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. Handcrafted gates move with a touch of the finger on their ball bearing joints as you flow from one garden to another.

South Carolina Gardens

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.

Back Home

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. I even planted the garlic that was sitting in a box on my kitchen counter for a while!

On a November day like this, procrastinating has its rewards.