DECEMBER IS HERE!!!!!

CANNOT believe that today is December 1st!!! How could it possibly be December already??!!

Working feverishly on Christmas presents. We try to make gifts for those close to us. It can be a challenge, but with my tow hands almost back to full working order, I am enjoying the creative process on a daily basis now. So, since I have not gardens to pour y soul into, during the off gardening season, I pour my soul into the things that I am able to create. Have been working on warmer curtains to help muffle the cold air around our windows, and mittens, hats, scarves, sweaters, and on and on for those I love to have under the Christmas tree this year. I'm finding it more difficult to find the extended time needed for research to complete my posts, as I am still working on getting the house ready for our expanded family once my daughter gets her house sold. This is a tough market for anyone to be stuck in, and we are all there together. We just have to move forward and do what needs to be done each day.

Some plants have been blooming much later than usual this year. These photos were taken 11-17, just the week before Thanksgiving, and they show the beautiful Clara Curtis Daisy still in bloom. And we're not talking just one flower here as has been the case with other still blooming perennials.



These plants have many blossoms which I found basking in the sunshine this particular morning.



This same day I was also heartened to see that this butterfly bush, which I had transplanted out of the Daylily bed onto the front lawn area, has new growth, even this late in the season. Initially right after being moved the whole bush seems to die down.


While its roots adjust to the move, the leaves all die and drop off. Then within just a few short weeks, it summons the energy to send out new growth all over signaling yet another successful transplant.


I have found it quite surprising to see all the plants still thriving at such a late date this season. Of course, since my brain has aged, I don't remember back as easily as I used to, so it all seems pretty new again. So isn't it wonderful that I will be experiencing this sense of seeing it for the first time for many years to come!!! So you all will have to bear with me as I chronicle all of this.
The Foxglove seem to really like this cool weather. Here is a great group which is monitoring the progress of the sheet mulching process.


I am wondering how many of these are just having their last hurrah before giving way to the new sprouts which will be taking their places. Foxglove, Digitalis, is a biennial, which means that those that bloomed this year will be dying off. Biennials set seed the first year, bloom the second, spread their seed and then die off. The successive years plants are continually replenished by the seeds each year. So if you have any biennials you need to let them go to seed or you will have no more plants to look forward to.


And this one has found a comfy nook, snuggled right up to the pool!!


Do you remember the trouble I was having with my Poppies in the early part of the season? Well, I had dug up several new shoots to give to other gardeners, and several of them did not transplant at all.



So imagine my joy when I found all these poppy sprouts coming up this fall! More to share in the spring!!


And here is my trusty Sweet Alyssum, Lobularia maritima, which is sold as an annual. It is actually considered a tender perennial, as it doesn't survive our winters. But I have found it to be great at seeding itself from year to year. I just let it seed where it wants and then transplant the excess seedlings all over as it is a great mulching ground cover. It does tend to get leggy after a few months of growth, so that I shear it back to 2-3 inches and then it rebounds quickly and lasts beyond the first frost.