Garden Bloggers Bloom Day -- November 2014

Because we are still well and truly caught in the grip of an icy Alaskan cold front, the flowers out in the garden are few and far between. There are some, however, and I hope you all appreciate that I froze my heinie off searching for them.

Abelia grandiflora 'Kaleidoscope'

One cardoon flower peaks out from behind enormous serrated leaves.

A handful of large clumps of Alyssum have somehow escaped the freeze.

Clematis

Penstemon 'Tubular Bells'

Mahonia x meadia 'Charity' bloom spikes have started opening at the bottom.

And, in the greenhouse, where the temperature was a little more hospitable:

NOID Abutilon

Aloe glauca (the second bloom it has produced this fall)

Aloe glauca (the third bloom, and there is a 4th peaking out down in the rosette)

Abutilon 'Red Tiger'

This single Brugmansia flower has opened since I moved it into the greenhouse a couple of weeks ago, and it is perfuming the air beautifully.

But there are plenty more waiting to open.

I hope even if you are dealing with below freezing temperatures, that you've managed to find some blooms too.

Carol of May Dreams Gardens hosts Garden Bloggers Bloom Day on the 15th of every month. Check out her November post here, and please take some time to visit some of the other bloggers who leave links to their own Bloom Day posts.

After the Frost

No, I'm not going to show you pictures of all my mushy plants. In fact, no photos of plants at all.

This morning when I got up and took a look outside I couldn't help noticing that my little water feature in the Folly, the creation of talented artist Barbara Sanderson of Glass Gardens Northwest, was still running, but the rocks at the base were encased in ice. I've been meaning to turn it off just long enough to clean all the leaves out of it, but haven't done that yet, due to laziness and a lack of enthusiasm. The result was a fascinatingly knobby layer of ice.

These photos were taken this afternoon, with temperatures now above freezing. It looks like we're going to be stuck in this cold weather till next Monday, so it'll be this way for a while. Does anyone want a Scotch on the rocks?

Before the Frost

We're supposed to get a frost tonight, finally. Like a lot of the rest of the country, we're in line for a cold front coming down from Alaska, and the temperature tonight and tomorrow night is supposed to get down into the high 20s. There was frost on the roof shingles this morning when I got up, but none on the ground, and the outside thermometer said the temp was 39 at 7 a.m. It will get even colder tonight. Our temperature today didn't make it out of the 40s, and there was a high wind warning as well. When I went out to the grocery store, tree debris was all over the roads.

I went out and took some photos to document the garden before the frost. I'll probably go out tomorrow or the next day and get some frost pictures too. I still have a surprising number of plants that look pretty good. I do have to be honest, though, and admit that for the most part the garden right now looks terrible.

In fact, at this time of year, every year, I realize that I despise my garden. Everything is dead or dying and a soggy, mushy mess. I'm in a funk. I'd just like this gardening season to end, and for the next three months -- November, December and January -- to go by as quickly as possible. Spring comes early here -- starting in February -- when plants start nosing their way up through the soil. It can't come soon enough.

At this time of year, my garden is like that rich uncle on life support, who keeps hanging on and refuses to die. I just want to attend the reading of the will and find out what I've inherited.

Panicum virgatum 'Rohtstrahlbusch' in afternoon sun

This Clematis keeps producing flowers

Clematis seedhead

Begonia sutherlandii

Fabulous Digiplexis 'Illumination Flame' is still going strong

Grevillea 'Marshall Olbricht'

Salvia 'Wendy's Wish' will probably be mush tomorrow

Ricinus communis 'New Zealand Purple' will probably also collapse after the frost

My Mahonia x meadia 'Charity' are gearing up to flower profusely this year, even the one that lives in almost complete shade on the north side of the back porch.

As they say on Game of Thrones, "winter is coming."

Tucked Away for a Winter's Nap

Over the weekend, with Nigel's help, I managed to move all the plants that need a frost-free environment into the greenhouse for the winter, with room to spare. There isn't a frost or a freeze predicted in our immediate future, not for a few weeks at least, which is unusual for this part of the country. Our average first frost date is normally in mid- to late-October. I had to put off moving things for the last few weeks because Nigel wasn't feeling up to helping (first a cold and then a wrenched knee that made walking difficult). I had already managed to get all the tender plants that like to spend their winter dry moved into the greenhouse on my own, before the latest wave of torrential rain.

At any rate, this past weekend, we moved plants, I took apart my porch containers, threw out the plants I didn't care to keep alive, and potted up others, as well as stuck a few cuttings of a Pelargonium that I grew this year and liked. I also cut back the Burro's Tail Sedum that has a lot of bare spots, and stuck those cuttings into cactus soil.

I was quite amazed to find that everything fit into the greenhouse, with room for more. Yes, it's crammed, but there is still room to move and work, and even to sit at a table and have coffee if I want.

View through the door of the right hand side, now full of Brugs, Cannas, Aloe glauca, and Echium.

That same area viewed from inside the greenhouse

I also dug and potted three double-flowered purple Daturas that I grew from seed this year, but that never got big enough to bloom. They were very wilty at first, but have since perked up. I hope they'll survive and bloom next year. They are in fact tender perennials, which many gardeners treat as annuals because they won't survive our winters.

Three wilty Daturas

The Aloe glauca, which impressed some of the Portland garden bloggers a month ago when they were here for the plant exchange, is still flowering. There is a second, shorter flower stalk, as well as a third which hasn't opened yet.

Aloe glauca flower No. 3

The Brugs have quite a few unopened flowers too

The far end of the greenhouse is crowded, but even so, there is still room for me to stand at the wire table and work.

If I absolutely need to, I can clear off all that stuff on the third shelf down and put more plants there.

Pelargonium sidoides, Cordyline 'Cha Cha' and Loropetalum 'Carolina Midnight' waiting to be potted up. They were all pulled out of the mixed containers on my front porch.

Pelargonium sidoides foliage -- the delicate, dark red flowers are pretty special too.

I grew a couple of different Pelargoniums in the mixed containers on my front porch, but besides the P. sidoides, there was only one other, with chartreuse leaves and salmon pink flowers, that I liked enough to want to grow next year. The stems had gotten quite long, so I cut them back and saved the tips for rooting.

Several had incipient flower buds, which need to be cut off before sticking the cutting.

Wish me luck, I've never tried rooting Pelargoniums before.

Sedum morganianum (Burro's Tail Sedum) had gotten long and bare stemmed, so I cut them off and stuck them as well, per Jean's instructions at Secrets of a Seed Scatterer.

All the little jelly beans that fell off in the process were strewn across a tray of cactus soil, to see what they produce.

I took a stab at making a panorama shot of the greenhouse, but had to do it in two. My cellphone won't do 360 degrees, only about 180. So I took two pictures.

First the left-hand side.

And the right-hand side.

Look at all that empty floor space! There's definitely room for a few more plants.

Now...if I can just get out into the garden to plant some bulbs...