SprottHaus: A Gardener's Journey

Today, November 11, marks the Feast of St. Martin.  This sort of date is hardly ever on my radar, but came racing to my attention as I read from Elizabeth Lawrence's Gardens in Winter this morning. "Winter begins with the Feast of St. Martin, the eleventh of November.  About that time in Charlotte we have our first killing frost, which is often followed by golden days, called St. Martin's summer because flowers then bloom out of season as they did when St. Martin died and the boat that bore his body wafted up the Loire without sails or oars, while trees on either side burst into bloom." Winter... beginning today ?!  Ha!  In the days leading up to yesterday, it was more like summer.  I was sweating as I worked outside, in my garden and Lindie Wilson's garden.  (For the record, I do NOT enjoy sweating in November.) What I found interesting, reading on in Gardens in Winter , was the next paragraph: "In America the halcyon days came to be known as Indian sum...

 So, where were we?  Oh, yes.  The wrap-up of the big crawlspace sealing/drainage pipes installation project.  It has been a busy five weeks since my last post.  (Dang it, that's nearly "a minute" again!)  Like I said, it's been busy.   My husband, Herb, retired, which is amazing!  He has been working a lot in the garden (insert happy dance here), and managing other home improvement projects.  As I type this, new downspouts are being installed.  Next spring, new windows will be installed.  Woooo hooooo!!! Even five weeks after the BIG project, we are still working toward getting things back into shape.  No, I have not begun planting the raked-over bed in front of the house .  I'm afraid that area is a bit of a lost cause, due to my naïveté in a) planting Alstroemeria psittacina 'Variegata' (variegated Peruvian lily) nearly twenty years ago, and b) allowing it to spread with reckless abandon.  The breadth and dept...