Fall is elusive to me, here on the coast; it can seem like summer until winter.
11/10/16:
It hasn't rained for 10 days now, so I got up early a couple mornings this week to water plants before heading to work. I'd prefer to do this later in the day, but with the end of daylight saving time, it's now dark when I arrive home in the evenings. It's still nearly as warm as summer most afternoons (while I'm stuck inside an office!), so I'm delaying the planting of bulbs until December.
Today I noticed that my morning glory sprouts are getting nice and tall, and that there are a few other new tiny plants. One that I've not yet identified has slightly fleshy leaves and is a bright pale green. It showed up in a pot where I'd planted columbine seeds. A little stick insect seems to have been chewing on it. Yet another species of weed? Or perhaps a sprout from once-dormant seed that was part of the failed Flower Rocket planting experiment. I re-distributed the soil from that pot after nothing but grass ever came up. The package contained two rolls of seeds, I only planted one, so I'll try again in spring and unroll the seed blanket in a long planter box this time.
Clicking on the small images below will bring up a larger version.
Odd...certainly not columbine.
Variegated nasturtiums.
Pretty geranium leaves.
I tend to concentrate my attention on edible plants and whatever's currently in bloom, but I've started to have more appreciation for the myriad of colors, patterns, shapes and textures of leaves in an everyday garden. Today I stopped to admire variegated leaves on the "Alaska" nasturtiums and a recently-acquired geranium (started from a stem of the geraniums growing at a shopping center down the street).
When considering noteworthy leaf shapes, I think of the fiddleleaf fig tree that lives in our bedroom, leaning into the east-facing windowbox. And the long stems of curly leaves on the lipstick plant that hangs from the living room ceiling make it quite decorative, even though it's refusing to bloom. The more common-looking spider plant is however producing a flower stem, and there are buds on the red-flowering Christmas cactus. Another favorite indoor plant, the maranta, has cute pink and green patterned leaves. It's now three times the size it was when I brought it home, almost overwhelming the space it occupies near my kitchen ceiling. I've read about taking cuttings of this one to start new plants in other locations around the house, so will try that soon.
Fiddleleaf fig.
Lipstick plant.
Spider plant.
