Mears Garden news- Fall week 3- October 12, 2009

Hello again. It is time to write again, and not just to give the garden an obituary. We did have our first hard frost the last few nights. The annuals are gone. The house is full of plants. I have some bulbs that are in the garage. It seems like a normal October. There will garden “clean-up” for as long as I want. The garden can always provide one with something to do.

The garden still has interest. The occasional fall crocus emerges, defying the frost. Certain plants will continue with foliage display for quite some time. Pulmonaria and heucheras (coralbells) are perhaps the best such plants. I have put in pansies here and there and should get color, perhaps till Thanksgiving. Ornamental kale is truly amazing.

Let me show you some pictures.

First here is this lovely white crocus. If you plant these fall crocuses in September the bulb companies will usually send them prechilled. That means they will come up and bloom tight away.

While we are talking crocuses, here is a purple clump.

This is another September gem, the Japanese anemone. I keep getting more of these plants. They bloom from late August to October in several colors, some single and some double.

Vegetables can be quite ornamental. I don’t know if there are many plants more attractive than a white eggplant. I do not have enough sun for vegetables. It is just a fact. I content myself with several plants in pots sitting on the steps up to out kitchen. I have found that peppers can do well in containers. This year I tried this habanera pepper plant that just exploded with peppers. They really are like Christmas tree ornaments.

Finally here is an orchid that regularly blooms this time of year. I am slowly learning to grow orchids. Some are easier than others. Sometimes they cannot put up with the inevitable neglect that a big garden imposes. I just can’t fuss over them all the time. This one is called neofineta falcata. It loves it outside, hanging on a plant stand in the high shade of the backyard. It puts up its bloom stalks in September, with no less than four stalks this fall.


So tell me which you liked this week. In the last post, which was some time ago the icicle euphorbia was the favorite. There is a group of you out there that really like euphorbia. They are good.

This will be the last post until November, when the picture contest will begin. We are off to recharge our batteries on the east coast for an entire two weeks. It has been a long year.
But with the garden closing down there was something that occurred that I would like to tell you about. It happened as I was bringing in the plants for the winter, (We say winter to minimize the length of the inside season. I checked and that season is really about 6 months long. We sometimes wonder why people want to live further south.)
I grow orchid cactus plants. About 6 years ago I bought some seed for a white one on ebay from Germany no less. I don’t normally do that. (buying on ebay) A few weeks later the seeds arrived, all 3-4 of them, and I planted them. Several sprouted. I just have a smallish plant at this point. It has never bloomed. I figured it was still too young. Well as I was bringing it inside I noticed that it had 3 buds. Sure enough this plant is going to bloom. What a surprise. What a joy to have a plant you have grown all that time from seed be about to bloom. That is the one of the reasons why I garden. Now I only hope that it will wait to bloom until I get back from the east coast.
See you in a few weeks.
Philip