A Gardener's Nightmare

I came home from work on Friday to find this.

In case you can't tell what's going on there's water all over the sidewalk and street. It's not rain. It's not a burst hose. It's the water supply pipe running from the street to the house.

Right under my garden.

They're coming Monday to dig up the yard and repair the pipe.

They're coming Monday to dig up my garden.

It's November. Too late in the season to transplant anything. I'm going to try removing the plants I find most valuable and put them in pots in the garage to hopefully survive the winter. Fingers' and toes' crossed!

Foliage Follow Up November 2014

It's November Foliage Follow Up. I'm sure some of you have great fall foliage to show. Me? The trees up here are mostly bare already. Winter is coming and I'm not happy about it.

But I have all winter to grouse (and I probably will). Today is all about the show. Well, the show last Tuesday. The weather for Sunday is predicted to be nice but Saturday is iffy so I took these photos ahead of time and just scheduled this post for the 16th. It's cheating, I know. Deal with it.

First up a non-traditional look at my Cornus Garden Glow. The sky was awfully nice on Tuesday and I couldn't resist some artistic photos.

See the nearly bare trees?

Closer to the ground my Carolina Allspice (Calicanthus floridus) is still holding on to her leaves and has painted them for the season.

While I'm in the backyard my Viburnum cardinal candy is dripping with berries. I hope the birds will eat them at some point.

The birds will feast on my holly (Ilex Blue something) but only after the berries have been frozen. The robins and the cedar waxwings go bonkers over these in late winter. I can only hope they like the Viburnum then, too.

I don't have that problem with berries on my Elderberry Sambucus Black Lace. The berries barely last a few days before the birds eat them. 

The leaves on Black Lace are starting to fall, revealing some interesting bark. This is a plant I bought based on incorrect information at the local garden center but decided to plant anyway. I'm glad I did. I'm really enjoying it. Of course I wish it had more room and more sun so it bloomed better but I had to squeeze it in where I could find space. Damn these small Boston area lots! 

I'm not sure why but I love this shot of my gold threadleaf cypress. It looks almost like I could brush aside the dangling branches and break through to a secret garden. Or maybe I'm just overly tired.

When The Husband found a plant that had the common name Hoarny Goat Weed he teased me that we had to buy it. It's not safe to tease me. Now we have several varieties of Epimedium. They've proven to be a nice, low growing, shade tolerant plant.

It seems I have several low growing plants that are still green. This is lemon thyme, which is doing wonderfully around the stones under my garden hose reel.

And this is a low growing sedum, I think this one is Autumn Fire. It will color up with some red as the temperatures drop.

Last, but definitely not least, a purple leaf sage. This plant has performed very nicely in a pot all summer. I  hope it overwinters.

Thanks to Pam at Digging for this meme.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day November 2014

After hair-pulling, teeth-grinding work to re-install all of my files and programs I have the computer back up and  (I think) running again. Just in time for Bloom Day!

I didn't think I'd have much in the way of outside blooms this month. Truth be told TODAY I don't have this many. I took these photos on Tuesday, before the latest storm. Blooms in November are scare and highly valued. At least on days it's nice enough to go outside. THOSE days are on the decline along with the flowers...

The pansies are reliable performers until they get buried by snowfall. I particularly like this cheerful, bright purple and dull, grey fall days.

And this one has a friend.

This is a surprising rebloom on one of my irises. It looks much better in the spring against a newly greening world.

What a brave little Gazania! It's been hit by frost and one light snowfall already. This is one that I bet isn't there today.

This unknown annual is basically done but it still has interesting structure. It's time to bring in the pots before they freeze and crack. But I'm not ready to accept that fact yet. I'm still clinging to fall.

This is Armeria Amada Rose. A relatively new addition that is actually blooming pretty strongly. 

This is winter Daphne but it's blooming now. I'm not sure which one this is. I planted three plants from two different places (and therefore two different varieties) and I thought they had all died. This one is probably in it's second year. Unfortunately I'm going to have to move it since I decided it was dead and planted another bush way too close. But that's something to worry about next year.

Gaura is a great plant that just keeps on blooming! I only have scattered blooms but in November, I'm thrilled to have even scattered blooms. Especially brightly colored ones.

The New Guinea Impatients did not survive the last storm, Expect for this one plant that has one last, desperate bloom before it succumbed to this week's cold and stormy weather. Farewell brave little Impatient, you were a good flower while you lasted.

These are the last two blooms on a Rudbeckia fromneighborii. It gives the bees something to eat on those rare, warm late fall days. One last meal before hibernation.

Thanks to Carol at May Dreams for this meme.

Stay tuned for next month's HousePlants! [I will be shocked if I have any outdoor plants blooming in December. Shocked!]

Hiatus

Due to computer issues (ARGH) this blog is taking a hopefully brief hiatus while I re-load all of my files and software to the harddrive and re-configure everything the way I like it.

I hope to be back in time for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

To tide you over here's a picture of a cat.

Miscellaneous Saturday

Trees are like people. Most of them I'd rather not see naked.

This reblooming iris would be nice if the color of the blooms didn't match the color of fallen leaves quite so much.

The Baptisia seed pods rattle until they start to open and spread their seeds. They make for winter interest but also for LOTS of seedlings in the spring.

At least my hollies like lively and colorful. And they will until sometime in February when we get a thaw and the berries are exposed to the hungry Robins and Cedar Waxwings. I guess they're still cheerful when the bushes are full of birds.