'Winterizing' our Garden 9 '15

Front yard  5_27_15

You might remember the photo I posted of  our front flower bed in early spring.  The area was filled with colorful annuals that were planted in pots tucked between the perennial green shrubs. The pots were hidden with pine straw leaving only the colorful foliage and flowers exposed.  Most were chosen because they have colorful foliage and attract and feed humming birds and butterflies ..  Some ( like the mustard, and  basil were even edible by humans.  But an annual is still limited to a one season life cycle. No matter how many birds and butterflies it feeds it will eventually die back and need to be removed and replaced.  September  is usually when we start to see the annuals in the front begin to fade and know it time to remove the past year's annuals and replace them with something appropriate to the upcoming  fall and winter.   The the photo below is what the front flower bed looks like  today with  potted chrysanthemums tucked into where where the blue flowering  basil had been.

Front yard 9 -26-15

Since the humming bird and butterfly migration won't be over until mid October, I have left the plants that were still blooming in place, but soon even those will be removed and replaced with something like pansies.

Deck  garden looking South

And here is what the upstairs deck looks like today.   During the spring and  summer it had lots of annual red flowering sage, tarragon and sun chokes in flower to feed the butterflies ( scattered in pots between the usual assortment of perennial low growing culinary herbs).

Deck garden looking SE

Over the course of the past month I have been taking the edible annuals from the front yard carrying them upstairs and harvesting what I could of the basil. (It's and annual ritual to make pesto from whatever basil I have left at the end of the season)  I then emptied the soil out of the pots, cleaned them and carried them back to the front  yard with new soil for the fall winter flowers.   The old soil was then used to fill in any areas along the driveway or backyard which had suffered soil erosion during the summer rainy season.  I then did the same thing with the all the regular pots  on the deck.  So now we are back to the  low growing  perennial culinary herbs with a few empty  spaces left for some winter ornamental plants.

Deck Garden Looking at NE corner

Of course there are still a few  things that are seasonal occupants.   The carpets are only put down When I am outside using the deck.  Too much chance of their getting wet.  Three tender perennial plants  like my dwarf banana tree and Kat's lemon grass reside in my bedroom in the winter, and move into the Carolina room in the early spring before coming back out onto the deck after all danger of frost is past.

Deck Garden looking west

Of course there are times that everything has to come inside.  All of the pots ( and the umbrella stand)  are on casters and have drip pots to keep them from coming in contact with the deck.  This not only makes it easy to move them around for cleaning, but also makes it possible to quickly roll them into the house for safety purposes should a hurricane or ice storm  comes roaring through.  (I've had to do this several times.)  Having everything on wheels makes it a much easier task. And getting  the gardens prepped for winter early makes for moving a lot more efficient.