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.
My garden -- like yours I have to assume -- is full of good and bad this year. Here's an example of good and bad in the same view:
Yesterday I wondered about apple storage, today it's about a plant ID. In downtown St. Louis there are a couple of old churches that we pass while walking to the hockey arena. Both have quite nice little gardens, and this one contains an interesting Alocasia:
We've had a good amount of rain in August here in St. Louis -- not too much, but a bit more than is normal -- and the garden is thriving for it. It's been a month since I showed you the back garden in the patio area, but it's really time for another look.
For the past few years I've planted elephant ears (Colocasia esculenta) in the cement planter next to the front door.
As I mentioned recently, I've had some time to spend in the garden finally, and this post is a look at some of what I accomplished. It may not be the most inspiring of posts, but it makes me good to share my progress.
Even though most plants are ahead of schedule this year due to our early warm weather here in St. Louis, a few of my plants have emerged late.
Because it's been so mild, there has not been any urgency in digging up the tropicals. Yes I dug and brought into the garage some of the papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) and the upright elephant ears (Alocasia macrorrhiza) quite a while ago, but the plants with tubers or rhizomes I've not worried about. Elephant Ears (Colocasia esculenta and others) and various cannas have been fine out there -- the ground has not yet frozen.
With a hard freeze a day away, it's time to take some drastic steps. This hurts every year I do it, but this year less than usual since it's so late.
I'm quite happy with the Alocasias this year:
I have more questions, some of which I actually need answers to. Let's start with animals.
This might be my favorite time of the year in the garden!
I thought I'd take a little break from the roadtrip posts (still posting about Yellowstone when I get back to it) and show you what's going on in my garden this morning. Unlike the vacation shots which contain images that are a few weeks old, the images in today's post were shot just minutes ago.
When you look around my garden right now you see a lot of elephant ears, canna, papyrus, umbrella palm, caladium, grasses, and many other plants that are not cold hardy. You'd think that everything I overwinter indoors is a success, that I have a magic touch.
My first plant sale yesterday was a lot of fun! Although I didn't get rid of all of the plants, I did find new homes for a large number of them.
The forecast called for a low temperature of 32ºF (0ºC) last night, which means there is a good chance that the tender tropicals and annuals got fried. I don't know, because I haven't looked yet.
Yesterday I showed you most of the plants I put on the north side of the new front walkway.
Stems, stalks, trunks, pseudostems, culms.
Today we'll look at one part of my backyard garden. It's the spot closest to the house, and is probably the most visible planting area back here, at least to me. I see it when I look out the windows, when I'm up on the deck, when I come out of the garage and go down to the patio.
I grow several different types of elephant ears, Colocasia mainly. Some of them have a little problem with spider mites, and some don't. Our summer has been so dry for the most part, the mites have had it easy this year (they like low humidity, which is why they thrive indoors in winter in cold climates). This one variety of 'Pink China' Colocasia is especially bad:
My posts about:
© Blogger template Shush by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009
Back to TOP
