Dirt Therapy

  There's not a lot of blooms in the November garden but a few scattered here and there. We've not had a hard frost yet but a lot of rain and heavy winds. Some leaves remain on the trees but most are already stripped bare. Aster 'Monte Cassino' is really beautiful and the photo doesn't do it justice. This is out next to the street and I see people stopping to admire it.   Not blooms but berries - Callicarpa 'Profusion' (Beautyberry)   Fatsia   Fuchsia 'Hawkshead' still going strong   This is the most stunning fuchsia and of course I don't have the name. A neighbor gave it to us and the label read 'Landscape Fuchsia'.   Mahonia 'Charity' (Oregon Grape)   Pennisetum '24 Karat' (Fountain Grass) Schizostylis (Cape Lily), a gift from Sean Hogan     Hydrangea 'Nikko Blue'   Rose 'Playboy' Rose 'Lady of Shallot' Rose 'Lady Emma Hamilton' Rose 'Golden Celebration'  I will wrap this up wit...

Good tools are a gardener's best friend and I learned a long time ago that paying a little extra for quality instead of just grabbing the best deal at your local big box store is always a wise decision.  This dawned on me about twenty years ago when I paid $40 (a lot then!) for a Fiskars shovel. I questioned my sanity at the time but that shovel was a game changer and I still have it to this day.  I don't use garden hoes as much as shovels since I no longer have a vegetable plot but often a chore arises when one comes in handy. Case in point - my recent pathway project where I removed all the existing sod and started over. I had been using a regular grub hoe and I wish I had come across this pointed hoe before I started. The Pointed Garden Hoe from Easy Digging is a powerful tool. It is very sharp and does an amazing job at penetrating tough soils such as clay. The head is one solid piece of premium grade steel and measures 8" across at the widest point. The head must be a...

This is my favorite tree at the moment. It wins the prize for the most colorful leaves. It is known by a string of different common names - 'Black Gum' (also spelled as 'Blackgum'), 'Black Tupelo', ' Sour Gum' and 'Pepperidge'. I like the name 'Black Tupelo' since we used to live close to Tupelo, Mississippi (birthplace of Elvis). The scientific name is Nyssa Sylvatica - Nyssa after the Greek water nymph and sylvatica is Latin meaning 'from the woods". It is a member of the dogwood family (Cornaceae). The tree will probably get much larger than I'd like and I'm sure it will cast a lot of shade - not necessarily a bad thing. I did not know until recently that it is a major bird and insect attractant. The female tree produces purple/blue drupes that bees use for honey production and birds love to eat.  The fall color is spectacular - a combination of bright orange, yellow and deep reds but it was one of the last trees to ...

  Another wind storm, another case of the leaning tower of eucalyptus. In the past, I have been staking it after leaning it back up but it has become so big that I think the situation was hopeless. And the new fence is in the path of destruction. In hindsight, I did not place this tree carefully. It is planted in the shallow bed of the terrace and a large tree doesn't look good smacked right in the middle of the fence-line anyway. Still, removing it (and any tree for that matter) is painful. It is such a beautiful tree. Amazingly fast-growing, this was planted from a quart-sized pot only 4 years ago.   Look at how beautiful the wood is - sigh     Looking out the bedroom window from above shows the new view. If you look closely, you can see the stub of the bottom trunk which is still standing. It certainly opened up the view. I now know of a much better spot for a eucalyptus along the side of the driveway although it will involve moving a hemlock. I will mull this ove...