Mornings are becoming chillier here in the lower southwest of Oregon. We’ve had our first freezes and some beautifully clear and windy days so the leaves are coming down like crazy.
My little patio is mostly tidied up and “put to bed” for the rest of the year with a few hardy pots in places where they can be sheltered easily. Now it’s time to review. If you are like me (and you’re here reading this so it is somewhat likely you are) you have lots of pictures to guide you through the season’s stages. In a sense, this is the garden’s dream. Jump on over the fold and we’ll start at the beginning.
Our patio was redone last summer (2018) by the landlord. Then this spring our neighbors moved out and gave me a bunch of random pots, the wooden pallet shelves, and the metal tiered stand.
I got stuff sorted and started some seeds and watched as the trees along the fence between our building and the next budded and bloomed.
I also acquired a mini rose that came home from work. I let it acclimate a bit inside before re-homing it in a nice planter outside.
Despite her curiosity Skittles did not try to eat all the rosebuds!
I tend to have lots of various bric-a-brac that I play around with for garden decor. The three colored metal Egyptian plate was a find at a little antique shop up in Portland, OR. I think I payed $7 for it.
Old glass ashtrays/candy dishes are useful for displaying rocks and baubles.
Pansies were easy to plop into little containers all over the place and they did quite well.
Even at night:
As money allowed I made additions:
I didn’t get many vegetables because it was getting too late in the season when I had $$ in the budget. I did manage to get a tomato and a zucchini. The zucchini was not really intentional; I would have chosen a variety suited better for containers but it was an impulse buy at 75 cents. It grew nicely but even attempts at hand pollinating didn’t work well. The two fruits that actually did develop ended up rotting at the blossom end. Sigh.
The moonflower vines were quite vigorously vining all summer. My plan to have them climb up and then along the top of the fence worked out fairly well! They were very late to bloom though so I may try something else next season. I did read from other Pacific NW sources that their moonflowers were late as well.
I live just around the corner from a nice local park that hosts the Rogue Valley Grower’s Market on Thursday mornings so I made a late season trip and picked up a couple more herbs and some fall colored pansies.
As the heat of summer faded and we enjoyed relatively smoke-free skies I transitioned the patio to autumn and am looking forward to the seed catalogs and dreams of all the beauties I want to add next season.
I hope you have enjoyed this review of my patio garden’s season. As things grow cold and the rainy season sets in I will tend to the indoor garden. I don’t have the right space or light to start many seeds but I do have many happy houseplants! That will have to be another diary;-)
So what’s going on in your garden? How is the transition into fall/winter for you? Does your garden dream?
Thanks for stopping by and while I’m not an early riser AND I’m on the West Coast I will get to your comments and join the fun as early as I can! So just discuss amongst yourselves and behave!