Garden Pic Wedneday: Halloween Decor & Winter Garden

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Nearly the end of October. Time to work on bringing all the house plants in! It's not too cold for them yet, but night temps will drop into the low 50's within a couple weeks. I leave outside on the north side of the house to get fat and happy only to bring them in to keep them barely alive through winter. That's because I have to hang my plants and it's warmer & drier near the ceiling and I'm not always so good at keeping them watered. Hanging them near windows or skylights is the only way they'll get any light and the only place I have to put them.
I snipped a good quantity of Wandering Jew vines to keep in a vase indoors through winter. It's leave are so richly violet year! It makes a beautiful table "bouquet" all winter. Just needs periodic trimming and fresh water.
Then brought in the variegated Arrowhead plant & the Dracaena. The Arrowhead is prettier this year then it has been in a long time--probably because when I put it out in spring, I re-potted it in Miracle-gro soil. It's a member of the Philodendron family. (I didn't know that until today.) That explains why it's tough as nails, even if I am irregular at watering. 
Dracaena's are a member of the palm family. It too is tough as nails and handles my neglect with charm.

Two Garden Pics today: 
One is an view of my walkway with my new "stacked" electric Halloween pumpkin and the other is my walled winter veggie garden in the back yard.

Here's the walkway to my front door with it's new Halloween addition:
The electric pumpkin "stack" is new. I wanted something near the door to welcome trick or treaters. There's also a single electric pumpkin out front. All the gusty winds from the last two days of leftover tropical storm Patricia kept knocking him over.
I love the trailing orange Marigold there in front. It's just a happy coincidence that those Marigolds happen to be plain orange and go perfectly with the orange pumpkins. I grew these Marigold from mixed seed and had no idea what color I was planting.



Next: My Back Yard Veggie Garden:
You see broccoli there, at the far end. 9 of them. And a Marigold I planted back in the spring. I planted a lot this year--because they bring so much autumn color to yard in the fall! Now until frost is their best time of year!
You see all the pine mulch covering my garden?
That's how I "winterize" my garden to keep the weeds out till spring. I put down a layer of newspaper, then mow the back yard and dump what I mow up on top.  All that mulch you see in there is what I mowed up exclusively from the back yard.

















I expect many Marigold Volunteers next year to spread around next spring!
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That's it for today! Stop back for Mama Kat tomorrow!


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