Garden: A Frosty Morning

The frost and morning sun brought life to some things:

Even as they took life from others:

I wonder if the buds are still viable?

Poor little guy is crispy, flowers, too.

Just so you know...despite my troubled relationship with yellow-jackets, I picked this one up and moved him to a sunny spot near his nest (well, A yellow jacket nest--Washington state had a population explosion of yellow jackets last year and I had more than my share).  

Bonus long view:

Garden: GBBD--November 2013

Yea!  Despite some really inclement weather today, I scrounged up a few photos for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, hosted each month by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.  

I've got fuchsias:

More fuchsias:

Camellias:

Campanula poscharskyana "Blue Waterfall"--makes a nice groundcover under alchemilla:

Leucanthemum "Shaggy" (I think?):

Alyssum:

These inmates of my son's garden (you'd think, maybe, I could have snatched that dead stalk out of the way. Maybe. But it is what it is.):

Japanese Anemone (A little ratty and just about the last one, I think.):

Well, that's about it.  There are still a few blooms on the Rosa mutabilis and a few buds.  Geranium "Jolly Bee" has a bloom or two, and Persicaria "Dragon's Eye" actually looks pretty fresh.  But, most of the garden is going down fast.  Notice...no wide views!

Until next time!

Garden: How Much Longer Will It Last?

In the Pacific Northwest, appreciation of the fall garden can be fleeting.  

When I peruse gardening books--especially those of the coffee table variety--I see many photos of the sculptural, winter-time seedheads of echinacea outlined with frost, silphium foliage standing tall and black against drifted snow, and dried seedheads of various grasses transformed by death and weather into garden art.  That is not-so-much the situation here, where persistent atmospheric moisture and mild temperatures rot the dying foliage and turn it to mush--really unsightly mush.  I've come to suspect that a sculptural winter garden is one benefit of harsher climates which basically freeze-dry the foliage as it stands.   Nonetheless, I am ever hopeful for a better outcome--especially as I have become more enamored of the "New Perennials" style of gardening with its focus on appreciation of the plant in EVERY season.

So.  Here we are at that time of year again.  Once again, I am heading into fall with the goal to leave the garden standing throughout winter for the appreciation of both humans and wildlife.  It's going to be hard.  The decision to leave the plants standing is not a single choice, but many choices made over a period of days, weeks, and months.  After all, I spent the summer deadheading spent blooms to prolong the floral show.  Maybe I should have let them be?  I cut down some browned astilbe blooms to improve the appearance of the rest of the planting.  But dried astilbe blooms look pretty fantastic in some of those photos.  In hindsight, maybe I should have kept my pruners in my pocket?

If I had a larger garden, the choice wouldn't be mine as the need for efficiency would prevail, but my garden is small and I can see and access every part of it.  It is also a front garden in a neighborhood of small properties.  EVERYONE can see and evaluate my choices.  In the past, tidiness has triumphed.  I've nipped and snipped, little by little, until the whole garden is cut down and tidied.  And yes, I've raked-up and composted the fallen leaves and replaced them with sterile, purchased, compost mulch.

But, what can I say?  I'm going to try again.  I took some photos of the back garden to celebrate what might be the last flush of fall beauty before things start getting REAL ugly. Whatever happens, I think that I will document it so all can see the true extent of the winter blahs.

This first photo is taken from the back patio, looking out toward the arbor.  The darmera still look pretty good.  The hakonechloa grew like gangbusters this year and shows some attractive red highlights.   I left a few astilbe blooms standing and, in this instance, I like them.  The yellow/brown foliage is Persicaria polymorpha.  I swept the patio, but left the blow-in leaves in the beds--they are pretty leaves, a mix of Japanese maple, redbud, robinia, and alder.

Arbor bed.

This view (below) is taken from the shed, looking back towards the patio and arbor--the persicaria is just out of view at the top right of the picture.  I like the mix of yellows, browns, and greens in this bed.  The greenest plants are Lobelia siphilitica and Brunnera macrophylla.  The browns are darmera, Lysimachia clethroides, and siberian iris.  That's an evergreen Acorus gramineus "Ogon" in the bottom right.  It's odd (to me) that these darmeras are well on their way to yellow and brown while the others, just around the corner of the house, are still green.  These get more sun, but also much more water.  In addition, they were  planted just this spring, while the others were planted the summer before.  

Swamp bed.

Again, I tidied the paths but left fallen leaves in the planting beds.  Although I will try to leave the plants standing, I may end up cutting things down little by little.  If that happens, I'll try to leave the cut foliage on the bed as mulch--a small step towards gentler, more "ecological" practices.

That's the plan, anyway, and we'll see what happens...

Garden: A Dark and Stormy Morning

We're having a pretty wintery storm right now--driving rain and gusty winds.  Most of the leaves (and a few smaller branches) are off the trees.  I also noticed that one of our neighbor's fences blew down.  Earlier today I went out to remove two black Hefty bags that had blown and caught in one of our trees--they look suspiciously like the bags that a neighbor filled with leaves and sat next to her house to await yard-waste collection.  

**And with a long hiatus while waiting for power to be restored...the rest of the post.

Espaliered camellia--blooming a month early?

Fothergilla gardenii "Mt. Airy"--a new addition to the garden this year.

Front garden on this stormy day.

Arts & Crafts: Stuff I made for Halloween 2013

Halloween is a fun time around here--lots of opportunities to make stuff.  All kinds of stuff.  Of course, it always turns into a costume extravaganza for my son.  One year, he was a Ghostbuster.  The next, he was a Transformer-style robot.  This year, he's going to be a knight. Of course, that's something that I had no idea how to construct so I did some internet research.  And then things started to get a little crazy as I began to think that the costume needed to be historically accurate (no mixing English armor with Italian or Spanish details!) But I came to my senses and realized that it doesn't need to be historically accurate, it just needs to fulfill a 6-year-old's idea of what a "knight" looks like.

I also made a halloween-themed quilt and a mantle decoration made of ping-pong balls decorated to look like eyeballs.

Are you ready to see it all?

Here's the quilt:

For this quilt, I did three things that were new to me:  I made wonky 9-patch blocks (a speed-quilting technique which was new to me); I made my own bias edging; and I used a darning foot to help me machine quilt the top.  Don't look too closely at the quilting!  I was moving fast and having a good time--much better than if my goal had been perfection.  There is a tutorial for the wonky nine-patch blocks (here) and a tutorial for homemade bias tape (here)--not MY tutorials, but some that I referenced when learning how to get the job done.

The eyeball garland was a quick and fun project--ping pong balls that I painted and drew on with colored pens before stringing them onto black yarn.

Ping pong ball "eyeballs".

The armor was a fun project, too.  I started early (mid-September) because I didn't want to have a rush to the finish.  It was a pretty quick project, though.  People have asked me how long it took and I really have no idea.  I definitely putzed around a lot.  And there was a lot of down-time while I waited for paint or glue to dry.  But the actual work was, probably, 15 hours or less?  That's just a guestimate.  Originally, I'd planned to make boots and armored gloves.  I had plenty of time and materials to complete those items, but, you know, I just started wanting to get the mess packed up and OUT OF THE KITCHEN already! So I did what I did and called it a day.

Here's the finished costume:

I made it (mostly) out of EVA foam--that's the foam that is used for play-squares and anti-fatigue matting.  The only thing I bought ready-made was the sword, which I embellished with leather scraps and painted.  My mom crocheted the "chain mail".  

Here are a couple of in-progress pictures:

It's a torso! (Sorry about the blurry, low-light photo.)

The whole thing got a few coats of Mod Podge to fill in the crevices and to harden the surface.

Yea for Mod Podge.

Sanding and painting.

Well, here it is almost complete (the torso, that is!).  

Almost complete! Still needs the buckles on the sides.

The leather accents came from a pair of boots and a belt that I sourced from Goodwill.  I was pretty proud of my use of inexpensive, second-hand materials--something that is definitely NOT a strong skill for me.  Baby steps!  From the belt, I made the tabs that connect the torso to the panniers and I used the boots for leather strips, the shoulder pads (under the pauldrons), and the decorative buckles.  The rest of it was mostly EVA, foamies craft sheets, Mod Podge, hot glue, acrylic paint, paintable caulk, fabric, upholstery tacks and sundry items, and a feather boa for the all-important plume. 

And there you have it--Halloween 2013.