There is nothing left to do in the garden now after the last few frosts. There will still be a few leaves to cleanup but most are going into the garden as a winter mulch and the remainder will be composted. The Mystic Spires Salvia to the left was cut down today & put in the compost bin. It finally stopped after six months of constant blooms.
The pumps for the fountains are stored away for the winter now. I might store this fountain in the shed to make sure it doesn’t crack. All that’s left of interest is the red berries of the Nandinas and the dark black berries still hanging out on the Viburnums.
I still need to remove the frost damaged foliage of the Periwinkles from the containers in the Woodland Garden and the Lirope will be either replaced with something else or cut back in the spring to make room for the new foliage that will emerge. Even the leaves on the Crepe Myrtle are scarce now.
Soon the Hydrangea foliage will be a thing of the past. The brown faded blossoms from Limelight remain for some winter interest and the purple mums are lingering for the moment.
There are a few spots of green courtesy of the evergreen perennials like Candytuff. But mostly we see shades of brown at this time of the year. My red bench stands out now with no competing flowers to draw attention away from it. The garden is tucked in for the winter, snug as a bug in a rug.
