'Tis the season to have changed up the container pair hanging on the front of our garage...![]()
I'd left these two (below) up until we returned from the New York City adventure, but knowing the pottery is likely to crack with soaked soil and freezing temperatures, the time had come to take them down (photo from my summer garden tour).![]()
Up went the metal containers made from shades of clip-on spotlights. I've been using them as winter hanging containers for a few years now and the large holes provide great drainage.
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Planted in the shades are small Agave 'Mateo' pups and Lonicera crassifolia, both plants I had on hand.
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Although I had purchased the lonicera thinking of this project.
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I love that some of the lonicera has taken on reddish hues with the cold—a nice match for the red tips and teeth on the agave.
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Up went the metal containers made from shades of clip-on spotlights. I've been using them as winter hanging containers for a few years now and the large holes provide great drainage.
Speaking of cold, there has yet to be a killing freeze here in my garden. Elsewhere around town there has been, but we've been so windy things have stayed just above the deadly mark. I keep expecting to find this Cobaea scandens (cup-and-saucer vine) toasted by frost but it is still looking good.![]()
Not so for this poor defenseless—spineless—Agave bracteosa, looks like our rabbit decided to nibble. Dammit!![]()
The Tetrapanax papyrifer blooms are still trying to flower, and the leaves aren't limp yet.![]()
Although some are falling to the ground or hanging and begging to be cut off.![]()
While cleaning up leaves around the garden last Saturday I grabbed a few fallen tetrapanax leaves and broke the stems across my knee, easier to fit them in the yard waste bags that way. I have done this a million times but never have I seen this, tetrapanax silly string!![]()
At first I thought it was one of the fibers that form the outside of the tube, but no, it was in the hollow of the stem.![]()
I sliced the rest of the tube down to the base of the leaf and found the string got wider and turned to ribbon. Aren't plants cool!?![]()
*Sunday evening update* (I had completed this post on Saturday), we had snow! Somehow the temperature remained above freezing while snow started to accumulate around the garden. The Cobaea scandens is still unfazed...![]()
Okay, one last photo of the Agave 'Mateo' / Lonicera crassifolia combo, because I love it so. They'll stay here over the winter and then be planted out in the garden come spring...
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