Best of the Rest: Leftovers from 2019

2020 is here! It is a fun year to say and write, and surely it is full of potential. But first, one look back to 2019. About this time each year I select photos from each month that for various reasons did not make it onto my blog, but may deserve a chance to get out of the leftover pile. So - drumroll - here they are: 2019 Best of the Rest!

January:

Lancinato kale is also known as Dinosaur Kale. I love to include it with my winter vegetables. It is tasty and grows huge, making quite a statement in the winter vegetable patch. It produces striking yellow blooms later in the year when it goes to seed.

February:

This is a close-up of the crystal gazing ball that rests amidst moss in an old birdbath in the woodland garden. The image on the left is what you normally see, and the one on the right is the inverted view.

March:

We usually have lots of rain in winter and spring, and the woodland garden paths grow lush with moss.

April:

Rhododendron austrinum is a native azalea commonly called the Florida Flame Azalea. It has brilliant blooms with lovely fragrance.

May:

Clematis 'Niobe' was a new addition to my garden in 2019. It is growing well, and I am looking forward to seeing it bloom in 2020.

June:

This is the entrance to the vegetable and work area of my garden. A lot of non-glamorous stuff goes on behind the fence. A little fairy garden is in the wheelbarrow.

July:

This is my son Sam giving thumbs-up to his first 'Orange Crush' watermelon. He gave me several of his seedlings, and they almost took over my vegetable area. They were delicious!

August:

It is always a challenge capturing photos of hummers. It took a lot of patience to get these young ruby-throated hummingbirds to pose for me!

September:

Here is a view of the stone stairway leading from our drive down into the woodland garden. The large tree is a Southern Magnolia.

October:

'SkyRocket' Salvia is an annual that grew over three feet tall and wide and bloomed prolifically until hard frost.

November:

These mums are not fancy. They originally were a single pot bought for a few dollars at the grocery store. I have had them for many years, and they have spread to form a satisfying ground cover around a crepe myrtle tree.

December:

One of the last sunsets of the year is seen through a screen of woodland tree trunks.

Did you have a favorite month in 2019? 

Now on to 2020. Best wishes and happy gardening to you all!  Deb

Final Garden Project of 2019

I am happy to report that I have completed my final garden project of 2019. It was a lot of heavy work, and nothing brings satisfaction like being able to say "Done!"

This project came to my mind in late October when I looked at a picture of the garden space I had begun in August, 2018.  Here is the photo that started it all:

It was at the end of a very hot, prolonged summer drought. Few plants are blooming. What plant wants to bloom in triple digit heat? Some of them are dead! However, the majority did survive the drought, but most in this year-old garden space are still small and have little impact. 

Here is the question: Do you see the paths? The planting beds are covered in pine straw, and the paths are mulched with small pine bark nuggets. This photo showed me what my eyes had overlooked. Because pine straw and pine bark mulch are similar colors, the entire area lacked definition. Maybe when the plants matured enough to fill the beds, the issue would disappear. But many of the plants go dormant for winter, so the garden needed something else.

The solution was two-fold: First, I put in some evergreens and other shrubs of various heights, so there will be some winter interest. Variegated gardenia, podocarpus, weigela, and a potted arborvitae were some of the larger specimens I added. Then I outlined my paths with stone. This space covers over 3000 square feet. It was a LOT of rocks. Here is a view of the garden space now that the paths are defined:

Many of the plants are dormant, and the leaves have fallen from the trees. (I am making progress on raking. The garden has advanced from 'completely buried under a sea of leaves' to 'needs raking badly.') I am looking forward to spring when the plants reappear!

An unexpected bonus: When I was selecting stones from the huge pile I had purchased, I found one that looks exactly like the outline of my home state of Alabama!

I decided to incorporate the Alabama rock into a low wall in the adjacent arbor garden:

That one rock resulted in a great deal of extra labor for myself, because to make it fit I had to rebuild that entire section of wall, which is about 20' across. 

In my rock shopping I also came across an 'Indian rock.' The colorful lichens and its history appealed to me. Long ago this large, heavy stone was used by Native Americans in our area for grinding corn or perhaps for making tools or arrows. More recently, it was passed down through the same family for about 75 years. The last owner had a dog who kept hauling his feeding bowl off. (I once had a dog who did this, so I know how frustrating that habit can be.) So the man started feeding his dog in the large depression in the Indian rock. Problem solved!