first frost

Last night. I had just planted out more of my new plants during the day- slender mountain mint, sedum and New England aster on the larger sunny sideyard. (Probably the last will get eaten by the deer, though I'm taking the chance. These plants much bigger than the ones I tried setting out before, if that makes any difference). They'd been in the mini greenhouse until now, I still have the bergamot and American beautyberry in there. Undecided where to put them. Have a full week of sun and warmer nights up ahead, so I can take my time. I planted the elephant's foot out on the easement, near where there's yellow salvia, ferns and solomon's seal under a maple. 

Brought some of the plants into the basement window for the night: all the geraniums. They're looking better since the temperatures dropped this past week. I think because it killed off some of the insects that were plaguing them.

The citronella is still one of my favorites. 

Lime scented one is upstairs

next to the stevia. Which surprised me by sprouting tiny new leaves at base of some stems.

My one echeveria 

It's still quite small for the pot size

Doing quite poorly is my cuban oregano. Leaves are all small, tons have dropped from the lower stems. Not sure why, though I suspect insects again. Planning to clip all this back and restart in another pot.

I did a drastic thing to our big schefflera in the dining room window. Cut all the leggy tall stems, and replanted in the pot. I did one first about two weeks ago, dipped the end in rooting hormone, and watched to see if the leaves would die and fall off, or if it would recover and sprout new growth. It appears to be doing the latter! So I went ahead and pruned, replanted all the other tall stems:

Window feels very exposed now, to say the least.

around the garden

I've been doing some work on the garden structure- the bed edges and such. But too tired from that to write it all out now, so here's some incidental pictures from the past few days. More on the actual work tomorrow. Found an unknown caterpillar- black and spiky!- on the boneset plant.

Which is doing great- it grew so fast, 

already the height of my small camellia.

I want to get more of this plant, or the common one that blooms in summer. Near it is the yarrow- so thin and small- I really admired some yarrow in a relative's yard several states south this past weekend, where it's warmer- hers so bright and thick and feathery! I suspect now mine would do better if I move it to a sunnier location.

Funny though, the same gardener had arum growing here and there in her yard. She asked me what it was- they'd been pulling it out! I like the bright, exotic appearance. She thought it might be an objectionable plant. I shrugged and said: well, if you like it, leave it be- but if you don't want it around, you'll probably have to dig up the tuberous roots. Here's mine, regrowing in fall-

I dug up a few echinacea to take to the plant swap soon. Here with other potted extras on my little bench- several catmint, a few beautyberry, and two pots of the miniature geranium (which I've grown tired of).

Not sure I'm going to take the beautyberries to the swap, though. Half the larger ones I transplanted died, or look like they did. This one by the hydrangeas is just a few thin sticks with a few leaves- 

but it does have three clusters of bright purple!

The side bed it's in, starting to look a bit neater and more deliberate. I've dug the stones into their places in the ground, to make the edge. Pulled more grass from behind the edge, and transplanted some errant ajuga out of the lawn, back into the bed.

When I was doing that work (actually about a week ago) I trimmed a bit of the wild chrysanthemum, and just stuck the cuttings in the ground on the other side of the little ornamental cypress. Wasn't sure if they'd take- but not only did they survive, they're blooming! Hard to see in this photo, I'll get a better one soon.

some moved indoors

Tidied up my stevia plant. Lots of browned leaf tips. I thought at first from cold, but it's uneven- not all the foliage affected, not even every leaf on each stem. Plus curling, so I suspect an insect, tiny can't see it. Aphids maybe. I sprayed with soapy water a few days ago.

This morning found more of the leaves that hadn't been damaged before, dried up and curled. Trimmed those off and this time dunked all the stems and leaves entire in a bowl of soapy water held potside. Hope that does the trick. If not, of course I'm facing my yearly problem of bringing unseen pests inside to my resident houseplants. Stevia is now sitting by the glass sliding door, next to the jade and aloe.

Scented geranium here too. Looking fuller already.

Other geraniums are still outside. I put them under the edge of the table when several days of rainstorms expected, didn't want them to get hit with too much deluge. (The rain has tapered off now).

My chives are very happy with the extra rainfall though!

Chocolate mint next to the chives pot is looking better now, too.

some stuff

I was going to call this post "all the squirmy wormies" but then started writing about more than just the worms, so. 

I realized that along with a bit of houseplant and fish tank neglect, I had been ignoring my worms lately, too. Had not fed them in a long while. Which actually made emptying the bin easier- they had been comsuming their bedding so really there was only a layer of carboard chips on the top to remove, the rest was mostly finished vermicompost. I didn't sort out the worms and unfinished bits by shaking through a handmade sifter like usual- the bottom two-thirds of the bin was too damp, and very compacted. 

Instead I loosened it up by hand and then picked out the bits of still-recognizable cardboard, and the individual worms that hadn't been in the first handfuls out of the feeding corner, or off the top layer. It was just a few hours, over two days, spent sitting by the bin carefully going through it. I didn't see any worm eggs. but there were plenty of tiny baby worms, so they've been breeding not so long ago. Worms in my hand.

Some are yellowish, but not too many. None of the worms felt tacky, they all had good moisture and most are healthy pink. I did notice lately it had been drier, so at that point I had sprinkled in some water, and started feeding them again hoping they'd all move to that corner. It never works completely, there's always more worms to pick out of the rest of the bin. I'm sure if I just kept the ones scooped out of the top layer and food area, that's plenty to keep the population going. But I still feel like "rescuing" as many as I can, knowing those that get thrown out with the vermicompost to fertilize the lawn and garden, will just die overwinter.

These tiny millipedes were in the bin. More than I've ever seen before, and I found a pile of dried-up ones off to one side behind the bin- has a spider been eating them there? They curl up in little silvery spirals. Picking worms individually out of the bin allowed me to leave behind most of the millipedes to get tossed out into the yard. I hope.

Then I started trying to get some plants in better shape. Groomed a bunch of houseplants, and those on the deck. Trimmed back some of the geraniums that had got leggy, and replanted the cut stems.

Sprayed with soapy water/oil the ones that seem to still have bug problems: chocolate mint, ginger mint, stevia, the cuban oregano- 

whose leaves are all so small right now I feel it must be suffering

I went to pick out this dead leaf that had drifted into my basil plant- and noticed somebody was on it

a little mantis!

This plant that's still new to me, the self-heal, is starting to bloom-

Another pic of my fish today- I think I should add to his name: Tucker Firetail

so very busy

and glad to be, but man am I tired at the end of the day. So not always finding time to jot down what I did, and now I have a backlog of pictures already. Last night it was supposed to get just below fifty degrees, so I took precautions and mulched a bunch of plants in the yard (remembering how I almost lost a cranesbill to the cold before) and brought a few tender ones inside. Here's stevia next to the citrus geranium- grown all tall from the summer- it does have a bit of dried leaf tips curling, but I can't tell if that's from chill or insects

My lemon geranium had issues earlier. I'd slowly noticed that it was very sparse on foliage- usually there's always a few leaves turning brown that I trim off, but this end of summer it was so thin! I was out on the deck picking off dead leaves and suddenly noticed when the plant moved from my touch, tiny white bugs fell and flitted off. It was teensy pale aphids. I made a quick spray of dishsoap, water and a drop of oil. Sprayed that plant all over- and then for the next few days checked by shaking it gently- no more bugs disturbed. Now it's looking so much better!

I also took cuttings of the coleus to bring inside- not necessary yet as it turned out- none of the plants outside died from cold! but well, I have some now as 'insurance'. I skipped the orange-and-lime one, it's just not sppealing to me anymore. Got the all the others- 

plus two more 'exhibition limelight' not pictured, and this group of 'kiwi fern' I actually clipped several days earlier, because I went outside and found an animal had bitten off the top of my plant! I think it was a rabbit.

While I was at it, took a few cuttings to restart of the witchy one that has always stayed indoors- just for the heck of it-

and because it was sitting nearby and looking particularly nice, here's the waxy begonia (I don't remember its real name). It was doing awful just a few weeks ago- I had forgotten to water some plants often enough- but I trimmed it, took a bunch of cuttings to restart, and watered it every other day for a while. Even gave away a second pot of it. Now doing great!

a few days ago

I saw the pink geranium opening its first flower, looked like a rosebud

now it's open completely

more to swap

My geraniums area almost done acclimating back to living outside for the season. I cut back the mini one, and the citronella

put its cuttings into two pots for the plant swap coming up.

Right around the corner, in corner against the end of stairs and the hyssop planter, my espresso geranium is flowering.

more work today

I cleared more weeds, gathered up last years' leaf mulch (and respread it on the empty garden beds), and hauled three buckets of compost up to the front. Fed the daylilies (again, they didn't get much the first time around)

cleared up some and scattered compost over the black-and-blue salvia- no sign of emergence yet but I do see one gladiola spear coming up! and the lamb's ears on that side look particularly nice this spring

Out front I've more or less cleaned up the front perennial and flowerbed (I had to spread the work over two days). Divided a few allium clumps to spread out- I hope I haven't done this at the wrong time and ruined their chance of bloom. They stood up to the disturbance pretty well, haven't wilted much

these two are next to a tulip

Behind them you can see the fat shoots of peonies arising!

I also moved a few young columbines- they look pretty small yet!

To extend the row of older plants- it gives something to look at in the back of the bed when not much is growing yet, and then later when they're done flowering and died back, the plants in front hide the gap

I can tell now what things I do actually matter in the garden- my raised beds that didn't get composted and mulched properly in fall, the ground was hard, not all loose and soft and dark like other springs. I didn't come out and heavily mulch or cover plants against the cold (except the black-and-blue salvia and the lemon balm) and now I can see the usual mulch and leaf cover was enough for most of them. But I lost a few brunnera- here's one that did well regardless

There's only two mums showing new growth so far in the bed, and of the wild geraniums (cranesbill), one has revived, the other nothing growing. If I've lost it, that makes me sad.

Two or three of the clary sage also died, but I have enough left it's okay

My 'espresso' wild geranium in the back near the garden seems okay though

and next to it the hyssop in a container is doing great! 

I can also tell that scattering hair clippings and irish spring soap shavings was keeping the deer from eating too much of my euonymus and hostas. Because in fall I did none of that, and this winter the deer ate back so much of those shrubs against the house they look awful. I'm going to have to trim them back to reshape, and have started scattering deterrents again.

more pics later