A simple project

Now that the pond project is finished for the year, I can "relax" a little bit and do some easy tasks. Pretty much everything I'll be doing in the yard in the next few weeks will be related to overwintering, helping plants make it through the winter. For the last two years I've had the temporary greenhouse, but I've decided not to bother with it this year. Not that it matters for today's post, so I'm not sure why I mentioned it now.

I've already brought most of my tropicals and non-hardy plants into the garage -- the ones left outside are "extras" that I just don't have room for. So today a simple project: protect my hardy banana.

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Final pond update

This past weekend I finally finished building the pond -- if "building" is the right word. "Finished" is probably not the right word either, since this project -- like most parts of the garden -- will constantly be evolving, changing, and maturing. The bulk of the work is done though...

Ask me which is better: working with stones and water when it's 65ºF (18ºC) and sunny, or 35ºF (2ºC) and windy and drizzling and muddy. Actually, it's a tough call, since the colder one was the day I finished, which made the day much more pleasant despite the conditions.

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I look at rocks

I've been looking at rocks quite a bit recently as I finish up my pond project. I love everything about rocks (except hauling them around): their texture, colors, forms.

I especially like looking very closely at them.

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Grass on fire

There's a beacon in my garden right now. It's large, it's colorful, and it is shining so brightly -- especially on an overcast day.

Miscanthus sinensis 'Gracillimus' is my oldest, biggest ornamental grass, and I can't keep my eyes off of it today.

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Pond progress

After almost a week of delays due to weather, the holiday, and other projects that I was involved with inside the house, I finally was able to work on the pond again yesterday. You may remember from the last pond post that I finished up in the near darkness by creating the pebbled beach, but was unable to take a photo of it. Here's what it looked like yesterday morning, which is exactly how it looked that evening of the previous post:

I started with the beach because it was the one area of which I had a well-formed idea -- the rest of the edge would have to be designed later. Well, later is here, so let's get started!

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Where did you come from?

Earlier this autumn I had a late-season discovery on my parsley: another black swallowtail caterpillar! I had already rescued and raised some of these caterpillars this summer, and was surprised to see one so late in the season. Knowing that as soon as this youngster got big enough for me to spot him the raccoons would also see him, I put him into my caterpillar jar and watched him pupate.

I assumed (correctly I think) that he'd overwinter in this form, then complete his transformation and emerge in the spring once it warmed up. This happened as I expected, at least the pupating part. What I didn't expect was to find a fly in the closed jar weeks later.

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Plumeria update

Two springs ago I tried growing plumeria (or Frangipani) for the first time. I bought a couple of dormant cuttings (sticks), potted them up, and watched them flourish over the summer. Then I brought them into the garage for the winter and both died and rotted instead of going dormant as I was expecting. Then late last spring I decided to give it another try, bought three more less expensive cuttings (received six!), potted them again, and waited.

One of the cuttings rooted and leafed out pretty quickly, but the others just sat there. A few of them eventually rotted, but two of the cuttings remained healthy -- but wouldn't root. I left them alone though, as I didn't have enough experience to know what to do. Into our warm fall they seemed like they were finally starting to wake up.

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I did something else!

A few days ago I posted about my success in remembering to plant garlic at the right time of year for once, and titled that post "I did it!" Well, garlic wasn't the only fall-planted "bulb" that I've been wanting to plant for years and finally managed to this year. (Does that sentence make any sense?)

Every spring I look around my yard and wonder why I don't have any spring-flowering bulbs planted. Technically I shouldn't say "any" because I do have some crocus that I planted in places in the front yard, but they're slowly dying away -- there were only a dozen or so blooms this past spring. Still, why don't I have more?

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Slow progress

I've been off work for the last few days, and I had expected to get the pond project pretty much wrapped up by now. Unfortunately another (indoor) project and the weather have combined to move work on the pond farther down the priority list.

This means that I've made very little progress since the last update, but any progress is welcome.

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