READ THIS YEAR END REPORT WITH A DIFFERENCE

As each year draws to a close we look back at the season that has just passed and remember the highs and lows in the garden. We smile inwardly when we remember the spring bulbs followed by the summer flowers, but then there were the inevitable plants that did not perform so well or even not at all. I found this article by Fran Sorin in her Gardening Gone Wild blog in which she looks back on her garden year.

Each year, in late fall, when I bid adieu to my garden as it sinks into its cold weather hiatus, I feel a sense of sadness, nostalgia, and appreciation. This year, because I flew from Tel Aviv to celebrate Thanksgiving in Philadelphia, I knew that when I returned that my robust, autumnal Mediterranean garden will have morphed into a quiet, winter garden.
The brilliant zinnias, dancing and cavorting with each other, will most probably be dead due to intense rain and high winds. And my purple hyacinth beans will no longer be adorned with shiny magenta pods and sweet violet flowers.
Pennisetums (one of the few perennial grasses used in abundance throughout Tel Aviv), with the sunlight streaming through their outstanding purple plumes, will have become more subdued, hunkering down for the cold winter.
Outside of the straw-colored hues and rustling sounds of? Panicum virgatum ?Northwind?, there will be a minimal amount of color and movement, elements that I so cherish in my garden.

Read more at Gardening Gone Wild
Image source: Fran Sorin