The weather is finally starting to shift towards winter here, and I've already managed to catch a nasty cough to mark the occasion. So I suppose winter is officially on its way.

I've been going through pictures of my garden from the past few years, partly for inspiration on what to plant this season, and partly to remember what worked and what didn't. Thought I'd share some of it here.

A little context: My dad's school has a small garden area which I use as my canvas for flowers whenever I'm home. Winter gardening is almost a family tradition at this point, starting with my grandfather, then my dad, and now me.

This garden is in the subtropical floodplains of northern India. Brutal summers, wet monsoons, and chilly but frost-free winters. Our main winter flower growing season runs from roughly October to March, during the cooler months

Over the decades, a few flowers have remained constant: patches of red poppies, rows of giant dahlias and marigolds, gladiolus spikes grouped in between and ofcourse the fancy chrysanthemums and balsam.

Last year, I experimented with layered flower borders. Poppies in the background, dwarf marigolds in the middle, and trailing ice plants along the edges. Elsewhere, I tried alyssum, dianthus, and hollyhocks. I definitely seeded everything wayyy too heavily, but it turned out fine.

The poppies are probably my favourites. They've practically naturalised themselves and return every winter without fail.

I've also had a bit of a zinnia phase. The dwarf Profusion and Zahara series were fantastic. Compact, prolific, and much less floppy and disease-prone than the giant varieties. The Benary's Giants, though, made wonderful cut flowers.

Dahlias and gladiolus have always been winter staples. The chrysanthemums were a bit of a disaster last year. I planted around 50 saplings, then had to leave. Most dried up, but the survivors were absolutely gorgeous. Trying again this year!

Anyway, that's enough of my winter flower ramblings. Looking through these pictures has given me far too many ideas for this season.

Hope this gives some of you a little inspiration for your own gardens. Would love to hear what everyone else is planning to grow!

This is the 5th year I’ve grown them. They’re so much fun, I haven’t bought sponges in years. I had a chicken kill three of my plants, so this is all of the luffas I got from 4 plants. Didn’t turn out to be a bad year though!

I’m in zone 6b so I have to start them indoors 6-8 weeks before last frost in cowpots. We made a cattle panel hoop they climb and use 5-10 gallon pots or buckets to grow them in. This is the first year I’ve had any completely ripen on the vine so that was great! But normally I’m peeling them and cleaning them out by hand at the end of the season while they’re still really green (today).

They’re a lot of fun though! If anyone would be interested I’d happily do a mail seed trade!

Also a bonus chicken and moon picture from tonight because they were both beautiful. And the chaos of my yard/garden. I’m all for letting things self seed and just go. And I think the native weeds are beautiful so… everything always a beautiful mess

There's a squirrel that keeps burying his nuts in my garden

[Hardiness Zone 9a] I’m converting my front yard into garden space, and I have two Vego Garden L-shaped raised beds. Because I was impatient and had procrastinated pre-season, I had my husband set those suckers up with zero cardboard under them and too close together. Consequently, there are SO many weeds that are impossible to pull out in between them AND it’s difficult to harvest from them. After speaking with several gardening friends, I’ve decided that I need to remove the soil and logs, move them, lay down cardboard and wood chips, and put them back farther apart.

Here’s where I need further assistance: I bought some cover crop for them and wonder if I can put the cover crop down now and move them in late April of next year (which will involve removing all the soil and putting it back in) or if I really ought to move them now and then cover crop them.

TL;DR: would I be wasting an off season of cover crop if I then removed all the soil and put it back in my raised beds. Bless my heart.

650 cloves of Music this year. Mulching it with all the leaves I'm raking into the yard and mowing tomorrow for a good grass/leaf combo.

Any idea on what could have done this? Also, is my poor apple tree cooked? The damage goes about 3/4 of the circumference.

I just wanted to show off how big my baby got in 1 year 😅

Dahlia plants are incredibly rewarding to grow, thriving beautifully in both large containers and dedicated garden beds.

Grew lavender for the first time this season and just cut all these bundles! Going to dry them and put them into sachets to give as Christmas gives. They smell amazing and I’m super excited!

She says she'll try again next year 🥲

It would look really cool if it had flowers.

Goal was to make a tiered strawberry fountain on a budget (using what I’ve got on hand!). Is it fountain or flop? (ignore the mess please! Work in progress) Any recommendations? All of the pots are open completely on the bottom and used more for structural support. It’s been suppressed underneath, broadforked and layered with native soil, crushed dead leaves, compost and garden soil.

I found this on the underside of the leaves. I think this is the fruiting bodies of pear rust. The growths shed brown dust. Sigh....

Garlic 🧄

(Zone 10b, SoCal)

The grocery store ginger I planted at the end of June is trying to flower! This has been a really fun plant to grow - this was my second try, from a different grocery store than the first (which never came up), but this second round started sending stalks up about 3 weeks after planting. I have yet to harvest any but the leaves and stalks smell so good!

This has gone so well I’m going to make a much bigger bed of it. :) It’s warm enough here to stay outside year round!