Ohio was Warm and Sunny so I Went South for Cold and Rain

Created on 11/17/2009

I spent last week in South Carolina supervising the installation of plants for an estate garden I designed. The garden is a series of outdoor rooms enclosed by brick walls and Chippendale fences. Hand crafted gates move with a touch of the finger on their ball bearing joints as you flow from one garden to another.

The weather was almost perfect for planting trees, shrubs and perennials in the south. Almost perfect- soggy soil and cold rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida slowed us down a bit.

I watched as the clayey grass filled lawn in front of the potager transformed into a border of blooms and flowering shrubs. Fall perennials like ‘Blue Fortune’ anise hyssop and ’Fragrant Angel’ coneflower are still blooming- in November. Tucked in behind a neat low evergreen boxwood border perennials, pomegranates, and white gardenias will bloom in sequence from early spring through frost. This border is planted adjacent to the kitchen garden to attract pollinators and other beneficial insects. Moments before I left for the airport, I could see my plan was already working. We counted four varieties of bees hovering over the blue spiky flowers of the anise hyssop.

This week I am back home working in my own garden. I deliberately avoided, I mean saved my clean up chores for such a fall day. These are glorious days in the Midwest and I am savoring every fleeting moment; I see pieces of blue in the sky and the temperatures are above 50 degrees. The native grasses like little bluestem have changed from their usual summer blue green to glowing tawny red. Even a few annual flowers are still thriving: yellow calendula and red nasturtiums are blooming.

I removed all of the brown tomato, bean and sweet pea vines. Everything went in the large wheelbarrow to be trekked to the compost pile. The dead stalks of basil and okra joined the pile. I removed, cleaned and stored the willow tee pees and blue bamboo poles. The garlic that was sitting in a box on my kitchen counter for a while is now planted. On a November day like this, procrastinating has its rewards.