Gardening

Late November Gardening

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The weeks just slip on by, don’t they? And the garden still needs to be cleaned up to head into winter. I have no idea when this will happen. Short of digging out Chris’ monster fishing/work light to work in the dark in the evenings, it will probably be after Christmas until we formally hit the yard for cleanup. The butterfly ginger, above, needs to be trimmed back as a few of the stalks have gotten a little unwieldy. But, they are still blooming despite mid 30’s temperatures in the mornings.

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The woodland painted petals, Anomatheca laxa, are coming back again for a third round in the garden. This has definitely been one of those plants that you are unsure if it will truly survive and come back…when you just aren’t sure you will trust what the garden center person is telling you. And then the plants prove their worth in the garden. These are a cool season bulb that sprout around mid-fall and will bloom in the spring but all of the vegetation dies back during the heat of summer.

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Also, despite some cold mornings, the brugmansias are holding on. As soon as we have a good freeze they will wilt and mush and go dormant until it warms back up in April.

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The feral Ruby had something happen to her eye recently. I am sure it was scratched in a fight with one of the other cats.

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Down in the yard the swamp chestnut oak, Querucs michauxii, has turned several shades of beautiful colors. Other than the sycamore, the bald cypress, and the god-awful Chinese tallow, it is probably one of the more colorful trees we’ve got in the area.

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I harvested a couple of radishes on Thanksgiving but then promptly forgot about them, put them in the fridge, and they turned to rubber. Oops.

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We had some chives self seed in the middle of the pathway in the vegetable garden. I think I might transplant them into the perimeter bed, or at least some of them, and then try to smother the rest with cardboard.

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This kid is just itching to get down and play outside. Dude needs to not put things in his mouth that don’t belong before that can happen…but I can’t wait for when that happens!

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One aspect of using your own compost is the chance you’ll end up getting plants you had in your flower bed sprouting in your vegetable bed. There are at least two variegated thistles, Silybum marianum, in the garlic bed that I need to transplant back to the flower bed sometime soon.

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Back in the flower garden the pineapple sage, Salvia elegans, is putting on quite a show and taking up a whole bunch of room in one sector of the garden. It will die back when the first freeze and come back gorgeously as it has the last several years.

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The pink bananas continue to slowly shed leaves. We will need to thin these plants out this year and I need to rearrange a few other plants that were planted around the bananas because they are getting smothered by them. The back story on these bananas trees is: They were originally grown by us in Florida where we gave a few plants of this variety and of the golden lotus variety to Chris’ dad to plant around his pond. We obtained what we thought was a golden lotus banana back from his dad only for it to be one of the pink bananas…hence the really bad planting plan. Golden lotus bananas are short and compact whereas, well, you see what the pink banana trees look like here!

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And finally, the formosa lilies are seeding. I really love these flowers!

What’s going on in your garden?

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One Comment

  • Shirley

    A fascinating selection of plants. Pink bananas look like they’re coming along nicely even if they are a bit big.

    This year I have lettuce in with the bluebonnets the result having tossed the bolted tops aside to compost last spring.

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