With the cooler weather, the Bear's Breech (Acanthus 'Summer Beauty') has certainly come back from it's summer doldrums. It's pot has been hidden away under some shady Yaupons and Live Oaks where it has been busy putting out new leaves. It got moved out on to the deck so that it can be better appreciated.
The deck is pretty bare as most of the potted plants have been hidden away from the colder weather in either the garage or the new pop-up greenhouse. Though freezes have been few and light (scary ones are predicted for next week), a check on the greenhouse plants shows they are doing just fine in their new housing.
Most of the deciduous trees are now bare of leaves, but I have been busy gathering them up off my lawn by using my mulching lawnmower to shred and capture them. Each session would fill my experimental compost bin to its top, followed by it quickly settling and compacting - so that additional room was always available for the next gathering.
Noticed that this method led to varying colored strata - though the plant species' leaves gathered each time were the same. I'm just assuming that the color is more an aspect of the aging and decomposition phases.
Did find time over the holidays to build some wooden shelves for one side of my garden shed. The other side has two flimsy plastic shelves which I hope to replace with identical 3-level wooden shelves. This should increase the storage capacity of the shed and allow me to make more efficient use of its space.
Just a little bit here, and a little bit there.
Looking good! I've given up on crotons, but yours look terrific. How warm to you keep them? Mine just hate even the hint of cold weather.
ReplyDeleteDavid/ Tropical Texana/ Houston
David: Once it starts freezing lows are in the forecast, I move it inside (using the pop-up greenhouse this year). Mine has done alright with lows in the 40s (maybe even upper 30s) - so its handled some pretty cool temperatures.
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