Port Potager

Today wasn't the most gorgeous of Indian summer days, but I'll take the warmth as it comes, blustery clouds, scattered showers, and all. This time of year is always a little unsettling to me. After a frost, there's suddenly not much left to do in the garden. Okay, there's plenty of cleanup to take care of, but nothing is urgent at all right now. THat will change when the sugar maple finally dumps its elves everywhere, but for now it's a strange lull. With no garden activities to enjoy, the warm weather seems kind of a waste. But I also feel a vague need to take advantage of the day, because the sun is setting early, and there's not so very much daylight to be had these days. The roses, for their part, seem unaware that everything else has died off. They're still blooming almost better than they did in the spring and summer. Being right next to the house surely helps keep them warm and sheltered from the wind. Come to think of it, lots of re...

Yesterday I wrote about the half of the perennial border that runs along the driveway . Today we'll walk around the corner to see the rest of it along the path that leads across the yard to the front door. Around the corner from the climbing roses, Siberian irises, and sedum ground cover is some white salvia. Behind the salvia is some red bee balm, which is just starting to bloom. The bees love  this section of the flower garden! There's also a male holly busy and another smallish peony (I really like the way these look even when the bloom is over, so I have a lot of them). Across the front is a wide swath of hardy mums that will bloom in the fall. Like I said, there are a lot of chrysanthemums here. Behind the mums are white lilies, Shasta daisies, and the female holly bush (that's the one that will have the berries in the winter). Beyond the holly the border widens near the front door. Across the back is a boxwood, rhododendron, and a big clump o...

Frost has been here, so there's not much left in the cutting garden. We do have some hardy flowers out in the perennial border, though. This is the final Flower Friday post to show off these hangers-on. Enjoy! Hardy chrysanthemums in a container. "Blushing Bride" hydrangea. This blooms white in the summer, but as the flower heads age and dry out, they shift to a dusty pink. The leaves are also beginning to turn as well, and it all keeps this shrub interesting for a much longer season than one would expect. Toad lily. More hardy mums in the perennial border. These are very pale pink but look white in bright sunlight. We inherited these, and I think they are the unstoppable remains of someone's once-compact fall pot of mums. Glad to have them! All those chrysanthemums in the front perennial border make for a nice fall scene, especially with the maple and jack o'lanterns getting into the act.

Ok, so there are still not all that many flowers left for cutting, but at least I found a nice new way to photograph them. The vases are set up atop the closed piano keyboard. Also, check out the big daisy that rebloomed — it's the only one to do so in the perennial border, and it's a good one! Artemisia and Shasta daisy. Snapdragons. Chrysanthemums, echinacea seed heads, and marigold.

Cool nighttime temperatures are definitely causing a slow-down in the flower department. I barely even have any zinnias left, and that's kind of all we've got for this month. Limping our way towards frost, at least as far as unprotected annuals are concerned ... Zinnias and calendula. Zinnias, blanket flower, echinacea, calendula, and chrysanthemum. 

Although most of the plants in the perennial border are powering down for winter, there are a few that are still blooming — or have bloomed for the first time this season. Here are the highlights: This is the second White-Out rose bush I planted back in August, and it is still going strong! The first one has a few flowers left, but I think it may be done for the season. Brand new blossoms: pinkish-white chryanthemums. These were rescued from the old border and moved to a holding bed; later in the summer I moved several of the back into their new spots along the brick path. They are tall, but I put these in the front because their blooms will last into December when everything else is dead, so they should be a good distraction from dead stuff right out in front. During the summer they are pretty compact and leafy, so they don't block the view of taller plants in the back. You can see in the photo that when they open they are almost completely white, but before they open t...