A final bit of fall color

The long, protracted fall here in the Southeastern U.S. has meant that fall color has been stretched out in spits and spurts - a highlight here, and then there. Native and non-native species alike have put on a show, from Fothergilla major (a native) to Ginkgo biloba (an ancient tree from China).

With still no hard freeze (or even light frost) in sight, flowering perennials are still nice, too. The Mexican hyssop (genetically programmed from a different climate) as well as a native Aster (Symphyotrichum patens) are still in flower along with the native witch hazel.

There are still blooming Nasturtiums in the kitchen garden next to the Visitor Center (in the Garden near my office), non-hardy lettuce and arugula is still growing well, and I'm thinking about sowing (a very late) succession planting of extra-hardy lettuce varieties. Hmm.

And I still have harvesting lemon grass stems on my to-do list. It's November 17.

A long fall season

It's remarkable that we haven't yet had a good frost yet, much less a freeze. There's been spotty frost, to be sure, but nothing that's affected any except the most tender tropicals, and the nasturtium in the Garden's kitchen garden is still flourishing.

My very late-sown flats of lettuce, mache (corn salad), arugula, dwarf Siberian kale, etc. are doing well. They'll just need to be tucked into the ground (in the case of kale and mache) or into the cold frame before a freeze finally comes.