Some Fall Blooms

I took a walk around the house today to get some pictures of what's blooming here in early November. The knock out roses, both the pink and the yellow, are still blooming. This is not unusual as I typically have blooms on them until early December and our first hard frost.

This Beauty Berry (callicarpa japonica) spilling through the split rail fence is at it's peak.

And while the Coral Bark Japanese maple isn't in 'bloom' it is quite beautiful this time of year!

What follows is a sampling of my sasanqua camellia collection. Not a collection so much as an assortment.  These shrubs do really well for use here and are very adaptable to our climate. They grow well in both full sun and part shade. No real pest problems to speak of. One year I had an outbreak of leaf gall (swelling and toughening of the leaves). I spent some time picking the affected leaves off, being careful not to touch the unaffected leaves. That seemed to have solved the problem.

 Snuck  in an Encore azelea bloom here in this picture.

This is an Oakleaf hydrangea. The leaves are a brilliant burgundy. 

Here we venture out into the veggie garden where we have some carrots and beets growing in the foreground. You may be able to make out the golden leaves of Simpson's black seeded lettuce in the background.

Here's a row of radishes. 

And here I've planted a much more reasonable amount of garlic this year. Last year I went way overboard and had far more than I needed and the bed got overrun with weeds. This year,  I might have around 50 plants.

Here you can see some of the strawberries I transplanted last weekend.

I am trying to let these broccoli plants go to seed this fall. I am hoping to be able to harvest my own seed to plant again in the spring. It may prove to be a waste of time, or free seeds, we shall see.

I am experimenting with growing some hard winter wheat this year. It looks pretty much like grass you find growing in your yard right now.

And the dogs enjoy eating the tender young shoots.

The bees get active on the warm days like this weekend. We are supposed to be up around 70 degrees for our high all weekend. 

You may be able to make out my blackberry plants in the picture below. I planted these 2 winters ago, the deer like to graze on them so I haven't had any berries yet. 

Here are some crimson clover seedlings coming up in one of the garden beds. I plant it as a cover crop to nurish the soil. I'll turn it under on the first dry day after mid-March. I want to give it 5 weeks or more to break down before I plant the summer crops in this bed. 

Here you can see I've cut down the asparagus stalks and top dressed the bed with a couple inches of compost. This one bed with 24 crowns is plenty to feed DW and I for about 6 weeks in spring. 

Penelope antique rose

I recall mentioning my Penelope antique rose in an earlier post, along with a promise to post pictures when it bloomed, so here they are.

This rose is available via the Antique Rose Emporium online. I have purchased several roses from them  and they deliver a good quality rose. It is best if you plant them in the fall here in the south. It allows them time to get established before our brutal summer heat sets in. 

I have found Penelope and Marie Pavlie both to be relatively disease free and they rebloom all summer. They are very much like knock outs roses in this respect.

I grow a few David Austin Roses, although I don't know that I would recommend them to southern gardeners. As you can see, their blooms are fantastic. But they suffer from every disease known to man, and they do not rebloom well here because of that. Of the four I have, I would say that Iceberg (bottom two pictures) reblooms the most reliably,  but the blooms tend to brown quickly because of our intense summer heat.

My Little Gem Magnolia has started to bloom, adding it's sweet fragrance to the mix in the air. These are terrific landscape trees for today's smaller lots. It will not get so large as to take up your entire yard and it blooms from a very young age because it is vegetatively propagated.

Here are a few pictures of some of my peonies. Because it got so hot, so fast this year, the blooms do not stay attractive for long. Most peony blooms will do better if given some afternoon shade.

Re-re-planting beans

It's early in the season here and I have had to replant the beans twice now. The first was my fault for trying to cheat a little and get them in the ground before tax day. The second was a frost that fell a week after our typical last frost. It was just enough to nip the tender bean sprouts and a pepper plant and a few basil plants. The odd thing about the basil is that of the 9 I planted, four succumbed to frost, but the others are fine. And only one tomato plant suffered any damage and  it was minor.
 So today I pulled out the frosted sprouts and put more bean seeds in the ground. I have one tomato fruited. It is a Mortgage Lifter.
 The strawberries are producing about a pint a day now. We've had them on pancakes and ice cream and just right out of a bowl with some sugar sprinkled on.

The roses are blooming throughout the property. I have a few David Austin Roses, I think the top one is Golden Celebration. I also have another yellow Austin called Charlotte and a yellow Knock Out rose. 

This is an antique rose called Marie Pavie.  It is a semi double rose with a light scent that blooms all summer long (when the Japanese beetles don't eat the blooms). It is very nearly thornless and is easy to care for.

This is my climbing New Dawn rose growing up a Crape Myrtle. By growing it this way, my 'tree' gets three blooms each year. The New Dawn will bloom in spring and again in late summer and of course the Crape Myrtle will bloom in summer.

This is the Oakleaf Hydrangea, just starting to bloom, and some pink Knock Out roses in the foreground.

The first of the peonies has started to bloom as well.