A Good Start

Spring is burgeoning in my garden too! Fooled by the extra-warm days the plants are growing like it’s early summer! A couple Sweet William flowers are blooming and the Creeping Jenny is eagerly running but I haven’t yet seen any purple Victoria Blue Salvia buds.

I’m very pleased that I won’t have to purchase any new plants in these varieties. Nor pentas or Angelonias. Nor Tropicana Cannas. Of course, the red hibiscus will go out too. I’ll have quite a garden already as soon as I can be sure it won’t get cold at night any more (it has been known to snow here in the spring); then I can fill in the color gaps.

Snap, Crackle, Pop, & Stripes

Last night’s cold front brought more rain and much cooler temperatures. We prepared for heavy winds by taking the hanging baskets and wind chimes down but thankfully had no problems; sadly, others in the wider area had great damage.

After an initial snap, crackle and pop of rain hitting crisp autumn leaves, this morning’s rain poured at a rare angle, completely saturating the garden.

Tonight a hard freeze is forecast so it’s time to find an indoor spot for the Tropicana Canna. They crave lots of light, humidity and water so wintering this one indoors will be a challenge. A location where the sun back-lights the leaves would be ideal to show off their colorfully striped beauty. It will also need elbow room to unfurl. I will however, wait to bring it in until the rain has had a chance to evaporate so it won’t drip off the leaves onto the carpet—and me.

A New Leaf

A garden book told me that cutting old, dull Tropicana Canna leaves off will provoke new growth. So I bid goodbye to the leaves with grasshopper holes and those whose stripes had faded. Now it has an abundance of new red and gold striped leaves! None seem hurt by the cold weather as long as they were covered.

The vendor I bought the canna from said that it will “die back” but to keep watering it through the winter and it will grow again in the spring—hers have for years. I think though that when it looks like the cold will triumph, I’ll find a place for the striped beauty indoors.

Hardy Sorts—Sort of

My remaining outdoor garden plants have much more space around them now that I’ve brought many indoors for the winter. However, I have a little more room to arrange them; I enjoy decorating.

Where rearranging is less of an option, I’ve grouped some water globes in a vacant pot. I’ll watch to see how the sun shines through them in the afternoon to see if I need to move or spread them.

I love colored glass and got to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit twice when it came to town. The exhibit featured a walkway with a strong Plexiglas ceiling covered with a kaleidoscope of lighted colored glass. Walking through the color wonderland thrilled me! I’m excited to share a link to a picture of a similar installation! http://www.chihuly.com/ceilings-persian-pergola-ceiling-2002_detail.aspx

It was so cold last night that it was only 33 degrees at 9am! Yet these are plants that survived it, covered with a sheet: Tropicana Canna, Sweet Potato Vine, Hyacinth Bean Vine, Parrot Leaf, Daylily, Basil, Pineapple Sage, Peppermint, Victoria Blue Salvia, Mexican Petunia. Remember, watering is vital to plant survival in the cold; dehydration is what kills plants in the cold.

The sickening sound of three beautiful shade trees being chopped down to prevent future problems with the continually problematic community water pipes has begun.

True Colors

It’s another rainy day though the sun shone for about five minutes—I’m grateful for every ray. We seem to have been in a pattern for a while now of two weeks of rain, a week and a half of sun, a week of rain.

On my walk yesterday, I noticed that more of the local leaves are showing their true colors. The reds, oranges and golds that autumn leaves display are the color they really are. The wonderful greens we see in the spring and summer are chlorophyll, the trees’ food; my botany instructor was adamant—“fertilizer is not plant food, chlorophyll is!” Since it’s produced by the sun, as the days shorten the chlorophyll recedes, displaying the leaves' gorgeous true colors.

The Tropicana Canna’s red and green stripes are especially gorgeous today. Though it hasn’t bloomed its anticipated orange flower, the colorfully striped leaves are a beautiful addition to my garden. If all goes well, it will survive the winter outdoors to grow again in the spring. The key to overwintering such plants outdoors is to keep watering them.

Trouble in Paradise

Paradise: an ancient Persian word meaning garden.

The other day as I examined the plants in my personal paradise, I found an interloper—a “giant” grasshopper. It was exactly the color of the hibiscus leaves. I’m not one to pick up bugs, uh uh, so I didn’t know how to get rid of it (and I prefer not to kill them if there’s another way). If I shook the bush, the grasshopper would just jump to another leaf. As I prayed for a solution, I looked around and saw a handy small plastic pot and my garden gloves. With my gloves on (!), I scooped the pest into the pot and cast it from my garden. It flew to a tree across the easement. Sure it could come back but I kept it from eating more for awhile at least. Then I saw the huge hole in a leaf of my beautiful red-striped Tropicana cannas—the grasshopper’s calling card.

Today, I found more holes. It was back. I checked each plant as I watered and then in the last spot, I caught it green-pincered on a coleus leaf (it must like colorful food like I do). My method didn’t work as well this time since I had a little less elbow room to throw it and the grasshopper landed in a hanging basket. By the time I spotted its new hiding place and turned to get the pot, it was gone. I searched and rustled the other plants without finding it so maybe it flew away. Good riddance!

Okay, so maybe I’d find it a fascinating part of God’s creation if it wasn’t devastating my plants. It’s not like there isn’t plenty other greenery out there in the semi-wild. They are kosher but I won’t go there…except to ask those who insist that the Biblical dietary laws are the only acceptable diet, “Mmm…have you eaten the grasshoppers on that diet?” And yes, I know that they are a delicacy in some cultures and in others they are “all they have” but unless it’s necessary, thank you but no thank you.