With Thanksgiving right around the corner, of course I’m reflecting on all the things I have to be thankful for, and close to the top of the list is my garden. It’s a place of peace. It’s a place that embodies the cycle of life and the strength of the life force.
Here’s what it looks like today—a surprisingly warm day here in southern North Carolina. Most of the flowers are past their prime, but one of those still giving a lovely display is the bright pink/purple broom type mum in the foreground bed. It’s named AOI. (By the way, I order all my mums from https://www.kingsmums.com. They have a wide selection of unusual cultivars and ship rooted cuttings in the spring.)
Also in that bed is a small pine tree which my granddaughter got on a field trip last year with her fifth grade class. She didn’t have anywhere to plant it, so I gave it a home. It’s amazing how quickly it’s grown. It’s about 3 feet tall now and I’m going to decorate it with lights this weekend.
Anyway, the garden is a mess at the moment, but it still brings me pleasure, with so much to see and so much changing nearly every day.
I winterize the garden a bed at a time, removing all the dead annuals, cutting back the perennials, topping off the soil, and covering it with chopped straw for a cozy winter blanket. But at this point, although some beds are ready, others aren’t quite there yet.
Here, another mum is holding on—the plant with all the yellow flowers. Also, the pink/purple verbena isn’t ready to die back for the winter. The verbena has a good chance of coming back next year, but they don’t always.
Here are more mums, and they’re holding on too. The blooms are no longer good for cutting because the few light frosts we've had have dulled their colors, but they still look nice in the garden and aren’t ready to go to sleep for the winter. Behind the mums is a lantana whose blossoms are beautiful combinations of pink and yellow. It’s an annual here, but, like the mums, is still hanging on.
We haven’t had anything but light frosts yet this year, and I think that’s unusual. In fact, I was working in the garden this afternoon with just a flannel shirt.
Here's a bed that I worked on today. It’s full of daffodil bulbs and will be gorgeous in early spring. When the daffodils die back, I plant annuals over them, but this year I forgot that snapdragons are perennials, and they’re still going strong. I don’t want to pull them up. I’ll cut them back when the frost kills the foliage and I’m pretty sure the daffodils—when their time comes—will come up through the snaps' sleeping roots. Today, after I took this photo, I pulled up the weeds then topped off the soil and spread chopped straw. Once the snaps die back, I’ll add more soil and then some straw over them.
Here's another verbena. This year I started a new bed with all white flowers. There was also a geranium and a bracopa. I dug up the geranium and have it in a pot in my studio. The bracopa will die back, as will the verbena. But I’m hopeful the verbena may come back next year. This little all-white bed is destined to hold a small house I’m building out of quartz rocks. That’s been a long, drawn-out project, but I’m determined it will be done next spring for planting time.
As you can see from my ramblings, there’s much to see and contemplate in the garden at just about any time of year. And that gets me out of myself, which is a good place to be, especially if I’m stressed about something! What a gift it is. Also, I’ve learned (correctly or not) that garden planning is prone to failure and that it’s more successful, at least for me, to respond to what happens in this little world. That’s nice too.
I’m very thankful for my garden and all the gifts it brings me throughout the year. I hope you find joy and peace this Thanksgiving.
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