The one thing I regret about spending so much time on political volunteering this year, was the total neglect of my garden. In July and August I never do much because it's so crazy hot. And this past year, by mid-September I was volunteering almost every day and didn't have time to work in the garden. I still have a couple of perennials sitting in pots that I bought in July and never got around to planting.
We were pleasantly surprised to see how well the garden has held up in the face of such neglect. Okay, so everything is covered in weeds. The basic structure is still there, and since we got a lot of rain, a lot of plants are doing well. The bay leaf, for instance, was about a foot tall in early summer, and is now high enough to be seen outside our window -- about 6 feet I think. The verbenas are still blooming and generally going nuts. Next year we're going to have to cut them back; they're threatening to swallow up nearby plants. Several other perennials are giving us their last flowers of the season. And the artichokes (photo above) look great. Supposedly if we can keep them alive over the winter, they'll produce edible artichokes next year.
The big surprise is that several of the roses are blooming! There's an old song called "Roses in December" and we almost got there. Two of the climbers, Awakening and I think Sombreuil, have a handful of flowers. The Secret Musk Garden Climbers have also been blooming but didn't have any flowers open right now, just buds. Which alas, probably won't open since we're supposed to have a hard freeze tomorrow night. One of the potted roses was almost totally defoliated by some critter but still managed to pop out a couple of flowers. It's amazing. I always thought roses were fickle and hard to take care of. I guess that's just the hybrid teas. We never spray, never fertilize, I don't think we even watered the climbers this year. I spent several weeks researching before I bought them, and it looks like it paid off.
Leave a comment