Garden Pic Wednesday: Turning Nature Into Garden Art

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This pine tree stump is out front in a flower bed next to my Gardenia bush.  When we bought this house, this pine was about 7 inches in diameter; 28 years later, it was this:


3 years ago I had it cut down and used it as a nice place to set a large container garden.
 But termites and moisture did their work, eating it away and, suddenly, this summer I find my container garden flopped over sideways in a hole in the stump. 
I moved the container garden to a spot in the ground among the day lilies, then filled that stump hole with dirt and planted it with 
Chinese Stonecrop and Hen & Chick succulents---turning nature into garden art!
The succulents will eventually take over and be quite attractive.

Here's the container in it's new location:
It will be much happier here I think. Gladiola bulbs surround that bamboo stake and maybe they'll bloom better. A Dusty Miller and Creeping Jenny are planted on top.



Funny Pampas Bent By Hurricane Nate:
Our area only got gusts of wind and some rain from the eastern-most outer band of Nate and it left this Pampas Grass with it's plumes all bent in the direction of the wind, East-Northeast.
Also you can see how pretty the blue sky looked this morning!


That and a litter of broken bits and pieces of branches and pine cones over the yard was all storm left behind.
 The pine trees are rife with pine cones this time of year and we could hear them hitting the roof periodically all night. Thump. Thump-thump. Thump.
The power also went out for a couple hours during the wee hours. We have fans running in the bedroom and I guess my subconscious recognizes the sudden silence, as I (a heavy sleeper) abruptly woke up. It was pitch black in the house. No street light outside casting a dim glow through the windows. No ambient electronic lights. 
But the power-out could've easily just been the casual result of a squirrel getting into a transformer someplace.  We had a similar power out several weeks ago during the night for 2 or 3 hours and the weather was clear.

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