No photo submissions this week, so here’s a few snippets I’ve been saving on the general topic.
There’s a Chill Grey Dawn post right above this one, if you’re desperate to discuss Topic A-for-Awful, so let’s keep this one for respite, okay?
We may try for some drive-by leaf-peeping this afternoon. How’s fall foliage coming along in your area?
And, as always: What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
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AP LIFESTYLES: Gardeners can't control the climate, but they can help protect their plants by looking for "microclimates." https://t.co/J1NWvDBMYQ
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 17, 2020
VIDEO: Quarantined in a Botanical Garden.
Alberto Gomez is spending his lockdown tending to his Botanical Garden, which he created over 40 years ago in Colombia, the second most biodiverse country in the world pic.twitter.com/7coqnOpuDe
— AFP news agency (@AFP) July 9, 2020
Building on a new hanging garden trend, a greenhouse atop a Montreal warehouse growing eggplants and tomatoes to meet demand for locally sourced foods has set a record as the largest in the world https://t.co/OgV0qSs55U pic.twitter.com/NrHneXwpjo
— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 26, 2020
Taiwan's plant hunters are in a race against time to protect the island's biodiversity https://t.co/6LAM0oNBbh pic.twitter.com/XqhX3Ynmro
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 22, 2020
Green shoots: Rooftop farming takes off in Singapore.
The space-starved city state is seeing a growing number of rooftop farms as part of a drive to produce more food locally and reduce a heavy reliance on importshttps://t.co/oIErFsOZJr pic.twitter.com/XT1VZxYnxw
— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 30, 2020
Geminid
I planted some grass yesterday. Scuffed up the clay, raked in some compost, spread shade mix with some annual ryegrass (rapid germinator), 10-10-10, lime and straw. Fall is the best time to plant grass, shrubs and trees in central Virginia. Drought is usually not a problem, and plant roots keep getting it into December, when the ground gets cold.
scav
Mostly just a massive fall cleanup here in the upper left— multiple gardens Moved a few plants around in Mom’s as well: her plants, she insists, are on roller skates.
satby
It’s been raining since last night and is expected to continue off and on all day and I’m delighted! I’ve been waiting to move some iris and then mulch the front flower bed until the ground got a real good long soaking, and now it’s getting one. So that chore just went on the list for tomorrow afternoon when I get home from work.
Pete Mack
Peak fall floor was last weekend in the Adirondacks. We climbed –highly rewarding –Chimney Mountain (near Indian Lake), and peeked in a few of the smaller of the ice caves. (The bigger ones require technical climbing.) Absolutely everyone was out for a hike–we saw about 100 people, and there were at least 100 cars parked at the Snowy Mtn trailhead–abd a dozen at each lesser trailhead. Just a spectacular day .
After a week of rain, the remaining colors are brown and yellow, with the occasional orange sugar maple remaining. The glorious red maples are gone like, well, last year’s leaves.
But next week will be the beach trees. And while they don’t make for spectacular views, they are magical to walk between–and were the inspiration for Tolkien’s Mallorn trees.
Mousebumples
I got some Tulip and daffodil bulbs for my birthday last week. It’s been super rainy the past few days but today will hopefully be better? Hoping to go for a walk as a family, have a cookout, and maybe get those (and some garlic bulbs!) planted today? ?
Jeffrey
Planted the bare root quince tree I had potted up for the summer to make keeping it alive over the summer easier.
Waiting on the bulb order to arrive. Have prepared one bed and will work on other this week. I hope.
Started Foxgloves, Coreopsis, Columbine, Champion, Shasta Daisies in pots. They are ready to go into the ground. The plan is to put them on top of the bulbs.
Threw a mix of annual poppy seeds collected from this years plants over cleared beds. They have germinate. Will move them around in the winter when big enough if the ground isn’t frozen solid.
Brought the house plants in.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
SiubhanDuinne
“Salmagundi” — perfect! I was racking my so-called brains trying to remember if we have a commenter nymmed Salmagundi.
satby
Fall color is a real mixed bag here and I think it’s because it was such a dry summer. Some of the trees are long past peak, others are about at peak, and some are just beginning to show color the past few days. The sugar maples in front if my house are just beginning to turn yellow, but as it progresses they’ll be beautiful oranges and reds.
And I have a new mulching leaf vacuum/ blower and I’m ready to make more mulch out of the fallen leaves. Mulch makes gardeners happy.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?
Gin & Tonic
Foliage kind of a bust due to the extended drought in southern New England. I don’t think we’ve had an inch of rain since the 4th of July. What colors we had seem to have come and gone quickly.
MomSense
The foliage is meh here. We were flirting with drought all summer.
Today I’m going to try to clean up the gardens and turn the compost bins.
Anyone watch the documentary Kiss The Ground? It’s about soils and climate change. I just turned it on to watch while I wait for it to warm up enough outside to work.
Lapassionara
@Geminid: How often will you water the places you have planted? When do you expect the seeds to sprout?
good morning, everyone.
JPL
Leaves are falling but no color yet. GA especially in higher elevations have wonderful fall colors. My niece is in VT for the weekend and sent some magnificent pictures that show fall color.
OzarkHillbilly
Supposed to get a frost tonight. If so, that will be the end of the gardens.
Not much to report in the way of garden news. I want to dump several inches of compost on the island in preparation of my Glory of the Snow bulbs, but I need the trailer to take my meat birds in for processing on Tuesday and then I have to deliver some to both my son’s and stepdaughter’s respective homesteads on Wednesday. So Thursday will be my earliest opportunity for that.
I tried to order seedlings from MDC a couple weeks ago but the system locked up when I went to pay. I need to try and get that done today.
My bad Anne. I had a feeling you were gonna run short and meant to send something but things got away from me this week. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: A light frost is predicted here too, but we escaped the last time it was predicted. I have a couple of tomatoes I can pull, and some plants to take inside, but I’m ready for frost to make cleaning up the back beds easier. Shame really, now that we’ve gotten some rain a lot of the flowers had started blooming better again. Watering just isn’t as good as rain.
Kropacetic
A Salma Hayek to you, too.
debbie
They’re predicting decent fall colors here, but not until the 3rd or 4th week of October, which seems late to me. Still, I’ll take it.
OzarkHillbilly
It;s the sulfuric acid in the rain. NO! I mean it’s the fluoride in the tap water.
My oldest Sis always said the same, I agree.
Gvg
Florida had a cool front this week. Mostly in the 80’s in the day and 60’s at night. I had to wear a sweater in the mornings. This begins some of the best gardening time of the year for us. Our second season. I picked up some seeds from my mom and will try to plant another bean crop, maybe start the broccoli and cauliflower. Fall and winter are the best time to grow broccoli. I need to find a source of manure delivered as I no longer have a pickup truck. Fall bird migrations are on going. I picked up some more birdseed yesterday curbside.
I got my mist setup restarted a couple of weeks ago and have rooted a fair number of plants to set out. Only downside is rain has really slacked off so I have to actually water new plantings. Also weeding. Trying to prevent them from getting to seed so next year will be better. Roses are blooming nicely, asters are starting..
MazeDancer
In the Hudson Valley, which is, basically, a bunch of micro climates, color has been early, and lovely, despite the drought. But more individual trees, not wide swaths of color.
My trees are always the last, so they’re still green. And will be for another two weeks.
But there is another week of decent peeping, at least. Maybe more, individually speaking.
Sab
First time in 20 years I thinned my siberian iris, then treated it horribly. Couldn’t figure out where to tramsplant it, so I stuck it into a some pots on the front stoop and let it toast in the hot sun for a couple of weeks. Most leaves died off, but then it sprouted a bunch of new leaves. I still don’t know where to plant it. Gave some to son’s fiancee. Had promised some to neighbor across the street, but their Trump sign nixed that.
Still have two big pots left and running out of time. Winter is coming.
debbie
@Sab:
Do they have to be in the ground over winter or could you keep them in the garage or basement?
oldgold
Keats – To Autumn
Sab
@debbie: I do not know. That is part of my problem
ETA: we have five very curious hyperactive cats, so any kind of houseplant creates issues. Kill plant. New litterbox. Will this poison me if I eat it
ETA: we tore down the garage because it blocked a view.
Jeffrey
There is a hole in the patio rain gutter that has a 30 gallon trash bin under it to capture rain water to use on the potted plant outside in the summer and the house plants in the winter. I never get any white salt buildup on the surface of the soil in the pots. All the plant really like the rain water unless it is an acid rain. @satby:
satby
@Jeffrey: I have a rain barrel (50 gal) too, but it needs rain to fill it. This year it seldom got deeper than 6 inches in the barrel, about 5 gallons. And it went completely dry twice.
holyrood
Edinburgh here. autumn rains and winds coinciding with lockdowns bind us in an unholy war with indoor spider mating season. But the hills and trees around Arthur’s Seat look lovely and lush when one is able to see in breaks of fog and clouds. Final blooms on my lavender and the bees getting the last call notice. Mud is now eternal and infinite.
FelonyGovt
Doing some planting here in Southern California. This is a good time for it here, since no possibility of frost and hopefully we’ll start getting some rain maybe next month. A lot of container plantings- herbs and lettuce, Alstromerias (sp?)- but we’ve also started planting some things in the ground- agaves, Cordelyline, asparagus fern. I’m not sure if anyone would be interested in pictures.
oldgold
Keats – To Autumn
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness; Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.“
Memorized the first stanza of this poem in the eighth grade. Now, many moons later, in the springtime of my dotage, muddling through the hellscape of 2020 as a 7/8ths life crisis looms, while battling the sod webworms, seemingly attracted by my newly installed butterfly garden, the first two lines of “To Autumn” still rattle around in my head and bring me comfort.
cope
After very successful multiple harvests of Tabasco peppers from two plants, I have gone back to two pots of Serranos. The Tabasco’s were incredibly productive until they weren’t. Most of them ended up in various iterations of hot sauce (the last one I made was the best) and giardiniera. I transplanted a yellow plant from the planter in front of the house to the back yard because it was getting crowded out by the new red plants my wife picked out. I am trying to get up the nerve to dig up and split a spider lily from its invisible location in the corner of the back yard so we can share one with my wife’s sister and have one that is more accessible for us to admire.
As noted above by Gvg, it’s kind of rainy here in the Mildew State lately, a great time to do these kinds of things. I also have a ton of trimmed tree branches and palm fronds that need to be broken down into smaller pieces so that they can be taken away in the Wednesday yard waste pickup. Though not plant related, yesterday was “attend to our avian friends day” so I cleaned out the hummingbird feeder and put fresh food in it and did the same for the bird seed feeder. Today’s plan: Liverpool/Aston Villa since it’s on regular cable and not NBC’s horrid new Peacock streaming service which I (at present, anyway) refuse to pay for.
holyrood
@oldgold: that’s lovely. Keats has been a longtime companion in my own brain.Thanks for sharing.
Geminid
@Lapassionara: late reply: I planted the grass for a customer, and when I left she was about to water the area to get the straw wet, so it wouldn’t blow away. There will be showers tonight, but she likes watering so she’ll probably will water often. I just cautioned her to water only every three days once the grass gets going, so the roots grow deep. We’ve had plenty of rain lately, and good soil moisture, so new grass won’t need so much watering.
Benw
I got one last ripe cherry tomato off the plant yesterday. There’s still a couple green ones but the cool weather is killing the plant. I really should go out and weed for several hours today: we’ll see!
WaterGirl
@Benw: I harvested all my peppers and tomatoes yesterday. Except the SunGold cherry tomatoes, which I need to harvest before the freeze tonight.
Always a sad day for the garden.
MagdaInBlack
My little balcony raised rosemary plant is blooming, I’ve done something right. Now to over winter it inside will be the trick
I kept one going for 7 years, then one summer it developed scales and I lost it.
StringOnAStick
We didn’t win our house bid, so I don’t have to toss everything in the self watering planters early; I didn’t want to do that We’ll wait until next spring to move; it’s getting too late here to list this one (who wants to move in December in CO anyway), and there’s just so much uncertainty right now with Covid ramping up everywhere in the world, the housing market acting “toppy”, whatever shit TRump does, etc. so we don’t want to have bought something and have the economic shit hit the fan between buying and selling.
Now I can go have some SUP fun instead of being in a packing panic with a two week deadline to be completely out of this house so the carpet can be replaced and the place staged for showing. Maybe I’ll get a good night’s sleep soon, that has been missing since we put the bid in on Monday. I’m relieved we didn’t get it, we got into a stampede and went over our budget.
laura
Summer’s end is finally here in Sacramento and there’s a rumor of rain at the end of the week. Impossible to overstate the need for rain while so much of the north bay remains aflame. The raised bed is overflowing with zinnias, cosmos and giant red amaranth. On the shady side of the yard we’re getting a second bloom from the gardenias and the fuscias are still cranking out blooms. It’s the mexican sage that’s having a star turn – deep magenta above dusty grey green leafy stalks. The hummingbirds are gorging themselves all day long. And it looks like another heavy crop of navels on the orange tree. We sat out back with a few friends socially distanced and listened to the hardly Strictly bluegrass simulcast and while it wasnt Golden gate park, it was as good as we could get. Amazing three hours of music and memories.
WaterGirl
@StringOnAStick: Not once have I ever seen anyone who – after not getting the house they wanted – didn’t end up in a place they liked even better than the one they originally wanted.
So I’ll say congratulations on getting your house back, and I’m sure there is a better house waiting for you when you start looking again.