My new white, plant-filled bathroom

I've named my friend on the left "Owl-fro" because that's what his crazy hair looks like.... (It's Selaginella kraussiana or Frosty Fern that I got at Aldi before Christmas).

I know this is a garden blog, but I mentioned in my last post that I had discovered the wonderful world of houseplants, but that I was limited by finding enough spots with good light in which to grow them in my house. I decided that since many plants prefer greater humidity than the average forced-air-heated house has in winter, I would like to put more plants in my upstairs bathroom -- however, that north-facing room was pretty dark and there was no place to put plants directly in front of the double window in there.

I had been thinking of giving the room a face-lift anyway, as there were some things about the bathroom that could be improved. We had re-done the bathroom back in 2008 when we bought this house, and it was a GREAT improvement over the 1970s-era look that was there when we bought it:

Back in 2008, when we were first looking at this house:
1970s-style barn board paneling and pale blue fixtures,
plus a plastic shower surround that was discolored by years
of rust stains from our well water. (Robbie is 10 now --
he was only two when this photo was taken! My how
time moves on...)

More powder blue and rustic 1970s style....

Back in 2008, we re-did the shower with white subway tiles, replaced the toilet and sink with retro-1920s-style fixtures and replaced the barnboard with white beadboard. I painted the walls a medium brown because I thought it would look nice with the dark brown floor, windows and door. Fast forward to a few weeks ago:

My upstairs bathroom a few weeks ago: brown walls and dark brown floors. The floor had been
 water-damaged near the shower from the old shower door that swung out across the floor,
dripping water on the floor. We re-stained it, but otherwise just tried to ignore the damage. 

No room to put plants right next to the windows in this room, and note the water damage
on the window sill as well. (Plus, I had never been really happy with the corner cabinets,
which were cheap stock cabinets that I had my handyman install when we bought the
house in 2008. Adding faux-beadboard wallpaper to the panel fronts has improved their
 looks, in my opinion -- I was halfway through that project when I took this photo, and
afterward I painted several coats of paint on the cabinets.)

The bathroom was not bad as it was, but it still had the water-damaged floor near the shower, some water damage on the window sills and the brown walls often made the north-facing room seem dark.

It occurred to me that painting the room a lighter color might increase the reflected light in the room, making it bright enough for plants that prefer indirect light. And I started noticing on sites like Houzz and Pinterest that many bathrooms looked great in an all-white color scheme, especially all-white bathrooms with green plants as the only decorations. The plants became dramatic focal points in the all-white rooms, while preventing the rooms from feeling sterile and lifeless.

I deliberated on the idea of painting everything white for several weeks before deciding to take the plunge -- I don't take lightly the idea of painting over 1920s Arts & Crafts woodwork, but the wood was not in great shape, and I believe that if this room had originally been a bathroom when the house was built (it was an upstairs sewing room), the wood trim would originally have been painted white, as that was very common in kitchens and bathrooms during the 1920s and 1930s. And, as the 1990s decorating guru Christopher Lowell used to chant: "Just because it's wood, doesn't mean it's good."

It took me nearly two whole weeks of painting every day: primer + 3-4 coats each on walls, windows, door, beadboard and floor to finish the project. (I still need to re-caulk the shower, but I'm taking a little break this weekend....) Anyway, here is the end result:

Ta-da! White on white on white. Plus green plants and botanical prints. Note my new
metal art "Birds in a Tree" above the shower; I always wondered what to put up there -- it
needed to be something large in scale and damp-proof -- and after eight years of living in
the house, there is finally something to look at on that wall. 

I found the three glass shelves on sale at Aldi (my new favorite store).

The plant display and one of the botanical prints. Top shelf: Pilea 'Moon Valley and a 'Mahogany' fern; middle shelf: 'Fluffy Ruffles' fern and Fittonia; bottom shelf: Selaginella, cyclamen and Prayer Plant (Maranta), with a Phalaenopsis orchid at bottom.

I love my new, cottage-decor, spa-like, plant-filled, all-white bathroom! It's so much brighter and cleaner in there now.

As for every housekeeper's big question: Yes, I have noticed that the white floors do need to be Swiffer-vac-ed every few days (as I anticipated) and there are a disconcerting number of mystery splotches on the floor every day -- but those things were on the floor before, and it makes me feel quite queasy to think of how much filth must have been on my bathroom floor all the time before. I'm one of those people who doesn't clean something unless I notice that it looks dirty (or unless people are coming over to visit), so I feel better knowing that my bathroom will be much cleaner going forward, even if I have to do the cleaning more often.

No more water-damaged floor in front of the shower any more (I filled the damaged spots
with caulk before priming and painting several coats of paint over them). And I love my
big, healthy-looking new ZZ Plant (Zamioculcas Zamifolia) on the floor. It really adds
shiny green life to the room. I might buy a new, white-colored space heater if I run across one.

I'm very happy with the results, and I'm also happy that I was able to transform this room for very little money: Altogether I spent just under $220:

• $30 on floor paint
• $30 on trim paint
• $20 on the faux-beadboard wallpaper at Lowes
• $30 on the three glass shelves that I found just when I needed them at Aldi (I love Aldi!)
• $18 on white pots (mostly at thrift stores, closeouts at Lowes and the cute owl pot half off at Hobby Lobby)
• $40 on the large white planter and ZZ Plant from Lowes
• $36 for a new white bath rug and garbage can at Target
• $12 for the large "birds in a tree" metal art above the shower (half off at Hobby Lobby)
• $3 on color copies of botanical prints found online

I already had the wall paint, the picture frames which I spray-painted white, the curtains and most of the plants, which had been in my upstairs hallway in the east window (I think they will like the humidity in here better, especially the ferns, which were starting to curl up and turn brown at the tips).

Anyway, I'm really glad to be done with this project (as is my family, who were certainly getting tired of the hallway outside being filled with ladders, paint cans, tools, etc. and having to shower with the bathroom door open for the past two weeks so the day's paint would dry properly!). Time to take it easy for a while.

I hope you are making progress on your own projects, whether they are home improvement or other kinds of endeavors, and that your winter is going well (December and January down, February and March to go...). Thanks so much for reading! -Beth

January Update

Not too much going on outside these days, so I thought I'd share this little painting of a flowery front porch that I recently found at a consignment store.  It's such a cheery little canvas, so I have it propped up on my desk against several piles of books. It makes me feel oddly happy to look at it.

Hello everyone! Just checking in with a mid-January update, so you don't think I've totally disappeared. Now that the holidays are over and cold weather has finally caught up with us (after our strangely warm December), it's a good time to for me to hole up inside with a warm cat on my lap and a big pile of books.

Mostly I've been reading about sunrooms and conservatories, and about the plants that are commonly grown in them, as well as house plants in general. I'm still hoping to enclose my front porch into a sunroom this year, and I've been researching this and planning the layout and materials of the project, as well as thinking about the plants I'd like to grow in the sunroom. My collection of books on the subjects of conservatories, sunrooms, greenhouses and house plants has grown to nearly forty titles, and has provided me with many hours of research and dreaming.

This is a particularly inspiring book, filled with portraits
of drool-worthy plant-filled conservatories, garden rooms and
indoor oases, all in the US (not in England -- most books
about conservatories are published there).

Additionally, I've been adding to my house plant collection -- I honestly thought that the season for buying plants wouldn't start until April, but I discovered the world of house plants this fall. Yes, I've had a few indoor plants before, but I've been on somewhat of a binge for the past two months. It's amazing how many beautiful and interesting plants can be found at Lowe's, Walmart, Aldi and one of the local nurseries, and for incredibly reasonable prices. My husband is beginning to look askance each time I bring home a few more, and it's true that I do sometimes wonder where I will put them -- but I guess that's not so different than buying outdoor plants (except that I have five acres to plant in outside, and only a limited number of windows in my house...). 

Here are a few shots of my growing indoor gardens:

My latest acquisitions, from Wednesday's trip to town, which I haven't had a chance to repot yet. I found the beautiful Calathea on the left at Lowe's, the potted hyacinth and bulb vase at Aldi, and both the strangely textured Pilea 'Moon Valley' and alien-looking Hoya carnosa Hindu Rope at Walmart -- all at extremely reasonable prices.

I wanted to grow some plants on my kitchen windowsill, but it's less than three inches deep. So I bought a drawer organizer 15" long by 3" wide, and put mini plants in 2" pots that are intended for terrariums in it. About twice a week I put the pots in a flat-bottomed bowl and fill the bottom of it with warm water to water the plants. Eventually I will probably have to repot these and buy new mini plants, but it should tide me over for some time, giving me a little "mini garden" to look at when nothing is green or growing outside my window. 

My upstairs east window is becoming filled with several kinds of ferns (including an unusual Blue Star fern or Phlebodium aureum mandaianum at left), an Arabica coffee plant, an Artemisia and a little Ficus 'Curly Fig'.

OK, my husband may be somewhat justified in his concern. It should be obvious that I need a sunroom so
that our bedroom, with its south facing double window, can be freed from the plant takeover.

But isn't it beautiful? A closeup of the plant table, with Phalaenopsis orchids, the lovely pink and green Aglaonema and the
fascinating "ZZ plant" or Zamioculcas zamiifolia at right with its shiny architectural leaves.

I think being able to focus on indoor plants has made this winter easier for me so far. I know we've had an unusually warm and easy winter (until the bitterly cold recent temperatures), but compared to last year, when I was thoroughly ready for spring on December 26th, I feel much less desperate for spring's green growth and flowers.

Now I just need to find a few more spots for some plants.... I am getting ready to repaint our upstairs bathroom in an all-white scheme in order to maximize the north light in that room. The ferns would love the higher humidity in there. I'll post photos of the before-and-after when I've finished the project. 

And I'm thinking of making a terrarium or two, and trying to figure out how to transform a fish tank that I found at Goodwill into a Victorian-style Wardian Case like the one in the photo below:

This lovely Wardian Case was sold by
Lee Valley and Veritas (although it seems not to be
available any longer). But I want to make one for
around $20, not the $200-$400 that they sell for online.
I'll share my results if I succeed.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to recently. I hope you are enjoying some winter projects as well, and keeping warm too! (Sunday is forecast to stay below o°F all day here, and get down to -11°F [-24°C] at night.... Brrr.)

Thanks for reading! -Beth

Christmas Blooms

I hope everyone has had an enjoyable holiday season -- my parents and my husband's mother joined the four of us for Christmas as usual this year, and we all enjoyed the company, food and Christmas spirit. Part of the magic for me is the holiday decorations, particularly the horticultural ones: a Christmas tree, cut flowers and various potted plants and bulbs. Here are a few scenes:

First, the Christmas miracle of this year: the highly unusual outdoor foliage that is still green through December, plus, incredibly, even a few flowers, blooming the day after Christmas! The oddly warm temperatures we've been enjoying all during December have allowed these freak occurances:

A viola flower that is still hanging on.

This orange mum sent up a new flower this week.

A snapdragon on the protected east side of my house

I know those aren't particularly impressive or beautiful flowers in themselves, but the fact they have occurred is highly unusual and worth documenting. I don't have any spring flowers blooming yet, unlike a few people around here whose hellebores or snowdrops are already flowering (the Lenten Rose usually doesn't bloom here until March or April), but these leftover autumn flowers are good enough for me.

But the flowers that I have been enjoying inside are even nicer, since I don't need to venture out into the cold, damp, sunless weather of this month:

Some seasonal house plants in my east kitchen window, including a poinsettia, holly and ivy, a Christmas cactus and a cute little potted European cypress tree at far right. The Norfolk Island pine in the center was upstairs in my plant corner, but I brought it down here and decorated it with very light ornaments.

From the other end of the same display, where the potted paperwhites and white amaryllis can be seen
behind the holly and the Anthurium plant, which isn't a traditional Christmas plant but looks right
 at home with its red and green colors.  

A cut-flower arrangement on the bar, next to two "frosty fern" plants (Selaginella).

An all-white and green arrangement.

Sometimes my favorite arrangements are those made with
the short stems left over from the larger arrangements. I
made this little bouquet for our downstairs bathroom
with leftover blooms and a little snowman stake that
came in one of the Selaginella plants.

Anyway, I have enjoyed these many plants during the Christmas season and during our warm spell, which seems to be ending, judging from the ice storm with horizontal winds that is currently raging outside right now. Brrr! A good day to stay inside and slowly clean up after the holidays.

I hope you are recovering from all the Christmas excitement as we get ready to ring in the New Year. Here's to a happy, healthy and lushly growing 2016!

Thanks for reading! -Beth

Frost!

Across the Pond Garden to the gazebo, on a frosty morning.

I woke up earlier than usual on Friday morning, and this was the scene: heavy frost and the low light of a sunrise only a few weeks before the winter solstice. It wasn't terribly cold or windy, so I was able to get a few shots of the frost before the sun made it disappear half an hour later. Here are a few scenes:

The Herb Garden.

Frost-rimed rose leaves (Merriam-Webster: Rime, 12-century, from the ME rim, OE hrīm, after Old Norse hrīm, meaning frost -- aren't etymologies fascinating?) 

Basket-of-gold (Aurinia saxatilis) already has gray, fuzzy leaves, made even more so by the frost.

A grassy area that I let grow this year. It reminds me of waves on an ocean.

A low, near-solstice sunrise that soon ended this otherworldly scene.

I've been continuing to think about the project I discussed in my last post, enclosing my front porch to make a sunroom, and I discovered this interesting site maintained by the University of Oregon Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory, which has a very useful solar path chart calculator. You only need to enter your ZIP code (or latitude and longitude if not in the US) and time zone and it will make a very nice chart showing you the angle of the sun throughout the day at various dates of the year. (It shows six months of the the year, and the other six months are exactly the same, except the inner months are July-November.)

My solar angle chart. The sunrise in the last photo is about 120° from north, according to this chart.

We've been having what I like to think of as "English" winter weather: overcast, damp and not too cold, most days around 40°F. I hope we get our usual clear, sunny cold days back soon, as I'm missing the sunshine inside the house.

And I hope you are enjoying mild, sunny days in your own gardens as we approach the winter solstice and the Christmas holiday. Thanks for reading! -Beth

Winter Sunroom Dreams

The Yellow Garden, bottom left, under its new white covering.

We got our first snow this past weekend, and it was a significant amount, followed by bitterly cold overnight temperatures barely above 0°F (-17°C).

Winter Is Here. I don't care what the astronomical and meteorological definitions of "winter" are; when it's 0° and six inches of snow is covering the ground, it's winter.

The beginning of winter can be cozy, especially if you don't have to go outside. Since I stay home with my children, during the coldest periods I sometimes don't have to go outside more than once or twice a week, which is just fine with me -- I have a large library with a wood-burning stove to spend cozy evenings reading in.

This is pretty cozy....

However, by the end of January, after the excitement of the holidays is over, I'm ready for spring: for warm sunny days, green grass, growing plants, flowering bulbs and being able to begin work outside on my planned garden improvements for the year.

But winter still looms ahead at that point for another two months (or more, in a bad year), which can be depressing. I've tried coping by heading south to Texas or Florida for five days in warmth and sun, which is heavenly, but the return trip is always a dreadful shock -- it was -5°F when we got off the plane from Orlando two years ago. Shudder....

This past February in the always-temperate rose- and palm-filled courtyard at the very old Menger Hotel in downtown San Antonio, one of our favorite places to go to get away from Iowa winters.

Last month, my family and I visited Council Bluffs, Iowa and we crossed the river to the larger city of Omaha, Nebraska to visit the zoo, the Jocelyn Art Museum and -- of course -- the Omaha Botanical Center. While the rose garden was lovely and several other areas were very enjoyable, my absolute favorite part of the garden was the Temperate House in the new Marjorie K. Daugherty Conservatory.

The impressive 5,300-square-foot Temperate House at the Marjorie K. Daugherty Conservatory in Omaha, filled with plants that are not quite hardy enough to survive in the Midwest, like live oaks, azaleas and many marginally hardy shrubs. 

And I also love to visit the Missouri Botanical Garden's Shoenberg Temperate House, especially the Moorish walled garden area filled with perfumed plants and lovely flowers. We visit St. Louis at least twice a year, and I always want to sit inside and enjoy the beauty and warmth in that conservatory, especially on our spring visits.

The Moorish walled garden section of the Schoenberg Temperate House at the MOBOT in St. Louis truly is a paradise, as paradise has been imagined for a thousand years. If I won $100 million in the lottery (unlikely, since I don't actually play the lottery), this is what I would splurge on, complete with knowledgeable gardeners to take care of it for me....  

Spending time in all these indoor gardens makes me long for my own modest sun-filled room in which plants will grow. Like many gardeners in winter, I dream of having a sunroom attached to my house, in which I could grow a few of the plants that won't grow outside in my climate, in which I could sit in sunshine during winter surrounded by green plants and fragrant flowers.

I've been reading numerous glorious books about conservatories (mostly from England -- sadly, those glazed roofs just aren't practical in our Midwest climate), sunrooms (more popular in America), growing plants indoors (Tovah Martin's books are great), and even a memoir of a woman who goes through a mid-life crisis and builds a conservatory onto her home (the interwoven history of growing plants indoors is doubly fascinating to someone interested in garden history like me).

This is beautiful, but just not practical for Midwestern dwellers, unless
you have piles of money to burn in order to heat and cool it.
 Seriously, just shovel the dollar bills into the furnace for fuel....

Practically speaking, where could a Midwesterner like me have a sun-filled, plant-filled room in my house?

• For years I've considered having a sunroom built onto my kitchen, on the east side of my house, but such a room would only receive sunlight in the mornings (which would be great in hot summers, but not so great in winters, which is when I would want to use the room most.
• Then I considered finishing our attic as a bedroom/sunroom with a south-facing dormer and east-facing skylights. I think it would cost less than having to build an addition with a new foundation, plus there would be plenty of light. But there are some headroom issues in our attic which would require bumping out the roofline, which is expensive. Plus we'd be less likely to walk up two flights of stairs to use the room (not to mention having to carry large pots down those stairs in summer and back up in autumn).
• However, in the last few weeks, it has occurred to me that we might enclose our front porch to make a sunroom. I've always rejected this suggestion, because I thought it would look inappropriate, but upon reflection, I'm not sure it would necessarily have to ruin the look of our house.

I like our front porch, which we had rebuilt in 2011 when we were having the library added onto our house. It was a screened porch when we bought the house, the screens were ugly, and we never used it because the screens trapped dirt and cobwebs. We discovered that nearly the whole structure was rotten (as old house porches often are) when we had the screens removed, so we had it entirely rebuilt, except for the roof and ceiling. This has greatly improved the curb appeal of our house, in my opinion.

But we don't actually use that part of our porch under the roof very much, choosing instead to sit on the uncovered part of our porch in the sunshine most of the time.

It looks pretty and appropriately old-fashioned in summer, but we only occasionally use the covered part of our porch.

And it's even less useful during the other half of the year. This was the scene Saturday -- I guess it's time to take in the porch cushions and put away the last couple of wicker chairs....

I do have some concerns about enclosing our porch to make a sunroom:

• As I mentioned, I don't want to ruin the architectural style of our 1924 Arts & Crafts house. However, I think if we used decorative Craftsman-style windows, especially on the front, it might look OK.

My clumsy Photoshop cut-&-paste attempt doesn't actually look as bad as
I thought it would. Perhaps it could look all right with Craftsman-style
windows. What do you think?

• Also, I'm worried that the resulting sunroom might often be too cold, due to all the windows and the wood porch floor without a full foundation directly under it. However, an electric radiant heat mat under the floor (in addition to running a duct or two from our forced air heater), a thick layer of sealed spray insulation underneath, blown insulation in the ceiling, and the more energy-efficient double-pane windows that are available these days, might make it comfortable during the daylight hours that I would be most likely to use the room, especially on sunny days (and many plants don't mind cooler nighttime temperatures). I'm going to discuss it with my heating contractor and see what he thinks.

Enclosing the porch does have some advantages over my other ideas for making a sunroom in my house:

• It would have a long expanse of south-facing windows, together with east and west windows too, so it would get sun all day.
• It probably wouldn't need skylights, since the angle of the sun in winter is so low that it would come in through the south windows, and in summer the overhanging eaves would block the sun and make the room cooler (the plants would probably all be moved outside or to other rooms during the summer months). 
• It would probably cost about half as much as constructing an addition to the house, since it already has a foundation and a roof, and the porch was solidly rebuilt only a few years ago.

Here's a photo from when the porch was still enclosed with crudely-constructed screens. (The tree beyond the porch is no longer there to shade the room.) This might make a very nice, plant-filled sunroom to escape from winters in.

And look at all that sun! The snow has already completely melted off of our porch, after less than 48 hours. This might be a great place for plants and winter-weary people....

If we do decide to make a sunroom, it probably wouldn't be this coming year, since we're not quite finished paying off the home equity loan on the library addition from 2011 (which was a much more expensive project than this would be).

In the meantime, this winter I'm trying out the idea to see if sitting in a sunny spot surrounded by green plants makes the winter easier. I made a plant-filled sitting area in front of the south-facing windows in my upstairs bedroom. A few trips to Lowe's to buy sale plants, plus a few purchases of matching pots and potting soil, and voila -- I have my Winter Garden:

This is pretty cozy too on sunny days -- Tigger always finds the best spots.
We'll see if this helps banish the winter blahs.

The view from my comfy chair (all plants must be on a table or stand, so Tigger doesn't
munch them). I found the orchids on sale at Lowe's, and they're so lovely! Note the "blue sky"
that I can enjoy even on the grayest days (part of my attempt in early 2014 to combat
the winter blahs). Maybe this will be enough for me and I won't even need a dedicated 
sunroom....

I'm curious how other gardeners use indoor house plants to make winter more bearable. Do you have a sunroom or even a real conservatory in your house? Or a sunny corner like mine, or plants all over your house filling every room?  I'd love to hear about your winter gardens, in the comments or in a post.

Hope your transition to winter is going well as snow arrives. Thanks for reading! -Beth

Winding Down

The new shape of my North Border, with extraneous plants and weeds removed. The curvy front area will be my new Summer Border, and the back part that currently holds perennials will be the all-evergreen Winter Border after I move things around next spring. The vividly green patch of grass on the left end is newly planted this fall, as I'm making the border shorter and that end was too shady. 

Things are winding down here in my gardens and I've been taking care of the final tasks of the year before winter comes:

• I got the last of the 1,200 bulbs planted
• My husband and I put away most of our garden furniture and statuary
• I carried the large potted plants down to the basement, where they will spend the winter under lights
• We've been mulching some of the tree and shrub beds

A larger task over the past few weeks has been to work in the North Border, which I am planning to completely redesign next Spring (see above photo). I have cut back the perennials, pulled out the many weeds and tree saplings that have grown up over the summer, and removed all annuals and any perennials that I don't want to move next spring. Plus I made a list of what perennials are planted there, so I can think about where to move them while planning over winter. All this will make my job easier in spring, when moving things to the new Summer Border and other locations.

I potted up a few bulbs in another attempt at forcing them over winter.
My attempt last winter was a total, utter failure, as I'll relate in another
(very embarrassing) post sometime....

Thankfully, there is little raking of leaves to be done in our gardens -- one of the good things about living on a windy hill in the country is that most of the leaves just blow away into the fields. (The rarity of powdery mildew and other fungal diseases is another benefit.) I'll rake the few remaining leaves out of my flower beds in the spring.

The Yellow Garden still shows some gold hues even in November, and the North Island, behind it, is newly mulched.  

There are just a few final flowers still blooming in mid-November. We've had a number of light frosts, but nothing below 26°F or so. The tender annuals are long gone and the roses seem to be done for the year, although there are still a few last hardy flowers:

Don't these snapdragons look as lush as in late spring?
What a great flower, and a great value in the garden.
They seed around in many spots for free, and they
bloom almost non-stop from May until late November.
AND they're one of the best cutting flowers too!

Near the snapdragons are these last yellow petunias,
which are still blooming in their protected spot next
to the house.

These mums have been in flower since September in these window boxes.

Violas are so cute!

This Snow-in-summer (Cerastium tomentosum) thinks it's spring again!

This gold lamium still has all its colorful leaves, and is
even starting to set flowers again. Doesn't it know
that winter is nearly here?

My Pacific Giant delphiniums are aiming for a third round
of flowering this year. We'll see if they have time to
open their flowers before this weekend's predicted hard freeze
does them in....

I bought these stocks (Matthiola) in April. When the summer got hot, I put them under the edge of my porch roof,
 so that they only get morning sun. I cut them back in summer and they bloomed again by September and are still going. They are so fragrant that they are one of my favorite flowers, one that I have on my porch every year. I'm thinking about trying to overwinter them indoors -- has anyone had any luck doing so? Will they continue to bloom inside my house, or in my basement under lights? (The spiky foliage is from freesia bulbs that I planted but that disappointingly never flowered.)

Anyway, it's good to have most of the fall work taken care of, now that a hard freeze is coming (down to 15°F, they predict). We've had a pretty warm November thus far, so I really can't complain. Time to move on to inside projects and cozy wood stove fires.

Best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving with family and friends to gardeners here in the US, and for an enjoyable Stir-up Sunday to my UK friends -- thanks for reading! -Beth