We’re almost at the end of October and violets are still blooming in the yard. To date, where I live in southern Northampton County, we’ve only had one overnight frost. In spite of that, though, a lot of summer annuals and weeds are dying.
Even big patches of normally hardy zinnias are looking sad. The only places where they’re still opening fresh flowers is where they’ve been protected by adjoining plants like 6-foot-tall sorghum.
For reasons I won’t go into, I wasn’t able to garden this summer like I normally do, but I’m OK now. So a big native spicebush plant out front got almost completely covered with mile-a-minute vines. Also known as Asiatic tearthumb because of the barbs on its stems, those vines are now covered with small blue berries…