November in the Garden

When I lived in England, I was always accustomed to seeing butterflies floating about the garden in June, July and August.

In fact I remember earlier this year, being rather despondent at the lack of butterflies in the garden.

I should have remembered that our prime butterfly month is October, and often in to November and beyond.

The garden was ready for them too -- the Vitex, which has bloomed only sporadically all summer, now has quite a few lovely sprays of booms on it.  Just in time to feed this hungry visitor.

We still have some blooms on the tropical milkweed too, but in most cases, the leaves have been eaten by voracious caterpillars.

This photo was actually taken several days ago.  When I went back out to see how he was doing, there was no sign of him.  Then later in the day, I sat down on the patio and noticed this underneath the small table on the patio.

Is it him?  I'll never know, but I'm looking forward to keeping a close eye on it while it goes through its transformation.

And elsewhere around the garden, the milkweed is making preparations for next year.

The brush pile in the utility corner was getting out of hand, so I knew I first needed to tackle the compost bin, which has been more or less ignored most of the year, with the exception of the occasional "stir".

I wasn't sure how much, if any, good compost we would have but was very pleasantly surprised to find the bottom half of the bin filled with dark, moist, rich compost.

I dug out several inches worth and added it to the vegetable beds, in readiness for next year.  Then I got out the "Yard Butler" and mixed up what remained in there and encouraged it to move down ground level to replace what I had just removed.

This provided a few inches of space at the top, so I was able to spend a happy afternoon using our chipper/shredder to shred spent annuals, shrub and tree trimmings and leaves.

There is still some work to be done on the brush pile (while still leaving some to shelter the local wildlife) but it's been steadily raining all day today, so I won't be shredding anything until it dries out.


Maybe next week....


Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Winter Clean Up in the Garden

 It's been wet and cold for seemingly forever, but just recently we had a couple of nice days over the weekend, so I felt compelled to get outside in the garden and get started on some clean up.

I've been avoided pulling out the dead zinnias in the island beds, hoping that they would provide seed for the local birds.  But the birds don't seem to venture into the middle of the garden much, so the dead zinnias were just an eyesore.

I got them out of one bed, shaking them out and scattering seed as I did.  I also collected some seed, and have a bunch more in the other bed, so if anyone is interested in some orange Zinnia Profusion seed, let me know and I can send some :-)   

Haven't started on the other bed yet.  It has more problems than just dead zinnias.  It's overrun with bermuda grass which will be a pain to pull out.  However, while I was morosely poking around in it, I discovered a pleasant surprise....

... underneath last year's daylily leaves, new daylilies starting to peek out of the ground!

There are quite a lot of them, so I think that, although late summer is the best time to divide them, I'm going to divide them up this spring and move the extras to the newer of the two island beds.

I didn't take proper care of the compost bin last year, so while I was able to get some good compost out of it, most of it hadn't actually composted.  

I pulled a bunch of dry leaves and branches out for my husband to run through our new chipper/shredder and then I will layer that with some leftover potting soil, wet it down and add some compost starter and see if I can take better care of it this year.  

The small amount of compost I was able to use, I put on the small vegetable bed and dug it in.  Next weekend, weather permitting, I'll go ahead and buy some bags of composted cow manure, or something similar, and add to both veggie beds.

Then we'll have to turn our attention to a drainage problem we have noticed.  More about that in another post.



Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

A Weekend in January

Last week I posted about the Goldfinches flocking to the feeders in my garden.  Well, they're still here :-)

They seem to be roosting in the hedgerow across the street behind our house, but each morning they arrive en masse to gorge themselves at the feeders...

... before resting up in the Crepe Myrtle  ...

... Or in the Vitex tree...

They don't stay with us long, but rather refuel to continue their northward migration.  I have never seen an American Goldfinch in its glorious yellow and black plumage.  I only ever see them in their "olive drab", lol.

I didn't spend all weekend sitting around watching birds - I actually did some work in the garden too. 

The compost bin has been getting very difficult to fit stuff in because it is overflowing.  So I decided it was time to "harvest" some of the compost at the bottom of the bin, which would allow me to turn the rest, water it down and get the lid on properly.

I was sweating like crazy by the time I was done, but it needed to be done and I had a sense of accomplishment.  I got two loads like this and added them to the island bed.  

Before putting the lid back on, I used my secateurs to make sure all the garden waste that was sitting on top was chopped into small pieces that would break down more easily, added a layer of soil and watered it down.

During the week, I spent a long overdue afternoon attacking the front flowerbed.  As I was ripping out the nutsedge which is growing rampant along the back of the bed, I discovered that the milkweed I had trimmed back recently is putting out new growth.

So after admiring it and taking its photo, I set to work trimming back the rest of the milkweed and mulching, so the front bed looks tidy once more... at least for a while.

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Composting Adventure Begins

I finally got around to purchasing and setting up a compost bin in the garden.

I hmmm'd and haaaa's about which design I wanted and actually purchased another design in the spring. But that didn't work out and I ended up tossing the thing out.

But now I think I have found something that will work for us.

It's the Classic Composter, by SoilSaver Inc. 

It was easy to put together and I just set it where the previous pile had been.  All I had to do was put in a few carriage bolts, and voila!

The little booklet that came with it -- "A Sense of Humus, Your Guide to Composting with the Classic Composter," gives useful hints about composting. Information such as what can, and what cannot or should not be composted, how to eliminate smells and discourage flies.  There's even a detailed "Principles of Composting" which I found interesting, because I was pretty ignorant of the mechanics behind it.

It's already off to a good start because even though I didn't like the composter I bought in the spring and although it was falling apart and falling over, there was some pretty decent compost in there.  Since I cleared that site to put the new composter, I was able to fill it about half way with good compost -- now I can start adding to it as I do my fall clean up around the garden.

And next spring, I should have some nice compost to add to the beds when I get ready to start planting!  That's the plan anyway :-)

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.