When You're Not Looking

Unexpected things happen when you're not paying attention. I didn't pay attention this summer - it was too hot. I gave up on my vegetable garden. I let weeds invade my flower beds and I let some plants die. Some of those plants died during our unusually cold winter - like a sago palm, majesty palm and a queen's tears bromeliad.

Lately, I have felt really bad about letting the yard get to this point. I plan to do alot in the fall, but that's really no excuse. We have friends and family in town this week and I've been wanting to make the yard look presentable, but it has rained almost every day for the past two weeks. I managed to mow the front yard yesterday. I had planned to mow the back, but it started raining just as I was finishing. It rained again this morning, but I was able to get out there this afternoon. I mowed and I did some edging, really just pulling grass out of beds. As I was doing this I noticed the bromeliad was blooming. I had given up on these - I left them outside all winter and I thought they might be dead. I thought the same thing about the majesty palm and the sago palm, but both of those have put out new growth in recent weeks. So, things really do happen when you're not paying attention, especially around the yard.

Rain...Rain...Freeze...

We've had some strange weather in the past week - well, maybe not strange, but certainly a variety of it. We got several inches of rain during a couple of separate days this week. I don't think it's rained this much since July when we were on vacation. Part of our yard flooded like it always does during heavy rains, this time it was a good thing - it gave me a chance to see exactly where to put the rain garden I'm planning for that area in the spring. One of the plants I wanted to put in it was the Crinum I have in the bog. To my surprise, It looks like I have about six new plants from the three I started out the summer with. I'm glad I'll have extra to use in the rain garden. Another positive thing is the raised bed I built in the vegetable garden this year. While the ground around it was soggy, the vegetables were doing well about a foot off the ground.

I have potted plants all over the yard. Besides the houseplants spending the summer outside, I also have plants that I intend to plant in the yard as soon as I figure out where I want them. Most are in the driveway, but a few are behind the garage. I had to do something with all of those plants today, because we're supposed to have near-freezing temperatures tonight. Every time I've seen the weather this week, tonight's forecasted temperature keeps dropping - currently it's at 33 degrees - cold enough to do damage to some of my plants.

Probably the most important plant was the "Black Pearl" ornamental pepper Robin got at the fall plant swap. Originally, I had put it with all of the other plants in the garden area/future greenhouse, but after talking to Robin and doing some research online, I decided it needed to come in the house. Most other plants like canna, walking onions, bed of nails, devil's trumpet, society garlic, shrimp plant, hibiscus, Mexican petunia, spider plant, ajuga and day lilies, I'm protecting whether they need it or not - I don't know the cold hardiness of everything on that list. I am leaving a couple of things out, because either I think they can take the cold - like sago palms and daisies, or they are annuals or houseplants that I don't care about anymore like a half-dead spider plant or geraniums. I did remember a few other plants I better bring in like my night-blooming cereus, mother-in-law's tongue, and a couple of pots of small cactuses that I'm not sure are hardy.

The cold has a plus side too. We've been eating lettuce from the vegetable garden all week, the broccoli is really heading now, and it looks like the onions are doing well - now if I only knew when they will be ready to harvest...