First snow

Well, it had to happen sooner or later but my poor topiary roses are still out in the garden unprotected in the cold and snow. How is the weather for everyone, and did you get all the important chores done for the end of the season? Of course there are those lucky people who can still garden in warmer zones. You'll have to carry the rest of us through. We'll (I'll ) need plenty of pictures please or I'll have to start thinking of houseplants and that will not be a pretty sight in the spring when all attention turns back outside.

We had our first snow last night and it is snowing this morning....nice to look out & see my beds mulched and looking kinda cozy....nice to have the quiet time for the rest of the season....Deb

Two hard frosts here, the only things still blooming are the alyssums and "May Night" salvia (it gets my all-star rating, this stuff just does not quit - it's been blooming since early spring).

Flurries forcasted for T-day night, we'll see!

Finished? With garden chores??? What a concept!

Um ... zero hard frosts as yet. This is so weird.

That's a very pretty photo, Semper'.

I was also going to comment on how pretty the picture is. Most of us don't welcome the snow, but it can be gorgeous ...... as long as I don't have to drive in it. :-P

Yeah, we got our first snow today also. About 1/2" to 1". I posted some photos on the Northeast Forum under "Today's Snow". Sorry, don't know how to link!

I like first snows, but no more than that - unless they're all before Christmas! January and February snows stink!

What I used to hate was November's snow in Feb. Blek. Gray, dirty, crusted. Double blek.

We have flurries scheduled for tonight - darn it, can't take pictures at night, grr.

Pagancat, my brother moved down to Lebanon about a year ago. He loves it there!

LOL- has he started saying it like the locals? "Lebnin"?

I'll admit, I'm reminded almost daily how lovely this area is and how lucky I am to be here.

Love the picture, Semper, truly a cottage garden. Do you have any pictures of your garden before the snow that you can share?
Thanks,
Karen

Why thanks karri sue and lala jane.
I'm interested to hear of the weather and how it affects gardening in different parts of the country. Primrose and Pagancat why is Lebanon so lovely? Pictures?
karri sue, I have a small suburban cottage garden that I've posted photos of on this forum quite often. In fact, I think people might be a wee bit tired of my garden by now. I think I'll have to redo the whole garden to have something new to post lol. The snow at least made it look a little different. I'll have to go through the older photos to find something new. In the meantime would you be happy with another snow over the garden shot? The snow covers the weeds and makes the garden look so pulled together I wish I could find such a easy fix for the summer months.This is the same side garden only this time you are looking out to the street instead of into the backyard.
As for the snow I wish it would only fall on the garden, not the street or the paths. Then it would look wonderful to look at and be safe to drive.

This message was edited Nov 25, 2007 7:15 AM

Very pretty! We ave an inch or two, but the garden looks bad. Partly because then the winds came and al the leaves are sitting on top of the snow instead of underneath it. Partly because I don't have enough Bone or shrubbery -- it looks very flat with some big pine trees in the background.

Suzy

Finally figured out where the question about the area was from - sheesh! Sorry, Semp - I got losted.

I can't speak for Lebanon specifically, it's about an hour from here and I usually just pass through it on the way to Nashville.

But the area itself, as you get further east, begins to turn into the Cumberland plateau, which leads to the Smoky mountains. In my area the topography begins to change into steeper hills and crevices (hollers) between them. We also have the Cumberland river that runs from further northeast of us down through and past Nashville - it's perfect for reflecting the masses of trees on its banks on calmer mornings than this one....

Our fall colors also get more pronounced as you go further east, and we're lucky enough to have a lot of ways to show them off - this is another small river just south of here with a set of 3 waterfalls.

Just driving into town can be so pretty:

(this was last year - the colors were deeper this year, but I was busier, too!)

This message was edited Dec 7, 2007 9:10 AM

I love the subtle changes in the sky here - this is looking at my neighbor's home:

My view across the street - you can like snow when you only get a couple per year and they look like this!

Side yard before I ruined it with a bunch of horse fencing...

Yeah, so I love it here - I'm sure I haven't shown a tiny bit of what is so cool, but... hey, you might have to come see for yourself!

My pastures are filled with these:

Pagancat,
Breathtaking scenery. If I can't be there at least I can see and hear about different places. When you feel connected to so many parts of the country through their gardens and the people who tend them you start to really get a sense of the country on a very personal level. Thanks for the photos and the little extra touch by explaining "hollers". I'll have to do a google search on the Cumberland river and the Smoky mountains.

Illoquin,
When I saw your comment on winter presence and garden bones, or lack of, I had to laugh to myself because I started my garden completely backwards and didn't add hardscaping and shrubs until the end. I just wanted tons and tons of perennials and small native ephemerals, and to try everything: raingardens, herb garden, garden rooms, topiary, vegetable garden, prairie, native hedge row, cottage garden. It has taken years to fit all those things in a small space. Everything, except a few small trees, is open to revision. I was so greedy to at least try "everything" I read or saw that stuck my fancy that I didn't want to settle on shrubs until I knew which ones I really loved. In fact all the shrubs were moved or added in the last few years. I changed the paths and shapes of the beds so many times it can make you dizzy, and still I have whole areas that look flat and uninteresting in the winter. But that is the fun of it all I think.
Here is one of my problem areas in the winter. I'm trying to use as many natives as possible. The Oregon Grape Holly (tallish shrub in the center) suffers winter burn and is very slow in growth. The native pachysandra is doing well and is not over rambunctious but the wintergreen and partridge berry ground covers are very slow growing. The Heuchera does well but I'm still relying on 3 non native hellebore for the big show. I have a few Christmas fern in there also. It would look a lot better with a light snow cover which I think is coming today or tomorrow.

Semper.. Nice to see snow this year.. Doesn't look like we may see any real soon.. High of 78 today! ????

Pagan.. wow.. Love those thanks for sharing.. and all that horse poop for your gardens.. What a dream..

:)

Susan

Gorgeous pictures Pagan. Can I share our ice storm from last week?
It took out the power for a day but was so pretty with the sparkling sun
on all the ice-coated landscape.

The ice coated each blade of grass

The sky is so blue

The icicles drip off the deck roof

Just a gloriously blue sky with sunlight that made everything sparkle

It's a toss up -- Do I retire to Barto or Gainsboro? They're both beautiful, and both a zone warmer than here. Hmmmm.

You ladies should send those pictures to the town council/town/county for their websites. They should be on the home page, for sure!

Suzy

From the top of this thread to the bottom, gorgeous pictures. Look like professional photographers taking photos for post cards. My brown grass and brown tropicals just look really sad. Don't even want to take a picture.

LouC

Ummm, you have to be a little prepared for Gainesboro, lol. 2 traffic lights are kinda nice, but the two lane highway in and out of town gets sweet ol' gramps driving 45 in a 55 zone when you need to be going 65... the tire that blew last night after dark and couldn't find an available tow truck to pump up the spare with no air.... no sidewalks unless you're on the town square, no restaurants unless you like to sit down for your fried foods. I love that we only have one chain eatery - DQ- no Micky-Ds, no Burger King, no Starbucks. But...a *lot* of cops and I guess a lot of Meth. Not unusual for the front page to carry a picture of an 8 year old holding the head up of the first deer she ever shot. It's a different world, but I do love it.

Those ice storms are deadly, I know, but I could never get over the fairy-land quality they leave - seems like it is always a beautiful, bright and cloudless day afterwards. Just gorgeous, Tammy.

SGL, anytime you want some manure, you just hop on by!!!

Tammy, lots of definitions of *meth* in the big city of Dallas, Texas where I live.
Hope mine is not the same as yours.

Oops - that was me, but unfortunately, this is probably the same stuff - crystal meth, methamphetamines, whatever. Ugly, ugly stuff - between that and DUI's there's a lot of youngsters hurt or dead here.

Anyway, sorry - didn't mean to bring a sour note to this thread. But it is the reality of the boonies as well as the city, I'm afraid.

One of the things I hear oft repeated is *If we could only move to a rural area where there are no drugs*. Well, duh. Best tool satan ever invented. Destroys the perpetrator, his/her family and everyone around them. Nuff' said. Sorry that it has invaded your world as well.

Night, night.

Hey Pagan.. I appreciate the poo offer :) We have a rural area north of here that is a equine community and has been forever. I go up there and visit some farmers and they load me up. Problem is new money moving in and having huge homes build to be out in the country.. and now they are complaining about the "smell"!!!?? They don't want to have their picture perfect paradise smell like horses too! It made the Atlanta paper and those city council meetings are very heated. The city logo even has horses on it.. what were these people thinking? It's unbelievable. One time I was knee deep in the back of the truck shoveling a load out into a front new bed down by the street and one of my neighbors drives by and stops his car to comment on the awful smell... and I'm thinking really??.. your just driving by..I'm standing knee deep in it and can take it so hush!

Pretty pics Tammy :)

Susan

SGL, That reminds me of when I was very, very newly wed and had no money for things like shredded hardwood bark mulch. My across the street neighbor and I would take her van filled with trash cans and go to the big manure (+straw bedding) pile at the horse barn early in the morning. We'd load them to the brim with aged manure, and double team them back up into the van to take home and spread as mulch. We had to load her van twice, once for me, and once for her, and then get it spread out and watered early enough that the smell could dissipate before our spouses came home. LOL! If we went early enough in the spring, you could see the steam rise, even out of our little trashcans, as we were spreading and breaking clumps apart. They were totaly against the idea, but a gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do.

Suzy

SGL, after a semester of planning law, I can tell you that the law is on the side of the people moving in, too. I think it's incredibly ridiculous but there's a long history of places being moved on when new neighbors decide they're a menace of some sort. Believe it or not, there are now springing up 'planned communities' of horse owners, too. But I'm sure they're no better.

Poor Mr. Clean, lol. He just didn't know what he was getting in to, did he?

Yes Suzy.. a gal does have to do what she has to do!

Pagan, if that's true about laws favoring the newcomers, i guess that's why there's so much tension over who's in the city council.. keeping the larger population happy.. Are you in Law School??

No, but Planning Law was a class necessary for my Landscape Architect curriculum. BSLA; heavy on the BS. I wish I could remember the name of the case - it was a brick yard that existed prior to a neighborhood being built next door - the neighbors complained about the dust and were able to get the brick yard to move or shut down in a Supreme Court decision. I want to say this was in the 20's or 30's ... maybe in LA?

Anywho, it really rattled my faith in our legal system.

I've come to the conclusion that anything man made has some potential for serious flaws including our legal system.

ohhh so now you've got all the poop you can every use AND your a landscape architect??

Believe it or not .... but I practiced *very* little. And I will be the first to tell you that there are many people who come up with fabulous designs that blow anything I've ever thought of, with no training whatsoever. My best work was creating restored wetlands and water reuse. A diminutive field at the best of times, lol.