December had started off with some very cold days with low temperatures in the 20s or teens at night and barely getting above 50 on 3 days (other days the high was in the 40s). Almost all the trees had lost their leaves abruptly in November when we had some very cold days. As I walked around the yard taking pictures for this post, I found myself searching for color and interesting textures.

The Virginia Creeper that had been so beautiful in previous falls (red leaves) had either died back or retained the color for only a few days. Some of the vines retained their leaves – but they are brown rather than bright red.

The crape myrtles have interesting seed pods. I am going to cut them all back when there is a day above 50….they will look better next year if I do. One of them is tall enough to brush against the eve of the house so that one is the priority to get cut. The other one to tackle is the one that has a Callery Pear (wild form of the Bradford Pear) growing with it. The red leaves are the pear so I can (hopefully) cut it very close to the ground.

The bed near our front door has some color – bushes that are bright yellow (that need to be trimmed) and some plants that haven’t succumbed to cold temperatures yet because they are protected. The Japanese Maple in the corner has lost its leaves and may be dying; that corner has not worked well for that small tree.

The places where I put the bark mulch from our last tree trimming are holding up well. I will pull weeds from them and plant new plants into some of them next spring. The one under the Kousa dogwood mulch needs some native ground cover planted there…and maybe some of the lower branches cut.

There are seed heads on the lambs ear and goldenrod and chives…hopefully I will have more of those plants next year.

Our backyard is fenced and I am planting to not mow until early summer - leave the leaves. A lot of the leaves are from our neighbor’s oak and probably contain overwintering insects. The birds will appreciate the bounty – food for their chicks next spring. I am noticing that the circle where the pine needles are falling is enlarged than last year. I will be mowing less of the side yard next year! My long-term plan for the side yard a mowed path….not much grass at all…native plants filling in on both sides of the path (and maybe the path itself which might change from year to year.

The bed where we removed a pine tree that fell over is more exposed that most of our beds. The plants there had frost. The small cluster of American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) fruit is a pop of color. Hopefully next year the beautyberry will begin to grow more rapidly and become the dominate plant in the bed at some point. I will probably allow a native tree that comes up (bird or squirrel planted)…whichever one shows up first: oak, redbud, or hackberry.

On the west side of the house there is a clover pillow that seems greener than the area around it. Maybe the grass growing there is greener with the extra nitrogen the clover provides in the soil! The witch hazel is still small but I am hopeful I might see a few blooms next year. It is a Missouri native – Ozark Witch Hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) which blooms in January/February.

I am watching the forecast for warmer day to get some cleanup done….and to put down a thick layer of mulch for my new bed that will be planting into next spring. My daughter will be getting more mulch when she has her oak trimmed.

The Crape Myrtles that died to the ground last winter are all out and blooming in our yard. We have 4 (plus 1 or 2 others that have come up from seeds away from the parent plant). They attract insects….and hummingbirds!

There is a stand of Virginia Creeper than I periodically pull off the brick walls…but let continue to drape across the rock of the front flowerbed between the Crape Myrtles.

The Japanese Maple in the corner near our front door is happier than it was last summer; we are a little above normal for rainfall this year whereas last summer we were painfully dry.

There are mushrooms that come up frequently in our front yard where a large tree was cut down several years before we bought the house. Based on the number of mushrooms…there must still be quite a lot of decomposition happening.

There are seed pods on our Kousa Dogwood; unlike last year when the tree struggled to maintain its leaves.

Some plants seem to be robust no matter what. I am encouraging Lamb’s Ear wherever it comes up. One place that has done well was a hole in the turf where a small lamb’s ear appeared last spring; I have been mowing around it and it appears very robust at this point. I dug up a plant that was not in acceptable place and replanted it to fill a corner between the fence and the house. It is growing…slowly.

In the back yard my small ‘meadow’ where I planted wildflower seeds last spring is doing well and the flowers are producing seeds for next year. The leafy green plant in the foreground is pokeweed; I like the way it provides a frame to the meadow.

We generally leave the wasp/hornets’ nests alone unless they are in a place where we might get stung. I found this one on our steppingstones between our patio and yard; it is probably an old nest that fell from wherever it was attached during recent storms.

There was a mushroom that was growing in some mulch that I thought was a flower at first because the cap had split to look like petals. I took a picture from above and below.