Fall into winter, almost in time.

It’s December 6 and there are Lots of greens still around, due to the combination of evergreen stuff (ferns, salal), green mosses and persistent herbaceous stuff like Vancouvaria. Most deciduous trees lost their leaves but the Rhodies down below still have their reddish green leaves. A few plants like the Red Pussytoes even trying to bloom.

Below, two plots of Rattlesnake Plantain starts from Lopez which are thriving at two different spots ( A third non Lopez one has come up from the dead from a few years back….I’d transplanted it as well as others to get it out of the dry and sun, and they had disappeared until this last year). They have spread from about three leaves/plants to about ten or so each.  I took the two plant starts, a little soil and the in situ moss from Lopez, too, which is like ours but a little brighter and should have the fungus the R.P. needs.

Lower back yard, pathways and places to sit. Though it is excellent screen in warmer months, some of the screen is deficient in the winter. I am still working on evergreen screen for the yard borders, but it’s getting petty good.

Deciduous Rhodies below, with their persistent leaves that turn reddish yellow in the winter.

Below:The pathway up from the meadow to the pond, them looking back down to the lower yard from nearby. The cloche is on a few Desert Yellow Daisy starts from last summer.

The temps have stayed in the 50s-60s during the day and only to the 40s or higher at night. It just got down to 33 last night, with some frost on some of the ground and some ice in the pond, at least in front. I had covered three plants with glass ‘cloches’, but the rest and the seeds are on their own (of course I’ll protect anything that gminates in the winter).

My “special”seeds which rate being put in a pot: Eriogonum sphaerocephalum (Rock Buckwheat), Pink Fawn lily, Bear grass, Iris Chrysophylla, Indian Paintbrush (orange red), Desert Yellow Daisy, Woodland Pemstemon (notochelone nemerosa), Desert Parsley,Allium, Globemallow, Hookers onion, Silkflower, and Gaillardia.