I cleaned up everything last Sat. but need to haul home some wood chips to cover my roses.

Here in Green Bay there are still masses of bright lemon yellow mums, which will bloom until Thanksgiving. The ornamental grasses are at their peak right now. Shrub roses Bonica, Iceland, and Carefree Wonder keep spitting out a few flowers. There are a few Stella daylily flowers, sweet alyssum flowers, some Blanket Flowers. Every single flower is good for the soul! Spirea bushes have glorious yellow, orange and red leaves now, as do the blueberries. My vegetable garden still has Bright Lights Swiss chard, kohlrabi, and carrots. I finally picked the last of the butternut squash today.

As flowers and vegetables finish up and are no longer beautiful or edible, I remove the litter. I am happy to keep working in my yard into December!

I do most of my clean up in the spring. Like jungseed, I hate to cut down flowers that are still blooming. Some, like the grasses, black eyed susans, and cone flowers are terrific for winter interest. Even with the frost this past week, I still have a few pots of annual geraniums blooming, that I need to cut down and bring in.

This weekend is supposed to be nice - maybe I should just get at the rest of it.

I picked broccoli for dinner last night!

I still have a few carrots and beets to pull, and some potatoes are still in the ground.

I did cut the tops off of the Zinnias and saved the seed for next year.

Oh, and brought the garden hoses in.

Still much to do...

We had a hard freeze last week, and it finally knocked down the last of the perennials and hostas. Got it mostly cleaned up but two of the Norway maples will hold their leaves until Christmas! This weekend I will mow up the last of the leaves and put them on the veg. garden, but I am still picking sugar snap peas, kale, diakon, and up until last week green beans. It has been a long season!

I went out and did a bit more clean up work this weekend. But didn't finish. I just need about 48 more days like today (Monday). Not for garden clean up, just because I like this weather.

Ruth

I'm bummed ... I love to get my veggie garden all cleaned up, weeded and amended in the fall when it is cool and dry. I had a couple beds done and in cover crops, but I broke my foot the first of November and can't navigate up to my plot on crutches. A neighbor planted my garlic and another harvested the last of my brussels sprouts, carrots and beets just yesterday. I had big plans to capture lots of leaves and get them up there and had just found a source of free well composted horse manure. I need to pile on the compost to make headway on the clay. Oh shoot ... just remembered that my strawberries haven't been mulched .... :-(