The deck gets a few planters each year, but most of the beauty that is visible late in the season is courtesy of the plants that grow up around the deck.
Annual flowering vines are one of the key components of my garden, even though they really only get going late in the season. Cardinal Climber (Ipomoea sloteri) may be the slowest of the annual vines I grow, flowering not before mid-September for me...
Maypop, Passiflora incarnata, is a native Missouri vine that is lush, vigorous, and looks oh so tropical.
Looking out of the kitchen window a week or two ago (the days seem to be flying by this year!) I watched a deer browsing near one of my garden beds, eating violets or something else in the lawn.
One last look before the freezing temps come in at the bananas and beans in my garden this year.
Late summer is vine time in my garden, and today I want to show you the hyacinth bean vines (Lablab purpureus). There are two plantings of this vine growing in my garden this year, both near the southeast corner of the house.
Time for an update on the maypop (Passiflora incarnata) vines that are beautifully taking over the "gate" pergola next to the house:
A couple of days ago I showed you the garden around the patio area, how it's been growing like crazy this summer with very little attention from me. I'll show you more of the back yard now, focusing on the area to the south of the patio.
It's hot and dry in some parts of the country, but here in St. Louis the heat is gone and it's cooler than normal -- very wet too!
I've already mentioned a few times that I will be buying fewer plants this year. In fact my goal is to buy none but that's just not possible, so I adjusted my goal to "less" plants.
I was looking through the photos on my phone this morning and realized that I had quite a few things that were worth mentioning but didn't warrant a post by themselves. So they piled up.
A dragonfly is to thank for today's post. Strangely enough you won't be seeing any dragonfly images though, but what was to be a moment's stop at the edge of the pond after bringing some perilla cuttings to the compost pile became a half hour of exploration of the garden.
I was looking back at photos of my October garden from previous years so I could do a comparison with its current state, and found a post from about this time in 2011 that made me realize how much I miss growing this plant: Hyacinth bean.
I admit that I haven't been filling the hummingbird feeder recently. I know it's completely dry, as it's probably been at least three weeks since I've touched it... probably more like 4 or 5. Since the hummingbirds are just about to leave for Mexico, or have already done so, it's critical that my garden provide them with fuel.
I want to show you three plants in my garden that I'd describe as "powerful", as they have amazing visual impact and impressive size. They all happen to be Missouri natives too, which is a huge plus.
It's the 15th and that means that it is GBBD, when garden bloggers the world over show you what's in bloom in their gardens this month. I'm going to do something a bit different this bloom day, focusing on a single plant.
Spring in the garden is a busy time for most gardeners. If you're like me there is planting, weeding, mulching, raking, bamboo rhizome pruning -- okay, maybe not that last one. There's a load of work to do though.
Did you know that it is Tuesday already? A bit of travel over the weekend and I completely lost track of the calendar, forgetting that yesterday was Monday and therefore not posting anything. Kind of glad I wasn't around on Sunday as an intense band of storms quickly moved through the area, dropping up to 4" (10cm) of rain in less than an hour in some places. I hate seeing strong weather pound the garden -- I'd rather wait until everything has a little time to bounce back.
Today I continue my series on St. Louis area nursery visits, with a look at a place that is unlike any other around here: Zick's Great Outdoors. This was only my second visit ever to Zick's with the first being at least five years ago. I'm not sure how we ever found this place back then, but I think it was from an interesting and creative ad in a local paper.
Although it's been ten months since the polar vortex reminded us cold-climate gardeners that we shouldn't get too comfortable with mild winters and caused quite a bit of bamboo damage in my garden, I still have reminders of it: the dead bamboo culms that I left on three or four of my plantings.
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