December in the garden has been warm and cold. What little snow we have had has not lasted long. The garden has been experiencing freezing temperatures at night in the twenties or sometimes in the teens. During the day the sunlight melts the snow and softens the ground. White remains only in shaded locations. The plants in the garden have to deal with the constant change of freeze and thaw. It looks like a pretty snow covered garden photograph will not appear this year.
My focus has shifted to indoors and my "lush" house plants. I have never been really terrific at caring for house plants. I am usually content to get the plants through the winter . Most years things go pretty well. There are always a few dead plants to compost, but most of the plants get by fine. This year it has been a battle. The enemies have been spider mites and scale . My plants have been getting their soap and vodka spray. They are running up a considerable bar tab. These are definitely not the kind of lush plants I would like to have. For now the spider mites seem to be gone. You can see from the shiny leaf on my bay tree that the scale is still with us.
My curry leaf plant still has scale too. If you compare it an earlier photograph, you can see it is losing more of its leaves and the battle. I'm thinking one more shot of alcohol for New Year's Eve, but when 2012 gets here this curry leaf plant may find itself out in the cold. The sweet bays will surely get a reprieve. They seem to be holding their own and waist high bay trees are not as easily replaced.
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