Facebook
Goodreads
LinkedIn
Meera Lester
Twitter
Celebrate the Ever-Evolving Garden
There’s nothing to rejuvenate a weary soul like time spent in a garden. Death of one season’s plants yields to new shoots the next. Because I appreciate the ever-evolving nature of a garden, I choose plants, bulbs, bushes, and trees that offer visual interest in each season. Thoughtful planting generates an ever-evolving landscape of color, texture, and visual interest.
Pumpkins show orange and yellow, signalling the arrival of the cool season
The autumn garden has almost completely morphed into a winter landscape now. Pumpkin and tomato vines have been pulled out and perennials in the bee garden have gone to seed or been cut back. Winter offers little color in the garden except for the cape honeysuckle, white geranium, lavender florets, and early flowering bulbs.
Deciduous trees have mostly lost their leaves, however, the eucalyptus and the pepper trees here on the farmette remain leafy and green. The rains have come and a dusting of snow on nearby mountain peaks is in the forecast ahead. Foliage and blooms are mostly gone. It’s that time of year to cover frost-sensitive plants.
The pomegranates that were ablaze in golden color a few weeks ago have dropped all leaves. What remains is the lovely arching pattern of branches since I’ve trained them from bushes into trees.
Pomegranate leaves turn gold in the fall
The showy pink flowers over summer of the crape myrtle are a memory. Gone now, too, are the red-gold leaves of fall. What remains is an interesting gray-green bark.
Autumn leaves of the crepe myrtle create a spectacle against the blooming Cecile Brunner rose
The seeds from the giant yellow-orange coreopsis that stood eight feet tall and towered over zinnias, Borage, and rows of lavender have long ago been harvested. Also, my patch of lavender is flourishing. The plants have pushed out long stalks of purple florets.
Dark green shoots of bulbs are pushing up out of the earth where I interplanted them with chrysanthemums. I cut back the mums and they will reappear in the spring to flower again. This is the time of year that shoots of bulbs and rhizomes are birthing daffodils, anemones, tulips, hyacinths, and, to come later, lilies and irises of many colors.
Siberian scilla adds a lot of color for a small grouping of bulbs
In raised beds, shoots of fall-planted onions and garlic are now pushing up. The bees are drawn to the sweet scent of narcissus bulbs that have naturalized after being planted years ago. The Meyer lemon now has lots of yellow thin-skinned fruit and also a few early blooms.
On the dark days and nights of winter, white blooming plants stand in stark contrast to gray wooden fences and leafless trees. Honor roses, Iceberg roses, and climbing Sally Holmes roses have showy white blooms and may even have some this time of year unless they’ve been cut back. Winter-blooming gardenias and white geraniums have a quiet impact when grouped together in hedges, beds, or containers.
The “Honor” rose is an elegant white blooming rose that is spectacular under moonlight
With so many bulbs and plants available this time of year, putting interest into your winter garden is easy and contributes to an ever-evolving landscape.
Consider plants with gray-green or otherwise pretty foliage and colorful berries. Also plant trees with interesting bark colors, textures, patterns, or scaffolding shapes. When you think of plants for each season of the year, you’ll have a garden to nurture you throughout the year.
____________________________________________________
If you enjoy reading about gardening, the keeping of chickens and bees, and other small farm topics AND you’d like related gift-giving, consider my Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries or any of my health, wellness, and spirituality books. All are available online and in traditional bookstores everywhere.
MY NEWEST OFFERING–Packed full of ideas for creating the life you want
AVAILABLE NOW. Tap control click in the following link: https://www.amazon.com/How-Live-Intention-Meaning-Purpose-ebook/dp/B07GNVFWSF/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1544206797&sr=8-1&keywords=Meera+Lester%2BHow+to+Live+with+Intention
A special book that will be treasured for a lifetime of spiritual pursuits and practices
To Purchase, tap control click on the link:
Helping the Hummers Refuel
In a single day of darting to and from colorful flowers, the tiny hummingbird consumes nearly half its weight in sugar as it searches for nectar-rich blossoms.
A hummer’s iridescent feathers shimmer as it perches in sunlight at the end of an apricot tree branch
Hummers are attracted by the intense hue of certain flowers such as nasturtiums
Their wings beat so rapidly, they make a purring sound. Ever industrious, these tiny birds work from dawn to dusk. They are drawn to tubular-shaped flowers or brightly colored ones in shades of red, orange, blue, and pink.
If you want to help the hummers refuel, consider putting flowers on your patio or in your garden that appeal to these little energy burners. Or, better still, plant trees, vines, perennial, and annual plants that will produce the flowers that attract hummers. Choose from the list below.
Behind the unfurled buds of the Jane magnolia are the blue blossoms of Borage, an herb frequented by bees, butterflies, and hummers
Annuals: Borage (blue star flower), impatiens, flowering tobacco, petunia, plox, salvia, and snapdragon
Perennials: aloe, alstomeria, bee balm, California fuschia, cardinal flower, columbine, coral bells, foxglove, gladiolus, parrot’s beak, monkey flower, salvia, and sage
Vines: blood red trumpet vine, cape honeysuckle, lonicera (honeysuckle), flame vine, and trumpet creeper
Trees: acacia, chinaberry tree, citrus, coral tree, eucalyptus, silk tree, and tulip tree
______________________________________________________________________
If you enjoy reading about gardening, keeping chickens and bees, and other backyard farming topics, check out my series of cozy mysteries, including A BEELINE TO MURDER, THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE, and A HIVE OF HOMICIDES (Kensington Publishing, NY)
The novels in this series are all available online and in bookstores everywhere
A HIVE OF HOMICIDES
Murder of a Queen Bee
A Beeline to Murder
Cape Honeysuckle Provides Blazing Color in Winter Gardens
Cape honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis)
Throughout the fall and winter in Northern California gardens, when summer blooms have disappeared and spring is still several months away, the flower clusters of Cape honeysuckle add brilliant orange-red color to drab landscapes. This climbing evergreen vine can reach 15 to 25 feet and looks stunning spilling over a fence. It can also be trained to cover a trellis or an arch. With vigorous pruning, the plant can be kept to a shrub of six to eight feet.
The name Cape honeysuckle refers to South Africa’s Cape Horn where the plant is indigenous. The name, therefore, misleads for the plant does not belong the true honeysuckle family (Lonicera).
Gardeners value the plant for its landscaping qualities that include brilliantly colored tubular flowers against fine, glistening green foliage. The plant is a rapid grower and can tolerate some drought although it needs good drainage. Vines that lie on the ground can root. The plant can also be grown from seed or cuttings.
I’ve found Cape honeysuckle to tolerate the sometimes harsh conditions of summer here on the farmette that might include days of triple digit outdoor temperatures and occasional high winds. The plant needs water in extreme heat, but once established seems vigorous and hardy.
Keep your pruning shears handy. I previously grew Cape honeysuckle in my San Jose garden where it was planted in an area of light shade. It rapidly climbed into the highest branches of an adjacent apricot tree.
Cape honeysuckle’s brilliant orange-red tubular flower clusters provide drama in an otherwise lackluster winter garden . Try the plant espaliered against a wall or allow it to scramble along a berm or bank.
For more information, see http://tinyurl.com/adv9q4w or http://tinyurl.com/bxxd22y.