Foliage Follow Up - October

Foliage in the October Garden is all about the changing colors, the berries, the seed heads and the loss of the gorgeous all over summer green. Sigh.

I do have some nice fall foliage in some of my shrubs, like the Clethra alnifolia Hummingbird (nicely accented by the dark green holly behind and the dark Heucheras in front),

and the Fothergillia gardenii Blue Mist,

and Amsonia Halfway to Arkansas, also just starting to turn,

as is Cornus hesseyii Garden Glow which will display red twigs (not obvious in this picture) all winter.

I don't know if anything will eat the seeds of these Asclepias tuberosa but the seed heads provide some nice interest in the fall and winter.

My Hydrangea Lady in Red (maybe) has nice dark stems shooting up above this years spent blooms. This is another plant I've been very happy with and can heartily recommend, even to a small garden.

Let's not forget the berries on the Viburnum Cardinal Candy. I hope the birds start eating those sometime over the winter.

I also have berries on Viburnum Brandywine. It's not nearly as large or prolific a plant as the Cardinal Candy but provides a nice, different look.

And let's not forget some of the starts of the late summer/fall garden - the grasses. Here are seed heads on Panicum virgatum Heavy Metal.

Thanks to Pam at Digging for this meme.

View of a Garden, from the BATHROOM?

Many thoughtful garden planners consider the view from inside when planning their garden. I want to make sure that my windows aren't blocked by overly tall plants, for example.

Except the downstairs bathroom where this is the view.

Isn't that a great view? Better yet, we can leave the window open and not have to worry about anyone seeing anything they shouldn't. The only 'peeping toms' we get are the occasional sparrow and more than occasionally insect life. 

Am I the only nutter who looks for invertebrates while seated in the bathroom? Actually I kind of hope that's not a common thing cause if it is, and you're view isn't like mine...

Our upstairs window is actually inside the shower. We had heavily frosted glass put in for privacy but if I open the TOP half of the window and stand on my toes I can look down into my backyard [What else am I going to do while the conditioner is working it's magic?]

and I see that The Husband left tools outside.

Again.

And I can watch the hummingbirds fight over the feeder.

And I can monitor the progress of Dutch Elm Disease on the large, gorgeous Elm tree out back. So far it's showing only a few signs but I've been told it's about the right age to start failing and it has dropped a lot of limbs... When we decide it's a hazard to the house and have to take it down it's going to really increase the amount of sun in our backyard. 

I'm actually keeping that in mind when I choose plantings.

Right behind the Elm (and invisible) is a sapling shag bark hickory. I want to bring the elm down early enough to let it grow into the gap in the tree line. Everything else in the tree line seems to be what the locals call "trash maples" (I think they're silver maples). If only it was easy to transplant largish trees so I could CHOOSE my semi-mature trees...

Yes, I am obsessed with my garden, what gave it away?

It's JUNE!

It's been a long, cool wait here in New England until we finally arrive at the month of JUNE! Warm weather, good gardening, lots to get done before the heat arrives and it's too late to plant anything else.

The iris in my rain garden are still blooming - the early bloomers are done but I have some late bloomers still going strong.

Penstemon Husker Red is not shy about self seeding. Every time I see a plant growing in a crack in pavement like this I am amazed at nature will find a way.

My Centaurea Black Sprite is just starting to bloom. It's much less aggressive than Amethyst in Snow and I really like the contrast between the nearly black blooms and the yellow-green foliage.

Nepeta is going strong and attracting plenty of native pollinators (this is Dropmore, a shorter version than Walker's Low - the blooms are a bluer purple than they look on my computer monitor).

My Cornus Garden Glow is at it's peak - gorgeous leaves, gorgeous blooms. A bit larger than the predicted 3-5 foot. I've started cuttings in the hope that I can plant this somewhere away from the house and take down these oversized shrubs. I can't seem to find it for sale anywhere or I'd just buy a new one and dig these out (and won't THAT be a chore!).

My Hostas are fully opened. I have a fondness for BIG hostas. I plant them inside the fence and the dogs are a good deer deterrent. We're fortunate that we don't have many deer despite bordering on a couple of hundred acres of woods. I think the coyotes are keeping the deer in check. Just don't let your cats run free around here.

At this point if a plant hasn't poked it's leaves up I'm assuming it didn't make it. 

You made it just in time, Helenium!

By the end of this month I hope to have a fresh layer of mulch in all the gardens and to have made progress on the grass removal in the backyard (sadly not a sign of new beds being put in but of pulling grass away from growing shrubs that I didn't clear enough grass around originally).

And I hope my Buddleia are looking better. They died back nearly to the ground this winter. Not a pretty sight.