Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Sad terrace

The copper bowl-barbecue - or braaivleisplace (repeat after me: 'brigh-flace-place'!) in South African English - fills with water when it rains, so would be a good lily pond, too, and froze this last weekend when temperatures plummeted.

This is where the fig will live this winter.

The terrace is not a very prepossessing sight at the moment.

The impatiens in little pots at the foot of the rose had held out through a couple of frosts and then expired overnight and became horrible, slimy, long-dead sea creatures. The foolish climbing Iceberg put out new growth at a bad time.

3 comments:

  1. I was outside in the side yard garden dumping some compost. An old lady, maybe in her 80s, hobbles down the sidewalk mumbling, ever louder: "oh, horrible, horrible, what a mess, should be cleaned up, horrible mess"

    And she looks at me, I at her, and I don't know if she means the garden (which is a mess, but horrible!) or that's just what she mumbles everywhere!

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  2. I hope your fig tree will be ok this winter. I'm sure NYC's urban micro climate helps. I'm gonna purchase a couple of trees this spring. If you have any suggestions on what varieties I should get, let me know!

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  3. Funny, Frank - I vote for that's her mantra, and she's not wrong! It's a mess, it's all a big mess!

    Thomas - I think I may move the fig...not feeling so cocky with the temperatures any more. I'll put it under the stone table :-) As for varieties, the sadness is I don't know mine. And conventional wisdom says the trunk will die every year in my zone but it doesn't, not even close. My terrace's microzone is clearly something else. The Italians in the Bronx (there still are some), lay their figs down int eh winter, covering them with actual soil and straw. I'll be very curious to see how yours fare. I wonder if they would react well to being espaliered? With a protective wall or fence at their backs?

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