AUTUMN IN THE GARDEN
Autumn is the second best season in the garden, after spring. The seemingly interminable hot and humid summer of the South has passed. Cool and dry air has finally arrived from Canada, and not a moment too soon. Many of the plants are at their best now, in full growth and flower, putting on their last and best show of the growing year. In a few days frost will arrive here and the deciduous plants will do what they always do, drop their leaves and go into a winter's sleep to rest up for next year's burst of growth and beauty. The perennials will fall to the ground to escape the cold. The evergreens will hunker down waiting out winter. The sun has mercifully moved down in the sky to throw a soft light and shadow anew replacing the glaring and searing furnace of the summer sky. This is a delightful time for strolling around the garden, and for doing garden work. Let us take a break from the stress of debilitating church politics and renew our souls amid the wonders of God's creation. This is my garden, today, October 26, 2017.
Camellia japonica 'Daikagura' Variegated.
A strikingly beautiful camellia that blooms before frost, from September to November, with large blossoms of variegated pink and white. A good choice for a fall-blooming camellia. We think of camellia as a winter flower, but actually there are varieties that bloom in fall and others in spring.
Banana tree and Blue Star (Amsonia, "Hubricht's Bluestar').
Bluestar shines in spring covered with blue "star" flowers. In autumn it turns banana yellow. It is getting there. The banana tree never produces fruit because it has to have two years of growth. In most of the South, banana trees die down to the ground in winter.
When I first placed St. Francis here years ago, he was out in the open. Now he is surrounded by growth of all kinds. I think he would approve. Besides, the garden has lots of happy birds. I supply them with a variety of natural foods. They repay me with their beauty and song. I think he would like that too. (I am already missing the hummingbirds. They have left for the winter, to return in April. I have lots of them too.)
Camellia sasanqua 'Setsugekka'.
There is a ring of alternating white and pink full-grown camellia bushes around a tree, three white and three pink. All are in full bloom in October. This is the white blossom.
Camellia x 'Autumn Pink Icicle'.
This is the pink blossom.
A trellis arch leading into a pathway on one side of the garden. On the arch is jasmine and climbing rose. The palm is a Windmill Palm tree, the most cold-hardy of all palm trees.
Looking toward the central lawn. On right is Loropetalum "Plum Delight'. The clump grass is Japanese Silver Grass (Miscanthus sinesis condensatus "Cabaret'). The large tree is elm. The small tree on the left is Grancy Greybeard. The shrub in the lower left is forsythia. The thin upright evergreens are Italian Cypresses.
One of these days, when I get more tech savvy, I will post a video of my garden. I have made many DVDs of the garden with my video camera over the fourteen years since I bought the vacant lot and began planning, planting, and tending my little Garden of Eden. My modest garden has been great therapy. First, however, I will have to figure out how to transfer a file from my camera to my blog. I will put that on my "to do" list before next spring.
I hope you enjoyed this walk through my garden, and I hope you enjoy too the gardens all around you, large and small. We are in a lull period now awaiting two monumental events in the schism, the mediation and the SC supreme court response to DSC's appeal for recusal or rehearing.
