Sunday, October 20, 2013

Welcome To My Garden.

I have a little area in the front left of my door
with a lovely mimosa tree in it,
which will no doubt go the way of most of my mimosas
and croak on me within 48 hours if I look at it cross-eyed.
Anyhoos, I have a nice mulched area around the mimosa
and have planted my "White Garden."
This little shrub is Althea-Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus).
I found it growing in the woods
and dug it up and brought it home.
It appears to be quite happy in its new home.

 I have white-flowering shamrocks.

 The big glass globe on the left is a from a terrarium 
I made for Mama Hawthorne back in the 70s.
I brought it here and I have a solar light inside
so it looks like a giant light bulb at night.

 I have both white-flowering green and variegated spider plants.
Never knew these were a perennial here until
I stuck one in the ground and left it.
It came back bigger and stronger the next year
and produced lots of babies.

 A white-flowering salvia is in this bed ...

 ...  along with this little fall-blooming crocus.

 I have plans for next year.
See the two deadheads to the left of the shamrock?
Those are from my white-flowering globe amaranth,
AKA Gomphrena globosa.
I'll spread the seeds around this fall
and look forward to the flowers next summer.

Well, enough of that.
Let's take another walk-through.
 Water hyacinth getting ready to open.
 I love this color.

 Little treasures in my garden.

 Hummingbird vine/cypress vine/cardinal vine,
or as I prefer to call it, Ipomoea quamoclit.

Clitoria.

 One of the succulents in my Succulent Chair is blooming.

 My Succulent Chair is filling in nicely.

 This is the chair back in May,
right after making it,
when the Foodie Gals of Foodies Untie blogdom came to visit
and helped me create this.


 Pink shamrock.
My water barrel.

Sheer Bliss is one of my favorite roses.
I love the delicate color.




On the left, vining up my dead plum tree
(Thanks to ThatBitchIrene.)
that I use as a trellis,
is my moon flower vine, Ipomoea alba,
This one opens late afternoon
and closes and dies the next day.
It is not to be confused with
the short squat plant on the right
which is a moonflower shrub, Datura inoxia.
This one blooms during the day.
Because of the mild climate here,
the bush moonflower is a perennial.
I save the seed pods of the annual moon flower vine
for planting next year.

Moonflower datura.
Critters inside.


About three weeks ago,
I cut my asparagus plant to the ground.
I am rewarded now with a fall crop.


I've been transplanting my deck plants
before bringing them in for the winter.
They've enjoyed and prospered from their time outside.
Moonflower vine in pot on deck.

Delicious mesclun mix in the back right.
In the front is dill which self seeded into that pot.


Artichoke.

That ming aralia (top left)
has quadrupled in size since being brought outside last spring.


I potted a big planter with red chard, beets, and purple basil.
Can't wait to see those colors!

My water barrel is host to all sorts of critters.

This is Brutus, my bull frog.

Don't know how he found my water barrel,
but I'm so glad he did.


This is his preferred perch.

Anole climbing the bamboo.





My little froggies change colors with the environment.

 Tiffany rose.











Brutus seems to be a happy frog.




Praying mantis.
All these critters are in my little water barrel microcosm.

Yellow butterfly on my hummingbird vine.

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