Port Potager

It's shaping up to be a gorgeous holiday weekend here, and we took a little time out from building kitchen cabinets to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. The leaves here are just starting to flush with color, and there are lots of pops of red and orange in the garden as well. Our calendula was nibbled back a few times by a bunny or groundhog, so it's not as full as in years past. Good thing I still have plenty of it dried and stored from last year to make soap . The blooms we do have are lovely, though.  Tough the vines have called it a day, the rose tomatoes are still ripening in the sun.  The okra has also slowed way down in the cooler temperatures, but they're still blooming. The bees love these flowers, so I imagine they'll be all over this once it unfurls. These plants are easily eight feet high now, so the blue sky is always the backdrop when you look up to see them. These tiny red petunias really took off this summer, and they're...

When I wasn't at the ball fields for the kids' baseball games this past (long) weekend, I finally was able to tackle a project I'd been meaning to get to all spring. The weather decided to cooperate (mostly), and I buckled down got to work on updating the perennial border.  The harsh winter we had wasn't at all kind to some of our perennials. Several plants that normally wouldn't have trouble overwintering died back to just a few scraggly stems, or bit the dust completely. Some casualties included both artemisia, some stonecrop, the carnations, and most of a heucherella (if you're really interested in the evolution of the border, you can scroll through previous posts about it to see just what I'm talking about). This left me with some holes to fill this year, which I did my moving some existing things around and buying some new plants. My hatchback full of plants include a white peony ("Mrs. Edward Harding"), three white salvia (...

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...