Rain!

A hasty note so that I will remember later how long it was between rains this year.  It began to rain this morning, and it is still coming down softly.  First rain we have seen in my neighbourhood since July 14, and I am delighted.  AND -- the forecast calls for more tonight and tomorrow morning, then thunderstorms tomorrow evening.  Oh, Joy!  I can hear the roof gutters gurgling and can almost hear the plants slurping as they get their feet wet.  It has arrived just in time for the big ferns in the back garden.

The view from inside

As I walked through the house yesterday, I saw the view through the doors to the little deck outside, and thought it was pretty.  Something to think about in the winter.

And another pot

This one was pretty successful, I thought.  It started out with the euphorbia Diamond Frost, the red plant whose name I cannot ever remember, and a brilliant lime-green coleus.  The coleus got the collywobbles and perished, so I replaced it with the red and scarlet coleus.  The Diamond Frost has done very well, and next year I will consider doing a pot of nothing else.  I like the airiness and delicacy of it -- maybe it should be placed next to something big and brooding for contrast.  

Time to evaluate

It's time to look at the pots and patio and see the general effect, and decide what I want to change next year.  I am not happy with the placement of the furniture nor with the pots but it's too late to change much now.  I just added a pot of tibouchina which I hope can be wintered over in the garage with the brugmannsia, the jacaranda, the ginger, the fuchsia and the colocasia.  Getting crowded in there!

So, here are some photos to remind me in January of what it looked like in August.  Note to self:  before you get too nostalgic, remember the gnats and mosquitoes too.  And notice please the containers of insect repellent prominent in every picture!

We appear to have been moved to Canada,

and are enjoying cool (55 degrees last night) nights and beautiful breezy days without humidity!  The airconditioning is off, the windows are open, and I am sitting at the computer with the french doors open behind me so that I get the breeze and can hear the birds as they do their evening errands.   The big copper birdbath is very popular with the feathered crowd, and I can hear them splashing around.   The robins are the best customers, followed by the catbirds and the cardinals.  Yesterday there was a goldfinch drinking there, in his brilliant yellow summer plumage.  

No rain though, and the water barrel is down to less than one-third.  This summer dryness seems to be a new pattern here and we can no longer count on afternoon thunderstorms to keep us watered.  

Roses

I am not a rose person -- conditions in the mid-Atlantic area are too difficult to grow really spectacular roses, but some of mine were lovely this spring.  

The banks in front

I've been thinking about the "lasagne" method of making a new flower bed -- I used it a couple of times when I was planting the banks in front of the house in order to eliminate the need to mow them.  It is really simple to do, and I am surprised that more people don't do it.  No need to nag at the strong back people in the household, no digging, no removal of sod, just save your newspapers until you have enough to cover the area 5 pages thick, enough mulch to cover the paper with 4 inches of mulch, and Bob's your uncle.  You can even plant immediately, if you are an impatient person like me.  The photos show the bank in front of my house at the conclusion of seven hours of hard labour on the part of my friend Martha and me.  All the plants flourished, and have spread and filled in beautifully.  Maybe it was the sweat with which we watered them that day!