Well, no new blooms today, but I will say it was a beautiful day with just a *kiss* of frost on the nepeta and the geranium.

Wow, we didn't have a frost yesterday morning and it's still dark here at the moment. I'll have to see if we had the low temps they were forecasting. The forecasts have been way off lately. Edit: I checked and the temp on my front steps @ 7a was 36F.

I didn't think we had a frost yesterday, but lots of things were suddenly dead. Most annuals in my pots were definitely dead. Curiously, my dahlias and some zinnias only look mostly dead, to quote The Princess Bride lol. So i wonder if maybe there was no frost but the temps were low enough to zap the plants?

Part of me is saying okay good, I can finish getting the garden closed up and I can start on digging dahlias. The other part of me is saying, wellll, hold on a bit. These only look mostly dead. Perhaps another day or two of sun will revive them. Then the first part chimes in with, oh for goodness sake! It's November, just clean up the garden! Don't put it off for the sake of half a dozen blooms!

But it's a relatively nice day out today, the sun is shining and it will be 50 degrees in the afternoon, so I think I will indeed go out and at least get a start on cleaning things up for winter! I'll just have to enjoy my monkshood blooms, and the one or two tough (annual) geraniums still going in the pots!

:)

Dee

So yesterday I did make it outside, and starting cutting back some of the dead annuals, pulled out my zapped basil, and removed a small (3x3) raised bed. The raised bed was directly in front of my border garden, which I am extending out into the yard more, so it was nice and easy to remove the foot of grass between the bed and the raised bed, remove the wooden bed, and just incorporate all that nice soil into the extended bed.

I have several raised beds along this border garden, which runs along my property line. This is my sunniest area, and while the border is shrubs and perennials, I had put the raised beds here for veggies. But now I'm REALLY trying to cut back on my veggie garden. It's a lot of work and I've found that as nice as it is in theory, in reality, except for the tomatoes and cukes, and a few hot peppers, everything else sits on the counter and doesn't get used - eggplants, green peppers, squash. So my plan is to eventually remove all these raised beds, extend the garden and make it a nice, (hopefully) low-maintenance garden, and just used my cinderblock beds for veggies, just tomatoes and cukes, one pepper plant, and maybe some beans, which we do eat.

The test will come this fall, as I peruse the seed catalogs. I will have to be ruthless (not my strong trait!!) and just focus on tomatoes and cukes, and I will have to repeat my new mantra ' "I do not need 30 plants each of 10 tomato varieties. I do not need 30 plants each of 10 tomato varieties..."

And once I actually buy the seeds, I will have to restrain myself when winter sowing. "I only need SIX plants of this tomato, not 30. I only need SIX plants of this tomato, not 30" ... Hoping to end up with about thirty tomato plants total, not the 100+ I had this year!

Oh, the whole point of this post, when I came here, was to say that as I was cutting back all these dead annuals, I noticed there's still quite a few insects buzzing around. I hope they find something to feed on! I felt like they were buzzing around all the dead annuals saying, hey! What happened?! Where did everyone go?!

I've got my monkshood going strong, and some potted mums and that's about it. I got one small bloom on my new Iceberg rose. And there was a bee in it! Happy to see the bloom, happier that the bee found it!

:)

Dee

The lowest temp I've had so far is 36F. But that was low enough to zap the very late string beans I planted and the end of the cherry tomatoes. We are well underway of putting the garden to bed. Compost bins are full. Mums are flat on the ground. I pulled the last of the annuals in pots anticipating a freeze because they had been only foliage for the past 3 weeks. I still have an annual Salvia and Cosmos in the garden and Dill that are still looking pretty good.

Dee, I am planning on dismantling my veggie beds. They are about 10 years old and the wood is falling apart. I was struggling with them anyway because of the increasing shade, and the Maple tree roots that were making things very difficult. I did create two smaller veggie beds out front in full sun that don't have those challenges, just rabbits to deal with. [g] I finished making them late in early summer and so I didn't use them fully this season. I've already piled unfinished compost, leaves and hay over the top of them. No more wood beds. I mounded them without a frame and I think that will work fine.

I tried growing veggies in pots this year, and my experience in the past has not been great. I made a lot of effort to get it right and still feel it's a waste of time to grow in pots because they do so much better in the ground. I thought if I grew in high pots that would defeat the rabbits. And it did actually.

We're turning over soil, pulling out roots and rocks and digging holes to plant some shrubs and perennials in pots that need to get in the ground quickly.

I concur with vegetables. I know eventually I NEED to start some vegetables. But, I really want to do that when I’m prepared for the work to be done. I don’t just mean maintenance, but also the work done in picking and preserving. My relatives grew up on dairy farms, and even those who didn’t continue in the business still consider it second nature to cut corn from dozens and dozen of cobs and freeze it for winter eating. Mounds of corn. And, you know that’s not the only vegetable they work to preserve for winter eating. I don’t have a habit of that kind of life, but I know if I start a vegetable garden now, it will just go to waste. I don’t know, I might not get up the gumption until some apocolypse comes and I just have to. But, as thyme and PM found out, at least woodchucks and rabbits (as well as deer, geese, and bears here) would be full.

I was surprised at our frost. Usually we’re later than everybody else, but, as you can see, one morning I was indeed surprised. Lots of things are alive, including that geranium. But, it did kill the ripening Beautyberry berries in all their greenness, or at best light pinkness. I’ve given up on this plant. I’m assuming cold is a trigger to help the berries, but we tend to have mild, wet falls until a freeze zaps things. Once again, the Beautyberries (which I thought didn’t survive our spring weather) refuse to perform. I don;t think I’ll toss them, but next spring they definitely get moved out of the ”front and center” garden and into a more hidden space where their death might perhaps even go unnoticed.

Not much in the garden to share. My son’s friend brought me this photo from a hike they did together in late October. I was touched that they thought of me—not something you typically attrribute to high school boys. it is from a fresh water stream, and I don’t know what it is, but I do know it is exceedingly beautiful. (Could it be dahlias or zinnias that got washed into the water?)

Thyme it really is a curse lol. I usually choose about 6-8 different varieties of tomatoes, and then when I winter sow, I'm sowing like 25-30 seeds of each!! Why??? I always say, well, you really don't need that much, sow 10. But, but what if they don't germinate? What if they germinate and something happens (heat, frost, critters, my neglect lol) so there go the 30 seeds each lol. But after I planted about 50-60 tomato plants, gave my daughter another 8-10, and gave some friends another dozen, I took a photo of about 30 little tomato seedlings planted in cups, in a tray, and some still in their WS containers. That tray and those containers sat in that spot in the the driveway all season, and I just dumped them all out last week. I am going to keep that photo on the counter while I wintersow this year lol. I should have actually take another photo last week, when they were all just little dead sticks haha! That would have been better deterrence!

I can only seem to find one photo of my monkshood. Sorry, it's just a closeup of one stem. I do find it quite floppy, and I think I even cut it back this year IIRC.... But the color is gorgeous, IMO, and I like having the late blooms.

I have a few shots with a sprig of it in bouquets

deanna, my veggie gardening skills were never good enough to have stuff left to preserve lol. I often say if I had to feed my family we'd all starve to death! I have canned tomatoes in the past for several years, but always got mine from a local farm.

PM2, I also have encroaching shade on my raised beds. That's actually why I put the newer raised beds in front of the perennial gardens - there's still sun there! I had two wooden ones that a friend made for me about 10 years ago - they're a bit wonky but still holding up pretty well - and then about three I got from Gardener's Supply YEARS ago - black plastic sides. I had them in the garage unused for quite some time because I had built the cinderblock beds, and then pulled them out about 3-4 years ago because of the encroaching shade.

Speaking of which, that really ticks me off lol. I have this area in the corner of my yard along the street, full of scrub sassafras trees and a big cedar tree, I think. The electric company has told me 3 times in the last 30 years they are going to clear it out. Great! Good! Go for it - please! LOL. And they never have. I did finally clear out the sassafras (and grapevine and poison ivy and bittersweet) but what the heck - when did that little oak sapling become a 30-foot tree lol? There's so much shade there that two of the four cinderblock beds can only be half-utilized, and even then there's just not as much sun. I think instead of dismantling them I may try some annuals or perennials in them for cutting. I've had zinnias do fairly ok in part shade, and even fewer blooms in the shade are better than an empty bed! We'll see....

deanna, your photo looks like a Chihuly creation lol - beautiful flowers of glass!

:)

Dee

OH my gosh, Deanna! That photo is surreal! I love the Chihuly reference! That would be an incredible shot made into a wall canvas. It is one of those "real" but "artsy" looking photos. Looks like a painting. Love, love, love it!!!

I'm so surprised to hear that your beautyberries bite the dust with frost?? Mine have been encased in ice some years and do just fine. So interesting. I agree, they're not a great front and center shrub. I had also planted them at one point to be "stars" in the garden, but they're not so much.......and my old one started seeding around years ago. I'm ready to get the shovel and dig it out once and for all!

Dee, I get palpitations looking at all those seedlings knowing the work they take to transplant to larger pots and ultimately in the garden.....and then what to do, what to do.....toss them or give them away. It's hard to be ruthless with a good seedling and throw it in the compost! LOL!

I should really think hard about aconitum. Love it in the bouquet. What a gorgeous color. I shall take note about floppiness. I do a bit of staking in the garden now. Not sure i want to add yet another plant to that list. But this one might be worth it.

Don't get me going on oak saplings.....those suckers grow FAST!! That is a project my husband and I are going to work on over this next month. I know we have over a hundred to try to pull out, dig up or snip back and hope it doesn't come back (yeah, right!)

Here are some shots from today. Figures the sun peeked through right when I came back into the house. More than anything this fall is how surprised I am that so many shrubs and tress have NOT started turning any color yet. I'm curious to see if it's going to be a really quick turn all of a sudden.

Shade garden with a new crabapple that the berries are gorgeous and hang on! So many I see get shriveled up and brown and drop. I'm so happy about this one! Paperbark maple in background and a viburnum to lower left of it and also behind right. All still green......

I am looking for to hopefully some butterfly weed seedlings. I've collected and spread many seeds in some wilder areas in my yard. I have planted probably about 18 or so throughout the yard and I love the bright orange and when they're a little older they'll rebloom if deadheaded.

Larch just barely getting its yellow. I hope the needles hold on until it's full-on yellow.

This is next to our driveway and was an experiment. We let anything grow up that wanted to.

The whole wild border is probably about 50' or more long and it was filled with asters and goldenrod, grasses and some queen anne's lace. Threw lots of butterfly weed seeds in this area a few weeks ago. If I get one i'd be thrilled. The insect activity in this long border was incredible and we love the seed heads. So glad we "let it go".

We have lots of huckelberry and it turns such a nice fall color.

Move the winterberry from shade in the back to full sun in the front and it's been really happy with that move.

The sheffield is STILL going strong. What a winner this plant is!

The pear tree behind the house is late to turn and it usually turns a very dark mahogony color, but this year more orange/red. We're liking it!

Looking forward to pieris flowers! Photo was taken into the sun but you get the idea.

I still have some rosebuds and am curious to see if any of the roses will still put out some bloom. It's getting cold but not too cold yet.

Hope everyone has a great day! I better go back to work! They're probably looking for me! LOL!

Vegetable gardening was my first love. I started my first vegetable garden after a new friend had an organic vegetable garden and I was inspired. That was back in 1980. Long time ago. I really wish I had the conditions for a really nice big one. And that I had the energy of a 20 year old to go with it. [g] I keep trying to keep my hand in, but really the rabbits are now my biggest deterrent. I haven't given up yet, but I need to find a way to keep them out of the veggies successfully soon.

That first photo of your Dahlia bouquet is very eye catching, Dee. And I agree that photo that Deanna posted does remind me of Chihuly!

Thyme, that's my favorite shade on your Sedum. I wish it would last longer before going to rust. The rust color is the only thing I don't like about sedum. I have one of mine that hasn't turned yet too....not as pretty as the color on yours. Edit: Oops! I didn't see the other photos you posted until now. LOTS of color still left in your garden, Nice way to close out the season!

I still have flowers - not that I haven't posted them before, but I thought I'd have a record here of how late we had flowers this year....

Verbena bonariensis

The last of the Cilantro - it's windy, so it's not too sharp.

The last of the cosmos and Mums.

And this mess is a native Monarda that I started from seed, that is covered with powdery mildew. I'm going to pull every last one of them. I really can't stand looking at powdery mildew.

The bird baths are ready for winter in front of Oakleaf Hydrangea that has some more deepening of the fall color before the leaves drop.

Wow! that oakleaf color is amazing!! Mine have not started turning yet.

I agree - the color on that oakleaf hydrangea is gorgeous! PM2, I think it is the Great Silence dahlia that catches your eye in that bouquet - it has to be one of the most beautiful dahlias I've seen. The colors are just amazing!

"... It's hard to be ruthless with a good seedling and throw it in the compost! LOL! ..."

EXACTLY!!! Lol, I can't thin tiny seedlings either. I just can't do it!

Thyme you do indeed have some nice color there yet. I was pleasantly surprised by a couple of my oaks this year. Usually they are just a boring dull reddish brown but we had some quite nice, if short-lived color - a much richer golden red. Not as nice as a few years ago when we had the most spectacular color I've seen in 30 years, but it was still nice. Some of my oaks are still green though. I have SO...MANY...LEAVES on the ground, but it's kind of useless to start clean-up yet. You look at the leaves and think, oh my gosh we must get this done... and then look up and see there are more leaves on the trees than on the ground. And still green. Sigh. That's one thing I don't like about oaks. I grew up in the city but most of the few trees we had were maples, and I was disappointed the first year I moved here to "the country" (not really lol, but to a city girl....). We had no fall color. That's when I learned not all trees have lovely color lol. But I've come to love my oaks if only because they let me garden under them lol. Unlike maples!

I was driving to work this morning and literally did a head turn because something caught my eye. It was a clump of what I'm pretty sure were Sheffield mums. Gorgeous!

Love your pieris Thyme. We finally removed ours - case of wrong plant for the spot. They were in front of my house, along with rhodies and yews. I have a cape so only one level in front, and all these shrubs were a good 8 feet tall, with one of the rhodies about 12-14 feet, towering above the roof. Boy I loved those shrubs but they just hid the entire house. Plus they were literally 2 feet from the cinderblock foundation and I believe they were starting to affect it. I haven't been able to re-plant the foundation bed yet due to job losses and health issues, etc (i.e. life lol) but I'm hoping to finally afford to start in the spring, and pieris is definitely on my list - just a proper variety. I swear every plant in the 50's grew ten feet tall at least lol!

:)

Dee

Oh, meant to add - I wasn't sure exactly what you meant by beautyberry (I've heard people call several plants by this name or something similar that I am confusing it with!) but if you mean callicarpa, I am surprised too deanna that yours don't do well in the cooler temps. I planted one in my customer's front bed, front and center, and I believe it was my - and more importantly, HER - favorite plant in her garden. It was spectacular every year. I believe it was Early Amethyst.

I just added some Pearl Glams to my gardens, and I'm wondering if I should have stuck with Early Amethyst. Both Pearl Glams are not very vigorous - one of them I actually thought died over winter, so I bought another and the original decided to revive. Honestly the one I bought (that is still in a pot) is doing better than either one I planted last year. I also wasn't sure if I liked the berries against the foliage, (I thought the berries stood out better against the green leaves of EA) but I must say the PG foliage (at least on the new, potted one) was quite lovely in late season.

:)

Dee

I love Pieris and just can't get it to grow here. I have no idea why. I tried it 3x at least.

Dee, yes, it must be the Great Silence Dahlia - so colorful! I don't always enjoy a multicolor flower but that one is special. Interesting name for a dahlia that is screaming for attention...lol.

That Fall color on the Oakleaf has stayed the shovel a few times. [g] The flowers always turn ugly brown way too early, especially in dry years. And there is a hybrid with flowers that are almost double the size of mine, that I wish I had gotten. But, it's growing well under the dripline of that Maple and has not been bothered by cold weather or insects or disease and then there is that Fall Color - it will also get a little bright red some years before or after that deep burgundy, I forget.

Dee, I just bought 'Scintilation' Rododendron. it's supposed to max out at 5-6ft. Maybe that is something that if planted far enough away from the foundation would work for you. Pretty pink flowers, dense, dark green attractive foliage.

So nice to stop in here and read familiar voices!

I spent from mid-July until the end of September in New Hampshire, but due to work that needed to be done on my living space (formerly DH’s shop) and the wet weather, I did very little gardening other than some trimming and culling around the building. I also dug some plants from my former house and the pots are now sitting in a pile of old mulch, waiting to be planted next year.

I did more work in WI, removing more than half of the rock that the PO mulched the beds with, and remulching with shredded bark. I planted a bunch of perennials and also something like 60 seedlings, mostly of native shrubs and trees, many of which I ordered from the NH State nursery. They were planted around the yard as well as along the rear property line. When I bought the house it was wooded but when they rebuilt the drainage (due to uphill new construction creating erosion issues) they removed all the trees. So the city has added a some native trees and shrubs, along with seeding in prairie plants on both sides of the drainage which started blooming this fall. I have added a bunch more shrubs and evergreens, though an overhead wire limits the height of what I can plant along the back of the property. My neighbor on the other bank of the drainage has planted something like 15 evergreens so we will eventually have some visual shelter.

I also assembled, filled, and planted 3 metal raised beds for veggies, far smaller than my veggie garden in NH.

I will confess that though I worked hard, I didn’t do ALL the work. I hired my college aged niece to help, which was fun for both of us. I will add photos, but I don’t want to lose all this.

I have to keep coming back to check Houzz, because they are just not notifying me when there are posts to read. So imagine my surprise to come back and see a post from Babs! lol How really great to see you Babs! And of course, you've been really busy establishing a new garden at the new house and working on bringing over more plants from the old house. I am very impressed with the amount you have already done and the comprehensiveness of your plans. Isn't it great to live close enough to family to have them work with you in the garden!

What a shame that a drainage ditch had to be installed and they had to remove so many mature trees to do it. That must have been a hard pill to swallow, but an opportunity at the same time to choose from the beginning.

I'm looking forward to seeing photos! We've missed you! :-)

Yay babs! (clapping my hands over here!!) So good to "see" you! Wow, you have been very busy! I have to say I would be horrified to have bought a wooded lot and then have the trees removed. Yikes. But it sounds like you are making great progress already on addressing it. Can't wait to see pictures!

Yes, PM2, I am definitely going to add more rhodies to my front foundation planting. Just something more suitable (i.e. shorter!) to the spot. I will add Scintillation to my list - and look forward to some of your photos come spring! I'm sure you saw some of my threads about that foundation planting. I was heartbroken to have to cut down the rhodie. It was spectacular and the blooms were a soft pearl pink. I find so many rhodies, much as I do love them, have somewhat garish colors, so I loved this soft pink. I also thought I could put it in the back yard where I need some privacy and it could grow to it's heart's content without being whacked back yearly. I tried cuttings about three or four times but never had luck. I had someone come out to give me a price on moving all the shrubs (I mean, these were probably at least 30 years old, if not older, and all lovely healthy specimens) but they wanted $3k. The good(?) news is, the rhodie started growing back from the stump. It's only one stem, and it's about two feet tall. I put a question mark because my dilemma is, do I try to dig out the whole darn thing? The soil there is like hardened cement. Do I try one more time for a cutting? There's only one stem so I have one shot lol. I kinda wish it had just died when we cut it down so the agony is not prolonged lol. Oh well, we shall see....

Planning on digging out my dahlias this weekend. Gosh I hate doing that but it is well worth the effort come spring (although truth be told it's just as much a pain in the ....neck in spring too - dragging them out, looking for eyes, trying to divide the tangled messes, finding enough pots to start them in (and pots that will fit the long tubers). Ugh. But then I get a bloom like that funnily-named Great Silence and all is forgiven!

Looking out on a sea of leaves in my yard and thinking with rising panic how my lawn tractor is broken. I may have to go old school and get out the rake. Honestly, I don't mind that (I did that for 25 years until DH took over and bought the tractor) but my leaf shredder is in pieces in the garage, and I NEED shredded leaves!

:)

Dee

Dee, that monkshood is wonderful, and the flower arrangements are BEAUTIFUL! Wow, I’m envious of your dahlias, especially Great Silence. I’m just in awe.

PM, I wish I was as far along as you in getting the garden to bed. I really generally do very little, like Thyme, and let the garden and critters prep for winter on their own, but there are SOME chores, like adding mulch to areas that need more protection because the wind blows it away. My main problem now is peonies. I’ve got several with crowns wayyyyyyyy too exposed and they have hardened there, reducing the number of eyes. Part of the reason, I believe, is the jumping worms in that bed that have eaten soil and diminished it. I’ve got to go out and get more coverage on those ASAP. And, I had hoped to build a berm like yours, but no chance this year.

Thyme, I am not a sedum fan for some reason, but yours would be worth having. It does not look the same color as the others, which I would rename as Junkyard Rust Sedum.

Dee, I, too, have bonsai plants that stay in their jugs each summer. Zinnias are wonderful in bonsai form. If your tomatoes had bloomed, you could have called them blueberry tomatoes based on their size, like cherry tomatoes. I am a big fan of bonsai-by-neglect, apparently, based on how often I do it.

I have never heard of Chihuly, but I looked it up. I do love glass art! I’m going to check with my son to ask where they took the photo. It IS awfully beautiful.

Thyme, EVERY year my beauty berries are zapped before they can get good color. One year I was getting good color beginning on some branches, at least, before The Zap. Our falls are so mild. Anything that needs cool temps to trigger change is generally not going to color as well. Even my Amsonia doesn’t color up as well. I’ve planted Amsonia at the new office and I’ll be curious to see if it colors better. I do believe my house is in a tiny warmer microclimate for some reason, which has its benefits, for sure. I can’t believe yours have been encased in ice! By “do just fine” do you mean the berries continue to ripen, or the plant lives? Mine will live, but the berries just don’t survive any stress. Maybe it’s the variety I bought, which I think was Early Amethyst, like Dee bought for her client. I wish I knew why the berries took so long to change color. It gets LOTS of sun.

Is your new crabapple the tiny tree in the middle of the photo? If so, it’s got so many berries I assumed they were leaves changing color! That’s a winner, for sure.

NHBabs, so GREAT to hear from you! I had thought you were moving from NH, but it sounds like you might be keeping both houses. If so, that’s a treat. You. have years of history in the NH house. I don’t have a niece, but I think ALL the time that I need to use of the last year of teenage boy muscle I have in this house. Soooooooo many jobs they help me with that are too heavy or hard for me!

Dee, the boys still mow the lawn with the bag on it to get leaves. I bought an electronic leaf vacuum this spring and I LOVE it! It takes care of those small areas where leaves pile up and smother plants and areas where the lawn mower can’t get. It doesn’t do big volume, but it has made cleaning leaves out of tough spots, like those piled up in a corner against a wall, so much easier

Dee, I managed to plant the Scintilation before the rain. It’s in. Is it in the right location? That would probably be a first. [g] But we’ll see how it does in the spring. This Rhodie has the light pink flowers too.

Great that you have new growth on that Rhodie at the base. As for your dilemma about whether to dig it out or not. I understand. If these foundation shrubs have been there over a decade, than they are not easy to get out. I had that situation here. A large very old Taxus that was decades in the ground. I opted to keep it and prune it back 1/3rd every year. It hasn’t worked out perfectly, but it responded very well to that course of action and it is a reasonable shrub for the corner, not under a window. It’s not that hard to trim it every year now. If I ever have a front loader on the property for something I might be tempted to take it out, but I was just not going to spend the money to have that done.

I had the same trouble with an Ilex ‘Prince’ on the other side of the foundation and that one I planted as a tiny little shrub in a gallon pot probably 20 years ago and it was huge, which suited me because it screened a first floor bedroom window on my Cape from the street. But the shrub developed scale. Ugh! A LOT of it and I just hadn’t noticed. It was covered and I asked how much to pull it out and they wanted $500. Really seemed like price gauging to me, so once again, I chose the option of doing a hard prune on it and throwing out all the material I got off it. It is a very vigorous shrub and grows fast. And that was 2 years ago and this year it pushed out a lot of new growth and next spring I’m going to shape it a little more. I seem to be scale free too. I’m hoping to keep the shrub more open this time and keep a better eye on it. I also improved the soil and fertilized it this spring with compost and HollyTone and mulched it.

For you, if you did try to get a cutting, I’d try a different technique and timing? But if you don’t want to wait for that area to fill in with new growth from the base, you’d need to dig it out yourself or ask one of your kids to help you with it. You know, if you have a small electric saw - they are easy to manage and if you are not trying to get a rootball out, you can dig just low enough to cut out the major parts of the branching and roots. Then you could just put a big lasagna build over it and leave it until the soil there breaks down and is ready to plant something else. I suppose you could put a big pot of something over it until it was ready to plant again.

Otherwise, maybe ask around if anyone you know has a construction company with that kind of equipment - just a small front loader would do the trick. And maybe you could barter for it? Or maybe a family member knows someone you could try to barter with.

Deanna, I haven’t gotten to do a berm yet either. I have a lot of material to make one, so I may still get to it. We are due to have 25F on Sunday morning, so a lot of dead plant material. I think I will be better off to cut some of it down now while it is still green and layer it in a berm so it will be more useful than it will be zapped. I need more greens to go with the browns! [g]

I do not envy you the jumping worms! That sounds awful!

I think we still will have warm enough weather in November to get out there a few more times and get more work done. But today and tomorrow are the big push for us to get as much done as possible. I’d really like to be done with outside work before Thanksgiving! I still have a lot of leaves in the trees and we can’t finish up until they come down and then do the gutters.

And I better get going and stop yakking!

PM2, one of the shrubs in the foundation (well, two, one on each side of the center front door lol) was a taxus, each a huge beast of a thing, wider than tall. It was indeed the easiest to keep in check but again, they were just in the wrong spot. I actually felt guilty whacking those things back every year, not allowing them to grow the way they wanted and the way they should. It did make me come to love taxus though. I'm thinking of adding more around the yard but I'm concerned about deer. I've read they are deer candy, and while the ones near the house were never affected, we do have a pretty defined "deer path" through our yard, which of course goes through my garden! lol, so I do hesitate.

I don't want to bring heavy machinery - or even light machinery lol! - into play here because these shrubs were planted literally two feet from the foundation, and it is a cinderblock foundation. Additionally, the story we've heard from old neighbors is the house was physically built by the original owner (from whom we bought it) with his four or five brothers. Now, we have no way of knowing if any of that group knew what they were doing lol. We don't want to test that by having big equipment digging right along the foundation!

The rhodie has been there for at least the 30 years I've been here, and I'm guessing it may be an original planting from the 50's due to it's large size (I feel like everything in the garden was huge in the 50's lol.) So that's one reason I keep putting off trying to dig it out myself! It looks like it's encased in cement!

I just read your Scintillation thread yesterday and it was very interesting. Have to say I have never put so much thought into a rhodie though lol. I guess since, like you, my neighborhood is filled with them, I just assumed they would do well, and so far I've been lucky that the two or three I have planted have indeed done so. Got some good tips from that thread though, and I hope your Scintillation does well!

deanna, I actually DO have one of those leaf vacuums. I bought it when I used to do my yard by hand (me, a rake, a small shredder, 9/10 of an acre, and 50 trees! Yikes). I thought I would try one of those, but it is just really too small for the job. I was constantly emptying it, like, every 30 seconds lol. And it was kind of a pain to empty. Honestly it was easier to rake, dump the leaves in the shredder over a garbage can, and then dump the garbage can when it filled. My husband got the tractor lawn mower when he started helping maintain the yard (not the garden, lol, but the yard). My neighbors on all sides, for all the years we've been here, marvel not only at the amount of leaves I have, but that I have never willingly cut down a single tree on my property. I keep telling them one of the reasons I bought this house was because of the trees! Is it a huge pain every fall? YES!!!! Lol. But then in summer when I live in a shady oasis and they live in a barren, sun-soaked yard and never come out because they're inside with their AC running, it's worth every leaf to me!

Went out to dig my dahlias yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised to see some calendula in bloom, as well as a bit of feverfew. I was especially happy because there are still things buzzing around so hopefully they found some food. My parsley is going gangbusters. I could go into the parsley business lol. I actually feel guilty since there is so much and I will never use it all. I was also happy to see some swallowtail caterpillars on it. Eat away my friends!

Off to dig my daughter's dahlias (gosh I hate digging and storing dahlias!!!) and then have to get the whole lot of them (hers and mine) into the basement! They are lucky they are so beautiful or I'd just let the whole lot of them freeze!

Okay NOW I have some motivation to go out and freeze my hands off and dig more dahlias!

:)

Dee

Dee, that is amazing that you have to worry about your foundation on your house, because the previous homeowner was a DIY...lol/ OMGosh, it's crazy isn't it, the things we have to worry about? Well, really any kind of machinery on your property when you garden is probably not the best idea anyway. That's one reason I haven't used it. Soil compaction! I still say, just get out the electric saw....small, lightweight, easy to use, although noisy. Dig down about 6-12 inches and start cutting and pulling everything out. Pile up the cardboard over it, a layer of branches, then layer all those leaves and the contents of a compost bin and top it off with bark mulch and leave it to break down. You'd be amazed how fast that happens.

Those Dahlias are WON-derful! A nice treat to be able to bring those into the house this time of year. Now all you need are some red and white ones and you'd have some bouquets for Chritmas!

Well, i'm glad they changed our forecast from 2-4" of snow overnight to just a little bit. Lawn is still incredible and I'd hate to see it covered in white!

And here is how I clean up the cottage garden.....well, really all my gardens get same treatment.

Oh wait?? Did I say I clean out my gardens? Just kidding! LOL!! Fall is so much nicer when I don't do any work! LOL! And I like the seed heads staying up most of winter.

Cheers!

I've been out of action here because the website stopped working for me. I would get a notification that there was activity on a thread and when I got there, all I could see was the Original post and none of the comments. And I couldn't post. So, I just gave up after awhile. I wasn't sure if it was my computer or more Houzz issues. But it must have been Houzz, because it is now working. At least the first two threads have worked. Who knows how long that will last.

So I did not start a December thread. Do we usually post a December thread? I'll start one if there is any interest. And tomorrow I could take some time and look back to see if there are December threads.

I'm sure everyone is busy getting ready for Christmas! Maybe we sometimes post Christmas decorations?