It's fall for us and damn near winter for lots of you. What's growing, what's blooming, what are you working on these days?
We're putting in winter veggies (cabbage, cauliflower, kale) and I have lettuces sprouting from seed for winter salads. We still have a couple of bell peppers producing and I'm excited to try a winter tomato as soon as I can get DH to get rid of the summer ones. (No luck. The severe drought in So Cal has sent all kinds of vermin into the suburbs to forage for food, so all our tomatoes were eaten when they were still green by raccoons, possums, rats, and who knows what else.)
Plus our avocado tree is almost ready for us to start picking!
Our small front lawn is going bye-bye so there will be new brick paths and lots more water-wise perennials. Fall in SoCal is our time to plant so I'm very excited. And our plants from South Africa and South America will be in bloom any day now, since they think it's Spring.
I just put in pansies & violas this past weekend which are my favorite fall flowers. They bloom like crazy. I'm going to plant dianthus this weekend around the sidewalk. We have a circle of bricks around our tree and all of the summer flowers are still doing well there, begonias, blue bells, and something I can't remember the name of. Once they go I think I'll go with flowering kale and/or cabbage. I've never tried that and I think it's so pretty.
We've got lots of trees turning color, but other than that not much! The asters are just finishing up and my Autumn Joy sedum still looks decent, everything else looks quite tattered. I'd love to do more planting this fall, but we're changing the layout of the yard so much next spring that it would really be for naught . Our grass is greening back up with our recent rains, too (Oregon, zone 8).
Have some digging and dividing of some perennials to do yet (hostas and bleeding hearts), and some spring bulbs to plant (alliums). The best looking thing in the yard right now is the load of pumkins and the dried cornstalks on the front porch!
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To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment ~ {Ralph Waldo Emerson}
My carpet roses are still going strong, and my gallardia are just finishing up. The morning glory still looks great, and my mums are flourishing. Everything else looks pretty tattered. I need to concentrate more energy next year into finding more plants for laste summer and early fall. My garden winds down too early.
But, I do have some bulbs that I need to get in the ground soon, and some ground cover that needs to be planted this fall too. I may just do that today if I get ambitious.
I have created new beds in recent weeks, so in the spring I'll be a planting fool!
We have had the worst year every for plants. We had a late freeze in April, followed by the hottest summer on record (where every day in August was at 90 except one), and a huge drought. So my perennials have pretty much up had it, but I think they'll come back next year.
I recently planted kale, cabbage, pansies, and a few coleus for the fall in my front yard. The coleus won't last all that long, but I like the color.