October Review

I'm going to pretend for a moment that the snow and killing frost have not yet turned our tender plants into mush. This is what the garden looked like at the beginning of October.


Flowers!


Nasturtiums, rosemary, lavender, creeping thyme. . . I'm looking forward to having more native plants in here. Only the violets are native.


I think this is Monarda citriodora, lemon horsemint.


Gabe wanted to play in the scummy birdbath, so I had to move it elsewhere. I stuck some leftover plants where it used to be. And a dinosaur.



When I found out the cable company had to lay new lines through our yard, I ripped out the native plants that I thought were in their way, moving them to other locations. They didn't dig up my bed after all. It's a mess, thanks to me.


This is a Western native called pussytoes that I grew from seed which I started indoors two years ago. The Latin name is Atennaria parvifolia. It thrives in the hot, dry conditions of my front yard. This patch slept beneath a pile of leaves last winter, and came creeping out in the Spring with oversized, gluttonous leaves.


Here between rocks, it grew much smaller leaves. The wet June caused it to get some sort of mealy buggy ick on the leaves (as did the pussytoes up at Garden in the Woods), but some proper sun straightened it out. I love this plant!



The raspberry and strawberry bed.


Chris' beautiful garden.