Looking Back

Looking Back

     The weather forecast sounds like we are heading into real winter this week, but there are still signs of previous seasons around. Small withered leaves hang on the Japanese Maples and brown fronds cover many ferns. There are red peppers on withered vines, but they have been frozen quite a few times now and have lost their crunch.

     Dick’s tomatoes and the lushness of my ferns will be what I remember about the summer of 2014. Dick put extra effort on selecting, growing, planting and staking the tomatoes this year and we enjoyed wonderful juicy BLT sandwiches for lunch every day from mid-July till frost. Unlike almost everyone else in this area we don’t eat pig meat, so the B on our sandwiches is soy bacon, what is known as “Facon” in our family. BLF just doesn’t have quite the same delicious associations.

     The woodland garden looked more like the garden I wished for when I planted it. Since the maples and oaks got enough moisture from above there was enough to spare for the ferns below to lushly lean upon the shoulders of the hellebores like glamorous starlets all decked out in jewels and furs.

     Rainstorms usually come with wind and I surely picked up enough sticks to build a hut if I were so inclined. I don’t know how trees can lose so many bits and pieces and still have enough branches to hold the leaves they need for photosynthesis. Perhaps because the forest was here before we came the trees are still telling us what they think of our invasion and subsequent treatment of their home.

     The meadow was spectacular this year. We have not irrigated since planting and in dry summers the display is not as lush as in years when there is sufficient moisture. The various Eupatorium species developed their full and glorious heads and the Ironweed was wonderful. We saw several plants for the first time this year, seed blown in on the winds or carried in by birds, who knows? Most have been welcome additions to the garden, Pluchea camphorata and Mikania scandens seemingly materialized out of obscurity. At least this Jude found them so obscure that I had to get visiting friends to identify them for me.

     It is time to make the annual decision on cutting back the foliage on Helleborus x hybridus in the garden and stock house. If we leave the foliage on the plants the buds are insulated from the cold and think it is time to begin flowering. Once the growing stems begin to elongate a sudden or severe cold spell could cause so much damage that we lose the flowers. If we cut back all the foliage the buds are not wrapped in their nice green snuggies and they stay underground until the worst of the cold weather is over.

     At Pine Knot we choose to cut back the foliage early in the year so our plants do not rush into flower. The plants we grow in containers to sell are grown in unheated houses and freeze every night the temperatures go below freezing. They will not have the soft, lush foliage of plants not allowed to freeze, but they will be capable of withstanding the vagaries of our changeable weather.

     I will try to be better about this blogging thing in the coming year. Maybe that can be one of my New Year’s resolutions? Meanwhile check out the Pine Knot farms Facebook page where there are photos of what’s in flower. https://www.facebook.com/PKFhele