also enclosed the hybrid witch-hazel 'Diane' that I planted this spring, as well as the Azaleas, Rhododendron and Hellebores on the east bed. Thus I hope to minimize the deer damage, though every year some of my plants get nearly wiped out.

 

Re-blooming iris and mums.

I'd been wanting to have an autumn flowering crocus that deer wouldn't eat, so when this Colchicum 'Waterlily' went on sale at Wayside Gardens, I bought one bulb to try out. Colchicums are very poisonous to both humans and animals, and this one with lovely mauve flowers is a hybrid of two different species: C. autumnale 'Alboplenum' with C. speciosus 'Album'. It will be interesting to see how it fares.

Colchicum 'Waterlily'