Seasonal Leftovers

I am winding down the spring and summer container garden, weeding out dead plants, dumping pots of dirt, and deciding what to carry over for the spring season. There are still plants to enjoy, some permanent, others transitory. Trees stay around all the time, and as the season changes, so do they. Other plants, like succulents, flower but continue to stay fat and succulent into the coming colder months. Others straggle along, like the milkweed, and just seem to grow no matter what you do to them! Let’s take a look.

One of my favorite bits of the yard – the Brown Turkey fig tree. It needs to be pruned, but I had to wait for the gardener to work his magic and fill my clippings bin. I also need to sort out first year / second year growth to get a good crop next year, and begin at the top – it is way too tall for me to reach up!

Another favorite tree is the Crepe Myrtle. It is a deciduous tree – something of a rarity around here. At present, its leaves are deep red and dropping. Against the late afternoon sun their brilliance is beautiful, especially against a blue sky. Once bare the delicate branches are lovely and graceful. Spring sees swelling leaf buds and soon clusters of deep red-pink flowers. And then the cycle continues after the flowers drop, and then the leaves.

Succulents annoy and fascinate me. They don’t need much work and they are really hard to kill – perfect for people with purple thumbs. This one is in a pot with a number of others just like it, and as I wandered around to find something to photograph, the light on the – leaves? – branches? – was quite lovely.

Milkweed for the Monarchs! This year my flowers were few and I did not set out to raise a bunch of milkweed, but despite that, the plant is stubborn and continues to show up in some of the strangest places. I have a number to be found in my container garden – mixed in with lilies, peppers, tomatoes, lavender, oregano, mint, succulents, and who knows what else!! I like the yellow ones the best, but have also had them in reds and oranges. Even if I forget to water things – or just don’t because of hot winds and cold weather – these plants just chug along.

The last few sunflowers of the summer are hanging on – but these are not big and tall, but short and runty. Nonetheless, their brilliant colors cannot but add to your day!

It’s windy this afternoon, but this little spider’s web caught my eye. It is strung up between a couple of small branches of the orange tree, dancing in the breeze. As a photo, it was hard to capture, but the twinkle of the light on the strands, however imperfect a photo, reminds us of the fragility and strength all around us in the natural world.

And now, indoors it is! Cold wind, 60F, and the cleaners are here and it is time to watch some Hamish McBeth and kick back a bit.