Sudden Death in the Garden

I may be a strange person. I get attached to my plants, and I think of them, not as people, of course, but as pets. Some of them are favorites. For example:

Have I bragged enough about my red banana plant? I featured it in my blog posts several times over the summer. Here is a photo I took of it just last week:

Two days after I took that shot, my red banana plant was dying. One morning it looked fine, though surely I would have seen signs if I had looked closely. By that afternoon the central stalk had wilted and fallen over and all the leaves were turning crispy brown. What strange fungus or virus killed it, I don't know. I was heartsick as I amputated the top of the plant. The core was mushy brown. Some sort of rot? I cut the stump to the ground, and at least here all the tissue appeared healthy. I covered the stump with pine straw.

Gardens are ever changing, and experience has taught me not to cling too tightly to the past. But whenever something happens to one of my plants, I grieve a little bit, and right now I am missing those beautiful banana leaves.

I have shifting emotions. There is always hope: perhaps the plant will send out new growth next year. Or I can buy another one if it doesn't. And what if the same thing happens again? Well, that is a problem for another day!

Meanwhile, I have a hoard of plants waiting to be planted as soon as the weather cools in September. I will be working on a new fern glade in the woodland garden, and I have additional plans for parts of the lady garden and front garden. And Lou wants chickens! I have to figure out what to do about that...

End of Summer Planter

The end of summer was in the air today. When I ate breakfast out on the patio this morning, the thermometer read a comfortable 70 degrees, and the rest of the day was milder than our usual August, with refreshing breezes and a high only into the 80s. I know well we are likely to have another month of summer weather, but I am so happy to feel fall approaching. Autumn is a wonderful time in the garden here, barely edged out by spring for my favors.

Inspired by the cool temperature, at breakfast Lou was grumping about a neglected flower bed beside our drive. Over the summer I had let it become overcome with weeds, and he thought today would be the perfect day for me to fix it. I had to agree. 

It is a raised bed, about three by five feet, bordered with rock. One sees it when driving around the side of the house to the back parking area. It contains some blue fescue, veronica, sedum, salvia and until today, dead lavender and assorted weeds. I pulled the weeds and said goodbye forever to the lavender. I have finally accepted that I will never grow lavender in my climate, not even in a raised bed with good drainage.

Without the lavender and weeds there were some bare spots in the planter. A quick trip to the nursery produced colocasia, vinca, and lantana to fill the gaps. The final results won't win any awards, but it provides a nice punch of color to that side of the house. The color should last till frost, at least three months.

Happy gardening to all, and best wishes for wonderful weather!   Deborah