These images were taken on October 24 as the gardening season draws to a close. Frost usually occurs within the first few weeks of November, so bloom time is ending. I’ve done no deadheading, pruning, or watering this season; still, there are late-season blossoms. Black-eyed Susans are usually gone byContinue Reading

I’ve watched our gardenia slowly regain its deep green color after being brown for months. Since the first wisp of emerald, I have inspected it, hoping for blossoms. We’ve had less rain than usual, and I have not watered once this year, so I never expected the hoped-for flowers untilContinue Reading

For nine years, each season has brought a fragrant outburst of gardenia flowers.  Each year there would be maybe 50-60 blooms each season. Then one year, I noticed it was infested, which I treated in the off-season.   The next year, and in years since, it produced hundreds of blossomsContinue Reading

Every spring, I try to get fresh images of the first blooms. Usually, this happens in early April, and this year was no different. The woodland phlox kicked things off and was soon followed by the Catmint and Gerber daisies. The azaleas, usually loaded with blooms, were more subdued thisContinue Reading

Posh folks use “winter” as a verb, as in “We wintered in Palm Springs.”  Although my unplanted sweet potato vines and geraniums do not count as posh items, I didn’t want to see them die, having never been properly seated in pots.  I bought them along with 30 or moreContinue Reading

Since 2014, the garden’s first season, I cannot recall a winter when the local temperature fell below 18. Even then, the cold was limited to nighttime. Typically, nighttime temps in December are, at worst, in the mid-30s with occasional lower temps for a few hours at best. The polar vortexContinue Reading

Gardening makes one pay attention to yearly cycles. Before I planted a yardful of flowers, rain was a random occurrence with pluses and minuses. It could be welcomed as a respite from the heat or dreaded as the bringer of humidity that makes it unbearable. It could be the reasonContinue Reading