Each Little World

The babe in the bath

There is nothing that gives me more outright garden fun than giving this little lady seasonal hats. Here's her latest. She's on the bathroom vanity along with a lacy maidenhair fern. Both the Coleus and the Heuchera leaves have rooted, so — with a little luck — she can wear a green hat all winter.

Final foliage follow-up

For the last month we've taken advantage of dry weather to gather all the fallen leaves from our trees in order to chop them up to be used as mulch next Spring. We've got 18 big contactor's bags filled with them, along with two bags of white pine needles that our neighbor helped me to rake up in his yard. They will be used to refresh the pine needle paths in the Sacred Grove come Spring. It's like having a pantry filled with home canned foods that you put upn yourself. But the garden — and not the gardeners — will be getting fed as a result of our efforts. 

The east side of our house is currently the junk/storage area. As you can see our neighbor uses the adjacent spot for the same purpose. One of these years this will be turned into more garden — as soon as we can figure out how to make it a workspace that is as attractive as it is practical! 

Ferns that aren't feathery

. . . and that look good until the snow arrives is another way of describing Hart's Tongue ferns. I grow two versions of this fern. The top image shows the straight species (Asplenium scolopendrium) while the lower picture is the ruffled version (A. scolopendrium Angustifolium). The increased ruffling on the later plant is quite obvious.

My garden has any number of ferns that look good until they get buried by the first snowfall. And then there are Hellebores, Epimediums, Hepaticas and Arum italicum — plants that arrive early, stay late, and always look good. I never thought too much about them in terms of their evergreen qualities. Living in Wisconsin, you get used to thinking that nothing is evergreen except for conifers and boxwoods and the like.

But I suddenly made that evergreen connection with my ferns and assorted hardy perennials as I was reading Carolyn's Shade Gardens blog. She'd been doing a series of posts on flowers, groundcovers and Hostas that look good in fall, proving you can have a beautiful garden at this season without mums! She really made me really think about my fall garden. I actually went out and looked at which Hostas were still looking good late in the season and which ones should be replaced by a more serviceable variety. And I noted her many versions of the Italian Arum. Mine is doing well, but is in the back corner of the garden while Carolyn planted hers by her front door. So I need to see if there's a spot for one of these beauties where I can enjoy it at this time of year without trekking out to the back forty! Check out her blog for some great fall plants, along with excellent gardening info.  

Bringing fall indoors

 

I cut the last of the toad lilies and assorted foliage on Nov. 2 to enjoy indoors. By the end of the first week, some of the ferns and other plants were dying. So I did a little rearranging and added some dried Hydrangeas to perk things up. But the backbone plants of the garden — Hellebores, Heucheras, native Pachysandra, NY ferns and an Araum Italicum — have been indoors in water for a little over two weeks and are still going strong. One more reason to celebrate foliage!

Foliage Follow-up: 11.16.2011

The reds have had their moment but the yellows continue to shine in the November garden: golden Hakonechloa grass, Kerria Japonica 'Pale Moon', Epimedium grandiflorum 'Red Queen' and our neighbor's maple leaves that fall into our garden (along with leaves from our Oak and a Redbud).

To find more fabulous foliage, visit Pam at Digging for her Foliage Follow-Up.

GBBD: 11.15.11

After a hard frost and the first snow of the season, only the native witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is still putting on a flower show. In fact, it just began; but it's taken a good ten years for this shrub to get big enough and old enough to produce flowers of a size and quantity to have an impact. We'll get another show when H. vernalis blooms in March. 

To see what's blooming in gardens in the Midwest, around the nation and the world, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens and celebrate Garden Bloggers Bloom Day!

The Ginkgo gives up its gold

Despite its reputation for losing all its leaves in one fell swoop, Ginkgoes usually give them up a few at a time. Over a number of days you get to enjoy the color and shape of individual leaves before the big drop finally happens.

A transitional week

On Monday, Mark and I were outdoors working in the garden in shirt sleeves for much of the day. I took a break to enjoy my mini maples which had finally colored up.

On Tuesday the temperature dropped but it finally rained . . . 

and the paperbark maple tree just off the deck exploded into its fiery red fall color. Most years it does this at the same time the nearby Pagoda dogwood, Japanese maple and Fothergilla are peaking, giving us a spectacular show. This year all of them turned color in succession.

Despite the wind and rain, we still had lots of bright leaves on the trees when the rain turned to snow on Wednesday.

Now, here it is the weekend and it's back to work outdoors with hoodies again the order of the day.

Just when you thought . . .

it couldn't get any better, the fall color dazzled us this morning when we looked out the living room window. Mark was compelled to dash out and take a few more shots to capture the scene.

This Acer palmatum dissectum 'Viridis' changes daily but is always a stunning mix of orange, red and coral. The Pagoda dogwood (Cornus alternifolia) has already lost a lot more leaves since Mark's photos of a couple of days ago. These are planted to the west of the deck and just outside our living room.

Maybe it was a trick of the light but the Bloodgood Japanese maple (Acer palmatum atropurpureum) had turned the brightest red we've ever seen it in the 12 years since we first planted it. This shot was taken from the front edge of the deck. The structure just visible between the red maple and Ginkgo is the roofed entrance gate of the fence along the back lot line.

Walking east from the deck, you come around the bog with the hills to your left or south side, and the tea house on the west side of the garden almost on the lot line.

Mark has taken a few steps south and now he's looking toward the Turtle Mound with the weeping Katsura (Cercidiplhyllum japonicum 'Pendula") in the background. The path continues behind the low hedge.

Standing on the crest of the Buddha Mound looking back toward the house. The last garden pots are resting upside down on the deck waiting to be washed and brought indoors for the winter.

On the back side of the Buddha mound is Acer palmatum 'Orangela' showing its fall color. We have had a lot of winter dieback on this maple but it also puts out a fair amount of annual growth. In its location, it is actually perferable to have it a bit small rather than quickly outgrowing the limited space.

Still behind the Buddha Mound, a bit to the west of the previous shot. Here you can see the full array of color in the back garden: white pine (foreground); cinnamon-colored Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroiboides 'Miss Grace'), the Japanese maple, Golden curls willow, our eastern neighbor's maple and bluish Scots pine. Then Mark turned around and walked through the gate into the yard of our neighbors on the south side.

Looking back into our garden with our weeping Katsura and the lower branches of our neighbor's Dawn Redwood, which happens to be the state champion tree of that species.

Back in our garden, Mark is standing at the top of the stream looking back to the Buddha Mound. The yellow leaves in the background are from the Carolina Silverbell (Halesia tetraptera) while the green weeping tree in the foreground is a Purple Fountain Weeping Beech. 

Walking behind the Tea House and looking back up at it from the path along the west edge of the garden.

Standing in the same location as the photo above but looking in the opposite direction. This is the "West Gate Garden," though the gate does not actually exist yet. The tree in the foreground is Acer mono 'Painted Maple" while a clump of Burning Bush (Euonymous alatus) burns brightly by the fence. Behind it, you can see the parent plant in our west-side neighbhor's garden. And way in the background — fading to pink — is the Burning Bush out by the street that is first to color-up each fall.

From where he's been standing, Mark now turns east (left) and heads back to the deck along the path behind the little hedge.

It's just started to rain, so these are probably the last shots of great color for this fall.

Fall color continues

. . . along with lots of leaves on the trees. So glad we're not suffering like the East Coast with snow and leafy trees. Just the opposite here: it's supposed to get up to the low 60s today so I am going to cut down the last plants in the garden. I've put it off because we still haven't had a really killer frost here in town. But I can't wait for the plants to die back on their own; not with a rare beautiful November day in front of me!

Two views of the Acer pseudosiboldiana. The picture below was taken over the weekend to show that the color gets more brilliant as the days pass.

Pagoda dogwood with Japanese threadleaf maple (clsoe-up below).

Trees at the back edge of the pond (above) and the near edge (below).