Make the most of your garden in the off-season

December may not seem like a great time to be working on garden projects, but it's actually an excellent time to get things accomplished without eating into precious planting and cultivating time. This month, my husband made me an early Christmas present: an arbor over our garage doors.

For the past few years I've pictured it, pretty and practical, overflowing with wisteria vines that practically beg visitors to come in for a closer inspection. Early on, we encountered a problem: we don't get nearly enough sun in this corner of the property to coax those big beautiful wisteria buds to bloom. The northern exposure ensures only morning rays, and the other portion of the house blocks out a lot of those.

Not to be deterred from my "vision," I've decided hummingbird vine will have to grace the new arbor. It's a bit more tolerant of low-light conditions, and I'm convinced I can still get a few orangey-red buds to make an appearance--as well as some hummingbirds!

The best thing about the arbor is the structure itself. It breaks up all the white space above the doors and really does offer a welcoming entryway along the front of the house. The bonus comes during this time of year, when we layer it with greenery, add a wreath and top it all with a red bow. Merry Christmas!

Why I love the clove

When I think of Christmas, I think of cloves, the rock-hard reddish buds which spice up mulled wine and add zest to all manner of holiday recipes. Ironically, the clove tree Syzygium aromaticum is a tropical plant. Yes, it's evergreen. Yes, its bright red and white flower buds look properly festive, but the clove tree isn't something you'd place beside your other houseplants. It grows up to thirty feet high and twenty-five feet wide! Still, I like to include it in a December posting because I often think of cloves this time of year.

The clove scent--combined with a hint of cinnamon--always makes me think of warm winter evenings by the fire, holiday decorating and singing Christmas carols. Other cultures have different traditions, but the spicy nuggets are just as vital to them. Cloves have been used in the Middle East, China and Mediterranean areas since classical times. They became the rage in Europe back in the eighth century.

Native to the "Spice Islands" of the East Indies, cloves are actually the expanded flowers buds of the plant, dried and commercially available to us all. The pungent culinary additive not only spices up everything from ham to hot cider, its oil, which contains the natural antiseptic eugenol, relieves toothache pain when dropped onto a cavity. Traditionally, it was used to curb vomiting and relieve nausea via clove tea. Herbalists even combined it with olive oil to relieve earaches, but be warned: placing pure clove oil in the ear canal can cause permanent damage to delicate structures within the ear. Best to consult a doctor about your aches and pains and enjoy the tasty attributes of cloves in your favorite dishes and drinks.

Be a lazy gardener and bring balance to your yard

Maybe it's because I've had a few upheavals in my life lately, or perhaps it's because I'm a Libra--the astrological sign of the well-balanced scales--but I am acutely feeling a lack of balance in my life. This, of course, I notice in the world around me.

This past summer the Northeast was cold and rainy. Local weather forecasters explained we'd wiped out our water deficit by July, and drought conditions were a mere memory. On the up side, I didn't have to water my yard even once--until September hit. Late summer to mid-autumn brought us sultry temperatures and virtually no rain. Until recently, we were right back to conserving water.

When nature is out of whack, I'm deeply disappointed. The warm fall evenings and even warmer days never allowed trees to turn off chlorophyll production until well into October, so we didn't get much brilliant fall color before the leaves dropped. My late-blooming perennials were puny, or didn't even bother blooming at all. How I miss the Japanese anemone which once flourished along my back fence, lighting up fall evenings in sparkling white blooms with cheerful yellow centers. The photo, above, is an annual plant in full bloom along my back arbor--in November!

Okay, so if nature isn't going to be predictable, I should be. I need to give the butterflies and frogs--and even beneficial bugs--a fighting chance to procreate and burrow safely in the ground. Just like I did last autumn, this fall I am limiting the amount of leaves I blow into piles and bag up in favor of gently raking them to the perimeter of my yard. This not only protects the flowerbeds in a layer of mulch, but also ensures delicate habitats remain intact, offering wildlife plenty of organic refuge.

Try it yourself! For once in your life be lazy. Clear leaves off grass but keep them covering perennials until spring arrives. You'll save yourself a lot of work as well as provide a home for nature's necessary creatures.

Baking soda isn't just for baking

I think baking soda should be renamed All-purpose Gardening Powder, or even magic fairy dust. The horticultural applications are nearly endless! Take, for example, my five favorite uses around the yard:

1. Killing slugs the all-natural way: After all the rain we had this past summer, slugs were proliferating among my plant life. Sprinkling baking soda on them shriveled the slugs and solved the problem.

2. Testing soil pH: Are your flowerbeds and lawn too acidic? Have you got a lot of weeds, which tend to thrive in more acidic soil? In a small dish, mix garden soil with a little water, until it becomes muddy. Dust the dish with baking soda. If the mixture bubbles, your soil is acidic.

3. Correct acidic soil: If the test, listed above, proves positive, you can amend highly acidic soil by mixing baking soda and water into the area. The result: more flowering, fewer weeds. But be careful about how much you apply. Start with just a pinch or two of baking soda. Too much will burn plant leaves and roots.

4. Keep fungus at bay: Applying a spritz of baking soda to leaves infected with mildew or fungal diseases not only cleans them, but neutralizes surface areas. More alkaline areas limit the ability of fungal spores to grow. Mix 1 tsp of baking soda with a few drops of dish detergent and a liter of water for a solution which will clear up infected areas.

5. Keeping cut flowers looking good longer: Dissolve a teaspoon of baking soda in a vase of cut flowers for longer-lasting freshness and blooming.

Summer's second act

Now that autumn is officially here, it seems more like summer. Temperatures have soared into the 80's nearly every day this month--something we northeasterners didn't see in July.

I, for one, am making the most of the Indian summer--spending time in my garden and admiring plants, like the morning glory, above, which would normally be on the decline during this time of year. Everywhere I turn, I see the effects of a very rainy summer followed by warm fall days. Plants are huge and healthy, and longer lasting.

Tree leaves are not as brilliant as normal, since it's the cooler temperatures that broadcast the signal to stop producing chlorophyll. That will happen soon--sooner than I wish. In fact, with the promise of brilliant color right around the corner, I'm enjoying summer's second act. You should too. Get outside and tour a winery, pick some apples or just stroll through your neighborhood. It's also a great time to plant spring bulbs.

Autumn-themed window boxes

The summer's nearly over, but that doesn't mean planting season is kaput! Hardy plants and dried flowers will carry window boxes and planters through autumn--and, in some cases, even into winter.

The key is to choose plants that won't wilt and die until temperatures dip below freezing. Hearty red geranium and petunia (pictured above) tend to stay in shape even when the mercury slides into the forties, and upper thirties. Of course chrysanthemums last a good long while, and provide plenty of spectacular color, but consider filling in sparse areas with unlikely species--dwarf boxwood and cyprus, winter cabbage, the dried mop heads of hydrangea, and even the "cinnamon sticks" from the fern of the same name. They all look fantastic in fall (as you can clearly see in the photo).

Go a step further--as seen in the picture--and paint window boxes a cheery hue the color of sugar maple leaves, and accent windows in strips of rich green wood for a look that's both rustic and elegant.

If time and/or money is an issue, gather a bunch of fallen leaves in three or four different shades and exercise your creativity: arrange them in a soil-filled window box or planter around existing plants, or even by themselves. You can even add small logs (1"-2" wide) into the mix. Slender white birch logs look amazing in these types of designs, especially when combined with Christmas ferns, which stay green all year long, and the explosive red seed heads of switch grass. Festive!

After the storm

Just as Texans were packing up and heading out of many coastal towns, I was driving into Hurricane Harvey territory. Driving the 25-plus hours toward Austin, I had no idea what I was in for. I had no choice. My daughter and her dogs were visiting with us in New York, but she has a job that started this past week in Austin.

I'm not going to say it was the best cross-country trip I've ever made. Tedious hours behind the wheel, trying to rip through counties and towns as fast as I could while my muscles protested, locked into the "driving position" for 14 hours a day. Almost unbearable. Yet it was the unknown that made the trip most difficult. What would we encounter when we met up with the storm? Downpours so powerful that I'd have to pull off the highway? Flash floods that could swiftly carry our car away? Weather reporters were unsure; the hurricane appeared to be unpredictable.

As luck would have it, we appeared on the scene just after the deluge. Aside from downed trees and littered pathways (see a photo I took from Common's Ford in Austin, above), Travis County was pretty much spared. The poor people of Houston were not so lucky. All the horrible emergencies I'd conjured in my head have become reality for so many of them. The photos coming out of that region are harsh and heartbreaking.

Let's help the folks in the ravaged areas along the Texas coast. Go on redcross.org or call 1-800-HELP NOW. If it's easier to text a $10 donation, send a message to 90999 with a message saying "REDCROSS" and it will arrive to the charity via your phone company, but be aware: it takes longer to get the money to victims since it has to go through a third party.

However you choose to help, it will aid in getting fellow Americans back to safety, and normal lives.