Don’t you love that feeling when you’ve finally finished something you’ve been procrastinating about? That frisson of pleasure every time you encounter the results and think, “Yeah, I did that. About time, and isn’t it fab!” That’s the way I feel after my Early Fall Plants-in-Pots-on-the-Patio Project.
In late summer and early fall, my patio plants sometimes get a bit woebegone and bedraggled, and need pinching, plumping, replanting or repotting. It’s still very, very hot even when autumn officially begins, and I had to cajole myself last weekend to do what needed to be done. It took a LOT of prompting:
“You’ll be glad when you see the results.”
“It’ll only be a few hours.”
“You’ll burn some calories.”
“You can jump in the pool if you get overheated.”
“Think how much better your poolside food pictures will look.”
Somehow, I ginned up the energy to get started, and spent about 3 hours tending the patio plants. All were inspected for health, and where necessary, pruned. Some were repotted, some were downgraded to a less visible spot, and some were promoted.
I rearranged everything to put the current all-stars in the most visible places, and to optimize the view.
What I didn’t do was stress about having “fall colors”. I learned this lesson a few years ago.
The Grill-Meister was going to Home Depot on a weekend errand and asked me if I wanted to add anything to his list. I said, “A couple of small blooming plants would be great.” In my head, that meant he’d bring back something in fall colors.
No.
I got a gorgeous pink hibiscus and a blue salvia, both with beautiful blooms. I said “thank you,” of course, but was momentarily disappointed because, as I said, I was expecting fall plants. But I’d never actually said that, so how could he have known what I had in mind? And on reflection, I realized I was being a Plant Bigot.
Here in Southeast Texas, we have about eight months of summer, from April through November. Or at least, we have what would be considered summer weather in many other places, the kind of weather blooming plants love. Pink and blue ARE fall colors here, because fall is only on the calendar, not in the air. We get a break from the blistering heat, but the summer-blooming plants keep delivering on their promise of blooms until late November. Check out this post to that effect from 2015.
So why did I feel the need for only orange, red and yellow “fall colors” in the plants The Grill-Meister picked up for me? It was an arbitrary seasonal color bias that doesn’t fit our geographic location, and I’m OVER IT.
If it blooms here in the fall, it’s a Fall Color. Period.
So last weekend’s work to spruce up the patio plants resulted in a summer-looking fall tableau. I’m in love with it.
There’s a hummingbird below on the feeder in the top left quadrant, if you look closely.
The herbs in their pots are still going great guns, including the basil.
And just as I asserted when I was doing the positive self-talk to get myself going on the 3 hours of sweaty plant-pot work, the backdrop did prove to be very nice for food pics. That’s a dish The Grill-Meister made using a recipe in the August issue of Food & Wine magazine, their Chile Relleno Dip. We enjoyed it on the patio later on the same day.
We thought the recipe had promise, but didn’t fully deliver… so we’ll be reworking it to share with you. They put brown sugar in the topping, and that was just plain weird… it didn’t seem chile relleno-ish and the sweetness was unwelcome. The recipe has good bones, though, so stay tuned!
Enjoy the fall colors, wherever you are.
©️ 2026, Glover Gardens
