Just after I sowed a pea bed, frosty winds came bearing down, so before twilight deepened any further, the bed got a cozy horticultural fleece tucked snugly around it. This morning, the cover was stiff with ice. Here's hoping the shallowly planted pea seeds are still viable.
One of the first perennial food crops that gets attention is asparagus. A violet-tinged spear tip here and there means their patch needs some work.
Since the six-year old asparagus planting lustily overgrown its original border of terracotta roofing tiles, the tiles have been removed hence I am in process of digging a trench around the bed, heaping the displaced soil onto the bed itself. Heaped soil is great for asparagus by keeping the bottom of their stalks in the dark, thus blanching them a bit.
Moss fills the space between lichen-covered pavers.
You would be forgiven if you mistook these glorious skeletons of hydrangeas as a flurry of glasswing butterflies.
Lamium galeobdolon—one of its several common names is yellow weasel snout (!)—has turned its veins burgundy.
A cyclamen unfurls a burst of crimson, laughing at the wind and the cold.
Shade-loving, fragrant sweet violets have spread along the west side of the house forming a carpet because of their powerful way of seed dispersal: their pods snap open, injecting seeds far and wide.
A pop of yellow is always welcome. Thanks, stonecrop!
Each year, I keep adding what is regarded in horticultural jargon as green bones. We talkin' evergreen. One of the older and venerable 'bones' is this yucca which spent the first half of its twenty years in a pot on a Grenoble balcony and the second half in Angoulême soil. It now has several trunks and is close to my height.
À la prochaine!
One of the first perennial food crops that gets attention is asparagus. A violet-tinged spear tip here and there means their patch needs some work.
Since the six-year old asparagus planting lustily overgrown its original border of terracotta roofing tiles, the tiles have been removed hence I am in process of digging a trench around the bed, heaping the displaced soil onto the bed itself. Heaped soil is great for asparagus by keeping the bottom of their stalks in the dark, thus blanching them a bit.
Moss fills the space between lichen-covered pavers.
You would be forgiven if you mistook these glorious skeletons of hydrangeas as a flurry of glasswing butterflies.
Lamium galeobdolon—one of its several common names is yellow weasel snout (!)—has turned its veins burgundy.
A cyclamen unfurls a burst of crimson, laughing at the wind and the cold.
Shade-loving, fragrant sweet violets have spread along the west side of the house forming a carpet because of their powerful way of seed dispersal: their pods snap open, injecting seeds far and wide.
A pop of yellow is always welcome. Thanks, stonecrop!
Each year, I keep adding what is regarded in horticultural jargon as green bones. We talkin' evergreen. One of the older and venerable 'bones' is this yucca which spent the first half of its twenty years in a pot on a Grenoble balcony and the second half in Angoulême soil. It now has several trunks and is close to my height.
À la prochaine!
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