The calendar turned over to December and Christmas is approaching. Things are very slow moving in the garden. I searched for photo worthy plants today and I had a lot of success.
Here in the American South we don’t expect snow or deep freeze temperatures. We may have a light frost every week or two but it is still a good time of year to plant trees, shrubs and even some perennials if we are forecast to have above freezing weather for a week or 10 days. We can do that because the ground temperature will remain above freezing and plant roots will be undamaged.
Here is my six for this week. Perhaps, you would like to join our group tomorrow. It is Six on Saturday which is hosted by Jim Stephens. It is a group of gardeners from around the world posting 6 photos for the week. If you enjoy gardening, come visit. The link is https://gardenruminations.co.uk/.
I keep the begonia ready to return to the cold frame if the temperatures dip. In the spring, I will take cuttings to propagate new plants and use them to fill my window boxes until the next fall. This has successfully worked with this begonia cultivar and pelargonium/geraniums for 3 years now.
The succulent is perhaps a “panda”. It tolerates some light frost. It is near the front door and I can move it in if there are very cool nights.
The larkspur is a perennial that I purchased recently and it will be planted in the garden come spring. At the moment, it resides on the front stoop where it is protected from wind and heavy rain.
The pansy is a frequent selection for fall planting in our region. They do not like temps above 80F but they will tolerate a moderate frost. I do like their cheery faces. I have grown some from seed in the past but it is so much easier to choose from the many varieties at the local nursery. These populate my window boxes until it’s time to replace them with the dragon wing begonias in the spring.
The dogwood has such lovely leaf color and seed pod. This photo captures it for you. The dogwoods are disappearing from our landscape. They have been devastated by a dogwood borer.
I was gifted the cleome seeds back in the spring. The seeds did not germinate for me in the pots that I had filled with potting soil. I didn’t give up on them and they began appearing 2 weeks ago. I potted them up today. I will keep them under grow lights until they are large enough to take them outdoors. They will remain in the pots until spring planting with protection in the cold frame if there is freezing temps.
So, there is still a lot happening in the garden.
Happy gardening!!
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Lucky you, we are into the frosts now, so not much going on in the garden at all. The pansy is a pretty face, I agree.
Thank you. You always comment. It is much appreciated as we say in this part of the world.
It’s weird that the cleome seeds germinated 2 weeks ago!?… I hope you manage to keep them going until spring. I had a succulent identical to yours, but I think my overwatering caused the roots to rot. If it’s the same variety, it was quite fragile.
Agreed. I wonder whether it was the cooler temps. It was summer by the time I first planted them.
I also am prone to overwatering my succulents.
Stupid borers! I had to remove two mature trees from my backyard when I bought the house due to Emerald Ash Borer and I suspect at least on of my lilacs was killed off by a borer. Annoying beasts and a shame to learn how many plants have their own special borer pest. Some people treat their ash trees, but I suspect that the systemic poison will kill off other friendly insects. The larkspur is a gorgeous color!
I agree that these are annoying creatures. I also suspect that systemic treatment may be a Catch 22.
I sowed a few cleome seeds a couple of months back and they germinated fine, but slugs had other ideas. I thought I’d be off to a flyer in spring. Indoors under grow lights might be the way to go.
Beautiful colors. Thanks
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I love a happy pansy face, a winter treat. 🌸💞 I keep them going here in some pots in the shade but the ground here is a little too dry for the to over- summer. Although Johnny Jump ups sometimes do.
Perfect photo of the dogwood leaves. My dogwoods have not done well the past few years with freezes, droughts, and bores. They are lovely trees, though.
That Larkspur is a fantastic blue.
All my Cornus leaves have dropped now with our frost, but they do turn a lovely colour before that happens and then we are left with the coloured stems, happily we don’t have borers …yet!
Photo-worthy plants are scarce in my garden right now (it’s currently under a blanket of snow) but you’ve found plenty – with colour that would be worthy of a summer’s day. I hope your garden continues to be frost-free!
That larkspur is so pretty! Love the brightly-colored dogwood — am definitely going to get my hands on some for winter interest now that I know what’s what they are. I’m vaguely considering asking guy down the road for some cuttings of his plant this spring, actually.
Oh, and a story! I was chatting with a friend from Tupelo and reminiscing about a road trip we took from Florida nearly… yikes, 19 years ago… so I looked up our route on the map was noticed that we had passed right by a name that is only familiar to me now after half a year of SoS — Vestavia! 😀
Well, there is coincidence. Vestavia was named by a very colorful and somewhat eccentric character named George Ward. He built a home fashioned after the temple of Vesta in Rome.