I lost only one plant this summer, a fuchsia

The rain, an occasional a dose of nutrients and the air-conditioner water ––prompted a healthy bloom of the flora that surrounds Couchwood. The multi-colored pansies lasted longer than usual, but had to be pulled up earlier last month. In one empty space, I plunked down a pot of sweet potato vine salvaged from last year.

Plus, for the first time in my gardening life, new shoots of Mom’s old fern that folks call asparagus fern, (by going online, I discovered “asparagus” covers many types of plants), have grown up in the make-do, marble-rock patio. I have been able to root many of those for sharing. Some are in the larger pot with the sweet potato vine

Showing WHITE are abelia blooms, tiny airplane-plant blossoms, two out-of-season spirea clusters, and, way out in the edge of the north hedge, a few asters.

Different shades of PINK turned up in the Encore azaleas, the long-blooming crape myrtle, oxalis, and Mom’s old hanging begonia that I set in the other planter where the pansies were.


BLUE wandering jew, PURPLE monkey-grass stalks and beautyberries, RED dianthus, and YELLOW (with orange) lantana and cannas, completes the rainbow of colors. Bronze and yellow tiny mums add to the palette.

After one rain, a community of white tent-capped toadstools sprang up in the back yard. I counted (yes, I did) one hundred such circles when I went out to weed-eat the west property line. Facebook friends –when I posted a photo—reacted variously: fairy path, dancing fairies, and a potential poem.

For the second year running, the property-edged plants on the west and north thrived. Roses, spirea, forsythia, variegated privet, Rose of Sharon, and red bud still show strength and health. Even a few stalks of Japanese kerria have out-of-season blooms.

Grandmother Mabel Couch’s rock garden/our pet cemetery under a three-tree sassafras grove on the north, was severely neglected this summer. Perhaps this fall, I can remedy that.

The pear tree was so loaded-- with branches where each pear touched another all the way down—that when a wind and rain storm blew in earlier, many fell. Talk about a fairy ring on the ground. This tree does its thing without benefit of pruning—except what nature does––or spraying. Two gleaners have already stopped by wondering if they could have some.“You can have what’s already fallen,” I said.

Twice, I’ve taken the cooler and a cardboard box to the tree, filling them both and then filling the spaces between. The fruit with the least rot/ spots I toss into the wagon, take them around to the side door, lift and shove the heavy containers into the old breakfast room. From there, I’ll work them up.

The late summer colors are the same as those in spring. The next two months will bring the oranges of sassafras leaves and mini nandinas, pots of bronze ‘mums, the multi-colors of oak and maple leaves and the maroon of yellowbell.

Always plant for color, Janet Carson says, but isn’t GREEN a color?