You know what's really funny? I'd like to know how I had time to do all this stuff BEFORE I retired. Getting it all done on weekends and a two-week vacation once a year. Sheesh.

diggerdee, you won't regret shredding your leaves; lots of work, but so worth it. I'll be doing that, too. Plus planting a couple more 40ct.bags of daffodil bulbs - real late when they go on sale!

Ugh, Schoolhouse, I don't think I'll even attempt bulbs this year! Last year I bought some and didn't get them all planted. I probably will get some tulips for pots, like I usually do, but may skip the others for this year. I know when spring rolls around I will be kicking myself for not adding to the crocus and snowdrops, etc., but there's always next year. Yeah right. Wait till that John Scheepers catalog arrives and then let's see what tune I'm singing, lol!

I shred my leaves every year. I just don't shred them *all*. I can never seem to get to all of them. I've got almost an acre with about 50 oak trees, plus any of the neighbors' leaves that blow in. I shredded about 30 leaf bags full last year, but not only did that only take up about half my leaves, but I also have a gardening business and used many of the leaves for my customers, so my beds ended up bare! This year I not only want to get *all* the leaves up, but also *all* my beds covered.

Then maybe I won't have to go into the woods in spring to rake leaves *out* of the woods to shred for mulch. The neighbors see that one and shake their heads, I'm sure!

:)
Dee

I have some small trees to get planted when the dependable rain starts in fall. Too far to water regularly in addition to the other field trees I planted last year. Got a nice 7ft Tulip, half price, along with some Tulips from seed and some Oaks from the acorns. Now about 3yrs old and all destined to be field trees. Shade for the horses.

I need to get a good mulch layer down on two beds, and remulch many of my shrubs. Add a piece of soaker hose on a couple shrubs under the Oaks. Big trees take all the liquid so you have to help the shrubs.

I am contemplating cutting some scrubby trees and planting a nice large tree if I can find a beech or something on that order. Also some shrubs near it for screening in summer.

I got some Hydrageas on sale, which seem to need a lot of daily water to get going and we are not getting any rain. I need to trim some of the shrubs, didn't get them done in spring, crossing branches, no shape. Have to make wire cages for those new Hydrangeas, darn rabbits chewed others down badly last winter.

Lots of stuff can't happen until cold weather, foliage removal, vine trimming, leaf shredding.

Mostly I am enjoying garden things right now, between changing the soaker hoses watering the gardens. We got a new puppy today, who will be taking up time as well. She will have to learn the yard and what is OK to race around on, since she is large with BIG feet! Very cute though!!

"I shredded about 30 leaf bags full last year", Oh,my. I guess you DO know about mulching leaves. I got a sore back just reading that.

goodhors, that's one thing I'm slowing down on these days - digging those holes to plant trees and shrubs. Always glad when it's done, but takes me awhile to get in the mood to begin. This evening after it cooled off a little, I pruned two redbud trees out front and cut a big limb off the crabapple tree. Looks a heck of alot better. And - I almost brought a new puppy home from the local humane society Friday! The 4yr.old dog I made up mind to adopt found a home with someone else hours before I got there. I was disappointed but glad she found a forever home. Then a little pup in the next cage made those eyes at me. Sigh. Yikes, I'm off topic again! Sorry.

schoolhouse, you were younger before you retired!! that's how you could do it all and work.

I wonder the same thing. How did I do it all while were were dairying?

I am cleaning weeds from beds, cutting back perennials and in general doing my spring cleanup now. I also have great plans to relocate lots of iris that were swamped by rains in the spring. I have a row if daylilies in the veggie garden to move to new homes and about 6 pots of new purchases to get in the ground; have a small order of bulbs coming soon.

I think I will wait for a cool-down and hopefully some fall rains. In my area, we can plant pretty late.
Tthe ground right now is like the Sahara!

I don't bother to shred my leaves, just dump them on the beds and let them break down over winter. Works for me.

Move a Jujube tree, rip out half of the passionflowers in the front beds (I'll likely just pot them up and sink them into one of the veggie beds). Wrap the figs, move other figs and passionflowers into the house, same with the bamboo and bananas.

Complete adding drip lines and emitters to the south, east and north sides of my irrigation system. Put in a second system to cover the west side of the yard (gotta get another timer and filter system this winter, then).

Oh, yeah paint the house, finish caulking the windows (flip those) and add rainhandlers where I have already removed the gutters.

I just run my leaves over with the lawn-mower and dump them into my yardwaste barrel to move them where I need them. (this way I get shredded leaves, mixed with a little grass and empty out the gasoline out of the mower at the same time).

Are there enough weekends left?

~Chills

Did you have to mention 'caulking the windows"? Ugh. Don't bring up all that stuff, PLEASE. ha I put all my energy into the outside in yard and gardens, the house goes to pot. What is a "rainhandler"?

Christine
(who has a sore back today cause she tried to show off and trim most of the privet hedge yesterday)

Wow - you guys have some hefty projects going. I think digging up bushes and moving things from spot to spot are big projects. Maybe it's because I work full time - or maybe you guys are just super ambitous...but, I'm impressed.

Chills - We live in the city and don't have drip hoses or an irrigation system set up. Pretty much do the sprinkler and hand watering.

Do you all have alot of property to tend?

I only have 1.7 of an acre., and it's in the shape of a big triangle.

Janicej11.. I've got a very densely planted 1/8th acre. (more than a dozen different berries, fruit trees, etc...I quit counting when I reached 75 edible shrubs/trees).

The drip irrigation was in response to losing a new or favorite tree, vine or other plant each time I had to leave my garden for more than 2-3 days at a time (and my family lives well across the country, in three different directions, so I have to travel at least a couple times each summer).

Schoolhouse, I'd be dangerous with 1.7 acre. Rainhandlers are louvered contraptions that cause the water falling from a house's roof to be broken up and spread out into a fine rain outwards from the foundation of the house. The benefits are that they don't clog, don't need much maintence and they encouage the water to more evenly asorb into the ground without flooding out one's foundation/basement. They are quite popular in regions where snow is plentiful as they also discourage ice-damming.

I'll include a link below, though I am not in any way affiliated with the company in any way.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rainhandler

It seems so weird to me that you all are already doing fall clean up! That is still a good 8 to 10 weeks away for me. I love September and October because they come as close to just needing to "putter" as I ever get. Plus, my beds seem to get a new lease on life during the cooler temperatures (high seventies to low eighties). And, the light is a little softer, so colors are more vivid.

I have put my tulips and hyacinths in the refrigerator for their l0 week chill time, and I have been checking any and all seed racks for fall sowing annuals like larkspur and poppies.

In about another month I will start taking cuttings from annuals and half hardy perennials that I don't want to have to buy again next year, or that I may not be able to find again next year, and start getting them ready to move inside under lights. It will also be time to divide cannas and such, leaving some in the ground and giving away the rest so that they haven't taken over the beds by spring.

I have alot of daylilies that need to be divided this fall and I plan to put a healthy amount of amendments in their soil. They didn't bloom well at all this year and I realized mid summer that it has been five years since I did anything more to that soil than mulch it with pinestraw. I drew a garden design for a good friend this summer and she is going to pay me in horse manure. That ought to do the trick! :)

Come late October or early November, it will be time to plant pansies and other cool season annuals, and bulbs, of course. I usually put out about 20 flats of pansies and that is truly my very favorite thing to do every year. The weather is always so perfect then and I do believe I love pansies the best of any flower I grow. I am trying a new variety this year that is a mixture of blues and bronzes. I found some bronze tulips from Brent and Beckys that I am going to interplant in the pansies.
I just love gardening! :)

Chills - thanks for the link and background on Rainhandlers.

Another Fall project is to do some lasgna layering in a portion of a garden that has poor soil and has not been doing well with the perennials living there. Maybe the newspaper and mulch on top of the area (once I cut everything to the ground) will provide a new beginning in the spring, and an opportunity to plant in better soil.

My list of what I want to do is 3 pages long!!! I think of this time as the pre-fall list. Not really cleanup but dividing and moving things around and finally making decisions as to what goes where.

As things are getting overcrowded (and I am finally learning to leave more room between plants), I have a surplus of plants so I am getting real picky as to what goes in the beds. But two friends are starting up new empty beds so that works out great. Keeps me motivated to keep digging. Boy, hostas really put out some huge root balls..

Yesterday was such lovely weather for doing this stuff, I could have done it indefinitely. Today I am having trouble getting back in there to at least finish up the last area I started yesterday. One more coffee...

donnabaskets, I don't know about anyone else here, but although I posted my fall to-do list, I am not doing it now. I won't start with the bed extensions and the pathways until mid-October, and the putting down the mulch won't be done until December or even January, depending upon when the ground freezes (I've got a vole problem, so I need to wait until then.)

I may do some moving around of plants now, to give them time to establish, but I don't think of that as fall clean-up. More of an end-of-season planting - kind of like Wendy's view of things! The big projects are definitely a few weeks away.

I'm still harvesting vegetables and cutting flowers. I won't admit the season is over till the snow falls, lol!

:)
Dee

One project off my list already. Privet hedge is done! Looks somewhat hacked to death, but it's 12' high and old with lots of thick branches. Thank goodness I only do the road side cause the other side forms the hedge tunnel that runs down thru the orchard. I use a electric pole saw to reach the very tip top that hangs into the road if I don't keep it in check, so my neck is going to be killing me tomorrow.

And, yes thanks Chills for the Rainhandler link.

Janice: Fall projects.... oh, yeah: get my house ready to be painted :) just kidding!

Labels on plants, esp. those that emerge late. Making notes: I start a Fall Notes file on the desktop each year, make notes for next spring about what to move, what to divide, what to give away, what to spray, etc. etc. Also move a few things in fall, pot up some "extras" for my garden club fall sale, plant bulbs and trim all the perennials down.

Found an EXCELLENT "tip" in Fine Gardening last year: use an electric edge trimmer to mow down perennials - especially the ones with tough stems, like phlox. Works like a charm and cuts down SIGNIFICANTLY on the cleanup time.

Yesterday I actually got started on one of my fall projects which felt really good. I dug up several of my daylilies and transplanted them to make room for liberating a few roses of their pot prisons. Subsequently I planted three roses, a Nepata Walkers Low and moved a coneflower to a pot that really needed some color in it. I also picked up some annuals on sale Saturday morning and replaced some that had become rather fried during our hot weather along with some adorable little mums. I shovel pruned a rose that had been annoying me for months and planted the rose 'Hot Cocoa' in its place so that was exciting.

From this point on we will probably be doing mostly yard cleanup. I want to rototill a stretch of grass in the front yard but I change my mind daily about if I should do it now or next spring. I'm so exhausted from a lot of what I did all summer this spring sounds more attractive just now:)

Kate

I'm still with Dee in thought. Thinking about moving my Ruby Spice and separating some Coneflowers and moving them to another location, but it's just too soon. Looks like everyone has a huge to-do list. Do you actually accomplish all of these before winter? Lots of ideas to think about!

"...Do you actually accomplish all of these before winter?..."

Heh, heh, heh...

...Oh, was that a serious question? LOL!

Well, speaking for myself, no, I usually don't! Shoot, I can't even get my darn leaves raked up! But I do make an honest attempt to get things done... well, at least I *start out* making an honest attempt. Sometimes when it's cold and blustery and perhaps even snowy, I say the heck with it and my fall to-do list changes into my spring to-do list, lol.

:)
Dee

Just shuddering at my list all by myself without even sharing! I have to go find out where a large Ribes can live, identify a very pretty shrub that appeared at the edge of the woods and has been in bloom for a month, move some viburnums and a spruce and move some hydrangeas that I'm tired of having the deer eat out every winter.

But I did want to add that I hope you meant you were going to plant Caladiums inside - they aren't hardy to your zone and will die outdoors in the winter.

Alyrics - Thanks for the info. I was going to plant Caladium bulbs this Fall - didn't know that was a bad idea.
I don't plant bulbs, so didn't know overwintering was a problem.

hi janice,

You mentioned Caladium bulbs...I was under the impression that they die here in our area(chicago) during winter and not come back the following year. So why are you planting them now? I'm very interested to know because my wife loves them so much when she saw it at Home Depot.

Thanks.

Caladiums are might be overwintered indoor in our zone.
Well, fall projects-
-finish planting few leftover hostas from recent mail order.
-dig out perennials of "totally hosta" beds and replant them somewhere else/ about 40 or so...
-plant about 1000 bulbs/ already bought/
-uplift cement walkway to the house and replace with stone path, hopefully can get help from hubby for this one...
- make new flower beds from where now cement walk is
- undo my veggie beds frames since I garden in
community gardens, space is rented, relocate wood back to the shed near the house.
-plant about 20 new clematis that I ordered this summer from forever closing Chalk Hill nursery/ what was I thinking?
- visit /2hr drive/ nursery from me to see if I can get any interesting shrubs to supplement my collection- have a date set...
-preserve whatever still growing in my veggie garden- boy, this one is tough as things keep coming...
- transplant phys. Summer Wine to different place- overgrown its location
- transplant oak leaf hydrangea Snowflakes for same reason
- finish up collecting seeds for seed exchange and swaps- never ending procedure...
- prepare and stock up for Winter sowing season...

somebody were saying something about shredding leaves?....
naah, I am lazy gardener, as long as I sweep them from
walk path to flower beds, they fine, some will decompose by the spring and some by next summer, why bother...have only oaks on my property, those ones are stiff enough not to smother any perennials.

oh yeah, keep watering until late November if no rain- hate doing this but helps plants...
sprinkle Sluggo few more times...
hopefully by the time I am done Winter will be in full blast and Winter sowing will begin...
and have to do all of it this fall as spring will be busier...

Phew! Lindalana, I am EXHAUSTED just reading your list, lol. Heck, just doing one or two things from your list is enough for me!

Are you really going to pull out a cement sidewalk and replace it? What iniative! I've been wanting to do that to my front walk since I moved in over 10 years ago, but never really thought of doing it *myself*. I figured that was a contractor-type job. I'm impressed.

Heck, I'm impressed that you are planting 1000 bulbs, lol, and even more impressed that you already bought them! I haven't even cracked open the bulb catalogs on my table yet.

Speaking of which, I think my favorite on your list is this:

"- visit /2hr drive/ nursery from me to see if I can get any interesting shrubs to supplement my collection- have a date set..."

LOL, what's the matter - you don't have enough to do already?

:)
Dee

Breaking up an old cement patio that just happens to be right in the middle of my garden was on my list originally,too. But I talked myself out of it! There's probably a foot of gravel underneath it knowing my great uncle and how thorough he was when laying concrete. One year I removed (by myself) a smaller slab to replace it with two stone steps down into a sunken garden. The gravel was a benefit there, but there was rebar in the cement too. What a job.

And speaking of rebar - when I had the front porch restored, and the concrete slab taken out (replaced with a wooden floor) my Uncle had used what the guy I hired to do the job and I could only describe as old buggy axles as rebar!

Ho, boy! My husband and I bought a house in New Orleans 25 years ago (we were young, really young, then). It was in a great neighborhood but had sat empty and unsold for three years. Problem? The previous owner hated mowing grass so he had poured concrete over the entire backyard and half of the front out to the street! Fence to fence, no kidding! You don't know hot until your have a brick house in the middle of a cement yard in New Orleans! Long story short, my husband would rent a jack hammer every time he could get a day free and spend the whole day breaking it up. Then he and I would cut the rebar, (oh yeah, it was reinforced.) put the chunks in the wheelbarrow and roll it out to the front. Believe it our not, the trash collectors would come by and pick it up. It took us three years to get it all up and out! All I can say, lindalana, is if you're over 35, my advice is to hire help for the concrete! :)

Remember, I said it seemed weird to me that y'all were talking fall? I found daffodils coming up in my yard this week! (Our high today was 91.)

yeah, cement work is job and a half... I have been talking myself into it for last couple years but now I have to do.
I did some of cement walk lifting when I was building my bog garden... my hubby came up with some neat way to lift those cement blocks up and crumble them in several pieces, I hope he can utilize that again ...
Schoolhouse,
I know there is plenty of small pebble under it but I could mix it with good compost/ poor clay soil which will create nice "well drained moisture retentive" soil ;)
Dee,
1000 bulbs is really nothing when it comes to small ones, you dig out small spot, sprinkle out about 10 and go to next one, considering that in most places I can dig with my hands/ results of all those decomposed oak leaves and tons of worms/ it usually works pretty well. Our local Menards has good deal going on bulbs and I do love all those small ones- chinodoxa, pushinkina, ornitogalum, muscari, crocus, miniature daffodils and such. My first flower/ snowdrops/ starts usually mid Feb / of course providing the snow melted by that time/ and then I have bulbs flowering non stop till late May when perennials take over firmly. I am great believer in double and triple planting same spot to get more interest out of it and bulbs help me a lot.

lindalana, you are right, of course, that 1000 bulbs isn't much when you consider the small ones. But in my frame of mind, at the moment finding time to plant a dozen would frazzle me, lol.

I was helping a friend plant daffs one fall. She had bought many bags of a dozen each. After a couple of hours, she was sitting there on the ground with the last bag, on the edge of a hole that really wasn't big enough. She dumped the bag of bulbs into the hole, left them piled up as they fell, and threw the dirt over them swearing that she never wanted to plant another daff in her life. I sat by crying tears of laughter. That particular batch of daffs looked great the following spring.

But that's how I feel about bulbs this year. I'm not lucky enough as you to have such workable soil. Of course, come spring, I will wish I hadn't been so lazy!

My mother always used to say she was going to pour green cement in the front yard, because she couldn't get the grass to grow. Our front yard was only about 25 by 15 feet, so it wouldn't have been that big, but thankfully she never carried out her threat!

donnabaskets...wow. I'm not sure what else there is to say, lol!

:)
Dee

"Would like to build two small stone walls to define the back of the garden, with a short retaining wall connected to it that would border a raised bed that is currently filled with daffodil bulbs. I'd like to create the look of a grassy lane between the walls, big enough to ride the mower through. The gathering of the stone is really the only hard part. And the digging and leveling the spot I guess on account of all the roots I'm sure to encounter."

Project has begun! My brother volunteered (!) to help gather rocks today down at his cabin. We had to use a two-wheel truck dolly to bring them all up out of the ravine and to his pickup truck. I did most of the choosing and gathering and sorting into piles first, then he did the pulling up the hill. I tried it twice, but that was enough for me. Now, 25yrs. ago, I could have done it all day! Instead I carried the smaller "filler" stones up by the armfuls until all were loaded and on their way to my house. He was able to back the truck up to the work site and we pitched the rocks off.

At the beginning of the week, I had already dug the two trenches in preparation. Each wall will be 5' long, 3' wide and appx. 2' or 2 1/2' high. It looks like alot of rock until a person starts laying the wall, hopefully I won't have to go snitch rocks off the low wall in the orchard (which used to be higher, but like I said, sometimes I snitch, ha). I know there won't be enough for the retaining wall half of the project, besides which I didn't gather the right size stones for that today anyway. Maybe next year.

After reading all of these - apparently not enough!!! Thanks guys for making my head spin. I came into this post for some advice for a newbie on what to do with perennials before winter (moved into a new house completely landscaped) because I didn't know when the right time wass to cut them back (do now) but now I have all these ideas that my husband will just give me that hairy eyeball look for and wonder what has come over me.

Didn't get enough stone Sunday. I had a bad feeling when I surveyed the pile the next day; so, I decided to go down to the orchard wall and see what I could take. Dug out a total of nine really big rocks from the old wall, in places where there absence won't be noticed too much. Three from behind the wall and six from a span that went behind and ended up under a trellis house that collapsed years ago. All had been partially hidden anyway by briars and vines and had sunk into the ground a good bit. How I had managed to put those stones there in the first place amazes me! ha.

But, it's raining today and is expected to continue the rest of the week; so I'm stuck in the house. The rain is badly needed tho, I won't complain too much. Only, I wished that I had planted the rest of my tulip bulbs before today.

Finally - my brother was able to put aside this Sunday (today) to gather more rocks for the second wall. I told him if we didn't do it soon, I would be out of the mood for wall building. The first wall went up the second week of October and went very well, used more small, flat stones than I intended; but it looks alright. When we came back to my house and unloaded the rocks from his pickup, I beamed and asked him how he liked the first wall I built.

"It's nice, but I don't really see the purpose of it," he says. It was a good thing I was too tired to lift another stone or he might have been laid unconscious.

Wall is finished. Scratch that project off my list. Now to plant 30 tulips bulbs and some Byz.Glad bulbs, make leaf mulch later this month - and I'm puttin' away the garden gloves.

Schoolhouse, you are *way* too motivated for me, lol! But good for you! I'm proud of myself that I got some seeds sown and germinated for my cold frames.... now I just have to *build* the cold frames!

:)
Dee

Geez...today I was so proud of getting all my pots/saucers emptied of annuals (adding old soil to gardens), washed out with bleach solution and stored away in big outdoor container UNTIL I read about people's walls and jack hammering concrete...LOL.

I'm so jealous of people who have real good sized rocks on their property although I know that sounds counter intuitive. Have to buy rocks to make any nice garden arrangements. Laying out cash for "rocks" is lower on the priority list than compost, plants and MORE containers for next season.

Raking and bagging leaves as they dry out so we can run mower over them for winter mulching after good ground freezing.

Waiting to put rose bushes and azaleas to bed for winter. Want to put burlap over azaleas this year so I don't have to spray with deer repellant every week.

Have to dig up old Tulip bulbs and plant new ones in bed that I have to totally redo with amendments and raise up a bit for better drainage. Will fall/winter sow hardy annuals around bulbs in endless attempt to try and cover up ratty foliage that hung around til August this year. I'll wintersow some in case the fall sown seeds get "lost" over winter. Never tried fall sowing them but some garden sites say they can be direct sown in Fall so it's worth a try.

Potted all bulbs that I don't have place for in ground due to poor drainage or maze of roots.

Every time I walk around doing one chore I see another than needs to get done.

Potted end of season sale perennials that don't have place for in ground for same reasons as potted bulbs but still have those 5/$10 perennials they have out at local nursery and looking to see if they have more. Got some Salvia lyrata before I googled plant and found out they reseed like crazy into lawn and anywhere else they like.

My hydrangea are fated to live out their lives on the deck since deer feast on them.

One of the things I keep walking past is a laundry basket full of daffodil bulbs I dug out last spring and have kept buried and on hold for replanting in fall. Now I just have to find a place for them...LOL. They could end up mostly in pots and let the bloom chips fall where they may.

I've got seeds drying on dining room table which are safe until Thanksgiving dinner...LOL.

Collecting containers for winter sowing. After last year's hullabaloo over all the containers everywhere at my father's where I garden I'm garbage bagging them to take home to my condo for washing/bleaching and cutting to prep for winter sowing.

More tree pruning to do but there aren't any more municipal branch pick ups until next spring so I have to haul them to back and then out to curb in spring. A pain but certainly not in the league of building walls and jack hammering concrete...LOL.

I'm also retired. LOL.

"...Every time I walk around doing one chore I see another that needs to get done..."

Man, do I hear ya on that one!

:)
Dee

Okay, so fess up! How many of you have completed your lists? I just re-read mine and I'm not doing too badly, but I am going to be pushing it to beat frost. It has taken the better part of three weeks to dig and divide all my daylilies (NO MORE! Do you hear me? No MORE daylilies! Except maybe...:)
I spent all day long today taking cuttings for over-wintering and dragging out my 22 flats of pansies I started from seed. Will start planting those tomorrow.
And so help me, I just have to rework my shade border this year!

I couldn't do this up north. We don't have frost here until Thanksgiving and I'm still pushed!

Well most of the jobs are done. I did go back and read my list, glad to have them done. Have to confess the DD did the mulch spreading this weekend. Sure took a load off my mind. She and her visiting friend talked while spreading a yard and a half of mulch. They got the front beds finished, and all of the big bed along the privacy fence. Changed that soaker hose too before mulching. Did get a bit sloppy, BUT mulch is out of my truck and on the bed so job is GOOD! Looks nice and neat, kind of a rich brown with bright green plants.

I am picking up the statuary for winter, putting away. Had to add a couple jobs because of puppy. She has taken to grabbing and pulling or chewing off branches that are level or below her face. This has raised the trim level on a LOT of shrubs! I spent a day making cages for all my shrubs to protect them from her, trimming the stub ends neatly off. I have run out of wire, because it is out of stock at TSC, so had to quit. Still need some more cages to finish the job.

Marked a bunch of scrubby trees to cut when we have time. Wanted to get them marked before the leaves fell off. Husband has to get a new chainsaw first. I found some small beeches on Ebay, waiting for them to arrive. I will put them in the annual garden to over-winter since trees are not trimmed out yet. Got a couple dwarf Katsura trees too. Everything written says they are nice, had good color when they came. Also overwintering in the garden bed for spring planting. I am thinking of doing some Blueberries in the trimmed out area, nice berries and good fall color. Should have plenty of sun with trees trimmed out.

Moved some puny rosebushes out into a more sunny bed, seem happy with blooms and buds coming along. Have to net over the fishpond and take in the water squirter so it won't freeze. Have to clean out the leaves first, didn't get the nets on soon enough. Two small goldfish have turned white with just tangerine spots. Sure happened fast, all white within 7 days!

Got Tulips trees planted, need to cage all the small field trees from rabbits.

Supposed to get a good frost tonight, maybe it will kill the pots of flowering plants. The other two frosts didn't come up into the yard. All the annuals are still blooming well, lots of color. Leaves are starting to come down but we are going on vacation for a week, have to wait for leaf shredding. Maybe I can save my fancy sunflower seeds, Zinnias, Cosmos and Nasturtiam seeds by then too. All the flowers are still green, nothing dried out yet to collect from. Planted some Kale, purple, for winter color along the annual bed edges. Very pretty, sure a shot of color looking across the yard with HUGE blooms.

Weather has been great, sunny and nice with temps 60+F. Spending most of each day outside doing stuff.

Forgot to mention that I got a great deal on a lot of round pavers, end of season sale. I have them everyplace, prevent puppy digging, covering muddy areas under gates. Really happy with that purchase.

Hmmmm. Well, let's see: looks like I'm not going to get the small retaining wall built this year UNLESS I find a cache of rocks nearby I can use and I still have the energy. The mowing off of the wildflower/weed patch has to wait another week -except I can't make up my mind whether it would be best to mow it off this fall or wait until Spring. Usually wait until Spring. Anxious to see how that big piece of sandstone would look set up down there, tho. All in all, I'm pretty much done.

I'm trying to plant as much of my pot ghetto as possible before the snow flies as I had a knee injury that kept me out of the garden for two months this summer and has limited my work through the fall. I put in a new mixed border (some newly puchased plants and some from the pots - thank heavens for the tractor to move the manure into place!) and have added other plants to already established borders. As my husband has been producing mulch in his wood shop, I'm spreading that on the borders as well.

Some of the work that needs doing, like edging beds and removing shrubs will have to wait until spring since I still can't do extensive digging.

I mowed down the weed and wildflower patch this morning. Whew! The dried seed heads, blooms and the dust were flying everywhere as I made many passes with the riding mower, first set on the highest setting, then eventually lowering the blade slowly one level at time. When I was done, both the mower and I were covered with golden rod "fuzz". Found a tiny oak tree growing amid the jungle, it's few leaves turned a beautiful red; I mowed around it, and I'll decide next year whether to allow it to grow much more.

As I rode away and looked back on the area, I couldn't believe how lovely it was there now. Should I keep it mowed from now on, or will I miss my weeds and grasses and wild blooms? Can't have it both ways. Perhaps go ahead with my earlier plan of mowing paths through it next Spring instead?
Decisions.

Well, I never wrote my list down, lol, so I have nothing to look back on and check up on!

I did get my vegetable beds cleared out, and dug up my dahlias (going out to wrap them up this afternoon). I also got some carrots, lettuce, spinach, parsley and mache sown and germinated for the first-time cold frames. I have most of the cold frames built - or, I should say, a friend of mine built them, although they are still at her house.

I planted garlic for the first time, and planted it too early. It's growing like gangbusters. Sigh.

I got my hairy vetch sown early enough this year (did you hear that, PM2, lol?) so that is going fairly well in the veggie beds.

I still have a ton of work to do - bulbs to plant, beds to clean up, statuary, etc., to bring in, rain barrels to bring in, pots to empty and clean, and of course, LEAVES TO RAKE AND SHRED!!! AGHHHH!

:)
Dee

Got all the shrub and tree caging done, just in time. I found the PG Hydrangea with rabbit nibbles on a stick, bud gone. They have SO MUCH else to eat, why the PG? They ate it to the ground last year, had to resprout from the roots and finally was looking nice. It is caged now, no more snacks. Funny how other Hydrangeas never get any nibbles, even when it is really cold. Also caged the new tree saplings in sunken pots, out in the holding garden. They are TINY things, probably real tasty, so best protected. Got the field trees caged, used plastic mesh and tomato cages because I ran out of wire. Have to see how they do against rabbits THIS year!

Pulled in all the decorations still out, statues, big pots, emptied dirt, stacked in the shed. No frozen dirt in pots like last year!! Felt bad because the plants were still blooming despite the cold, but waiting was what caused problems last year. Got the couple dahlias, two cannas dug up into sawdust, potted geraniums, down in the basement. Only put in a few new tulips, replaced what the puppy dug up. Will probably do more bulb work next year. I may have to redo a bed then to put in a new path.

Have to collect seeds from Marigolds, striped Zinnias, Cosmos, fancy Sunflowers still. With rain last week, everything has been slow drying out to collect. Still some trimming of plants, lily and peony leaves to remove. Roses I moved recently seem quite happy, even blooming.

I need to pull some trellis', going to just trade locations with tall and short. Should be a quick job.

Pond is netted, set until filter needs changing on the bubbler. I leave that run all winter because it keeps the water cleaner, prevents the ice from freezing so quickly. Small pond, so not much work. Water squirter put away and lines drained.

Puppy is turning into a nice garden dog. She drags trimmed branches around, likes laying by me as I work in the yard. Luckily she seems happy digging in the empty tomato bed. That will be easy to fix with rototilling in spring. SEEMS to help with keeping holes in the same location! Maybe she likes easy digging, that is nice dirt. The barn cats have been coming out to supervise, rolling around in the garden, wanting to be petted as I work. They tend to stay behind the fence on beds, so dog runs around and around, watching them. Both seem to be having a good time.

We still haven't got half the leaves down, so not raking them yet for shredding.

Still need to wrap the plastic around fence surrounding the Japanese Maple. Plastic cuts the wind on tree, seems to help prevent as much die-off on the tree top. One of those zone border-line trees, needs no extra work beyond the plastic on fence. Love the curly little leaves it has.

Hoses need to be picked up and coiled, put away for winter.

We were gone on vacation last week, so coming back after a break makes it more fun. Did have a lot of fun looking at all the plants, trees, gardens as we drove along. Very attractive plantings of wildflowers, mostly Cosmos now, in the dividers of Highways in North Carolina, West Virgina. Ran for long strips of road, bright colors really perked up the view.

This warm weather is sure great for being outside, finishing off the yard jobs. After the outside stuff, the garden shed will need sorting. I keep tossing everything in there, run off to do something else, so order needs to be restored!

My, you people are ambitious! We have 4 days of good warm weather so I am trying to catch up on some chores and get ahead on some others. I usually save the jobs I don't like for last. I have clean up the woodland garden ( i.e. get up as much garlic mustard as possible, divide perennials, and finally make a map of what I have there) It looks real nice right now. I also cut down the rest of the cornstalks, planted garlic, cleaned up the rose bed. Today I plan on finishing up up a lasagna bed, finish rounding up all the stray pots that end up all over the garden. Oh, 'Id like to buy a few more bulbs.

kim

Yes, I have to put chicken wire around my smaller shrubs down on the property line yet, too. Rabbits, as goodhors mentioned, have nibbled on my new chokecherry shrubs already.
I might wait more towards the end of the month. Mine don't begin to suffer any real critter damage until there's snow on the ground - normally, that is. I did have something dig one of my newly planted holly shrubs right out of the ground! Luckily, I found it soon and set it firm again and piled the dirt and mulch back around it.

Planting fall bulbs like crazy. Got another order in today. It didn't sound like so much at ordering time back in June...
Got my shade bed dug, divided, and replanted last week-end. What a job, but already looks way better. The farfugiums are blooming. They surprise me every year, since I think of them as foliage plants. The blooms are beautiful.
Tomorrow, I am going to start finding places in the ground for as many potted things as possible: hydrangeas, heptacodium, crape myrtles, boxwoods. I am sooo tired of watering pots! On the other hand, I fully intend to get some lettuces planted in pots for the winter. Carrots too. They are so easy in pots.

Almost time to stick rose cuttings....

Just a lot of leaf raking. I got my Autumn Crocus bulbs in last weekend. I'm not very ambitious. I let the plants take care of themselves. I do a big Spring clean-up.

It rained all day yesterday which makes the ground nice and workable; so I put a big pot of homemade vegetable soup on the stove to simmer, and I'm headed out to plant 24 Day Dream tulip bulbs I just couldn't resist throwing into my cart on the way to the checkout counter. This is the last, I promised myself!

Too bad I was so lazy not to rake more leaves or steal other peoples' piles to make more leaf mulch BEFORE it rained. We had such sunny pretty days to do that.

This darn rain is really putting a crimp in my chores! It's been raining for days! I had hoped to shred a ton of leaves this weekend, but I guess no go now. Of course next weekend when I have to work, it will be gorgeous out.

:)
Dee