Bring your backyard to life
Stories and links about general gardening
Warm colors … Summer’s last glory … harbingers of fall.
This is a response to a yougrowgirl.com writing prompt, http://yougrowgirl.com/grow-write-guild-12-fall/. Visit the site if you’d like to participate
Sometimes surprising things happen in a garden, things you don’t plan.
A good example is this unexpected iris/aster combo. I planted the iris, a gift from a friend who had too many, years ago. Last fall, I planted an aster nearby. The aster grew tall and bloomed, as asters do, just a couple of weeks ago. Then, one stem drooped a bit and found the perfect resting spot nestled in the leaves of the iris.
Serendipity!
I grew up in Tennessee and never saw a bottle tree. I thought the ones pictured in the article were pretty, though. So I decided I would put one in my garden, in honor of my roots.
I ordered my “tree” from Plow and Hearth. When it arrived, I stuck it into the ground near a white phlox and began the search for bottles. I wanted all blue ones. Finding them was more challenging than I expected. The Button Store provided one. Treasure Mart provided two more. The others came from a souvenir store near Savannah, GA.
It’s fall. Garden colors are fading — or getting ready to flame. It’s a bit cooler, and the noises in the garden have changed from birdsong to insect rhythms.
In my garden, a sure sign of fall is the Sweet Autumn Clematis (clematis terniflora) that blooms in mid-September. It has become the mound of frothy white that I had in mind when I planted the clematis four years ago. If you plant one in your garden, expect it to take more than one season to reach its full potential.
This plant grows fast — from 15 to 20 feet in a single season. To keep it in check, garden resources recommend pruning it to 10 inches’ in late spring. It will still have time to grow 8 to 10 feet. It likes some sun, though it will grow in light shade as well. It appreciates plenty of water, as all clematis do.
I ate fried green tomatoes for dinner tonight and last night. I picked the tomatoes off the vine, sliced them, dredged each slice in corn meal mix, and then fried gently in just enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. They were delicious.
The taste is slightly bitter and acidic — but it’s a taste both my husband and look forward to in the summer. I think it is one of the reasons we grow tomatoes.
Our recipe is very simple, with only the cornmeal mix for breading. It’s important to use firm green tomatoes, not those that are beginning to ripen.
