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| Leaves of Hardy Cyclamen |
It's not even yet Halloween and we've already had two bouts of winter in the form of snow although my area was missed by the epic 9" that the north metro got during the middle of this month we did get the record cold highs barely above freezing. Since then it has warmed back up into the 50s and next week its supposed to get near 60 so at least there will be some fall left. The warm up came just it time as there are still some flowers to enjoy! The season started with Crocus and also ends the same, couple of patches of these Autumn Crocus still showing off their nice deep purple flowers. Flowers are always nice for color, but we all know there isn't much more time before we will have a break from them. So I like to look for other things to be excited about and that's leaves, seedheads and structure. The beauty of these features are often overlooked during the rest of the year. One such example are these Hardy Cyclamen- the flowers were great but so are the leaves! Their circular patterned leaves hug the ground and are hardy enough to survive some pretty harsh temperatures. So get out there and look for beauty in some of the other things the garden has to show.
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| Thuja "in Jail' |
This looks sorta like a certain Dinosaur might be in trouble, but in
reality its help keep rabbits away from gnawing at my sculptures toes.
As the grass slowly starts to become dormant and eventually gets covered
in snow the food supply for rabbits goes down drastically and damage
begins to happen to woody trees and shrubs. In some cases with this damage, I've seen it become severe enough to kill off the tops of plants or create
bald spots on evergreens. So to combat this, this seems to be the only nearly full proof way to preventing it is to fence off like shown. Unfortunately, there are so many throughout my gardens its a big job- so my future garden
plans are to slowly reduce those favored plants- and so far the only two
plants I've seen rabbits never touch are Boxwood and Junipers. Now is the time to be out there starting to add protection because half a a spirea that was planted in my back yard was already gone this week so be sure to get out there and protect your young trees and shrubs!
