Fall Clean Up

Whether I care to admit it or not, summer has been gone for a long time already.  I can't believe there are only a few days left in October.  With the extremely late arrival of spring this year coupled with my being out of commission for a few weeks, I really don't know where the summer went.  About the best we can do now is yank everything out that needs yanking and wait for the snow to fly.   And plant daffodils.

I'm not sure how many daffodil bulbs fit in a bushel basket, anybody care to guess?   I suppose we could have a guessing contest, but then I'd have to count them and well, that's too much work.  Suffice it to say there are a LOT of bulbs still needing holes to be dug.  Too bad I couldn't put the chickens on the job, they love to dig holes.   (And fling mulch out of the beds, and bury plants that don't need burying.  Ok, they do lay eggs and eat bugs.) 

 I went to town tonight with Carl to buy gasoline and saw many piles of leaves waiting out on the curb for pick up.  It wouldn't do me any good to rake leaves yet (not that I do very often, ok, rarely, ok, Never....) because Willie the Willow hasn't even thought about dropping a leaf and won't until the snow flies.  Most of the time we end up running his leaves through the snow blower.  Willows are messy trees, but they are the first to green up in the spring and the very last to shed their leaves in the fall.

Willie and his Leaves

Last night I was researching more stuff online about thyroid disease and simultaneously listening to the wind blow outside.  Shortly after one big gust shook the house,  I heard a tree fall in the woods across the road.  (If a tree falls in the forest and no one sees it, wait......that's not the way that saying goes, is it?)    I didn't see it fall, but I sure heard it hit the ground with a mighty crash.   At first  I wondered if maybe Willie decided it was time to leave, but in the morning he was still there, waving in the breeze with every leaf intact.

Birch in the Woodland Walk

The pictures in this post were taken a week ago; things don't look so great anymore, everything has finally frozen.  But that makes it easier to clean up, too.  I hate pulling flowering plants out of the ground, it just seems wrong.

Driveway entrance

Time to put the statuary away or knit her a coat.

Formal Garden

Right up until last week the melampodium 'Melanie' plants flowered nonstop.

And so did the wax begonias...hard to believe they can take so much cold weather.

My only gripe about fall is it doesn't last long enough.  The leaf colors are stunning, but so short-lived.

A job I dread: cutting back the waterlilies before the ice freezes.  

 Carl and I focused our attention on the Pachyberm this weekend.  It's amazing how many trailer loads of plant material we hauled to the compost pile. 

It's all just rocks now.  But that's ok.  Rocks are good.

Do you remember the planter Carl made me for Valentine's Day?

Carl and the planter, February 14, 2013

October 20, 2013

I stuck a pot of Bubblegum petunias in the top of the planter and planted various climbing vines on the ribs.  By the time I realized the location I had placed the planter in was too shady, the vines had already rooted and twined up the planter, so I left it in place.  Next season, I'm going to move the planter to a sunnier spot.  (It did turn out prettier than this earlier in the summer, but I forgot to take a better picture.)

Poor ol' Castle Aaargh.  One more year without a roof.  Or walls. Or windows.

We have two major garden walks coming next year, that is, IF I'm up to it, and Aaargh was supposed to be done by then.  Oh, well.  Best laid plans of mice and men.  The work will be there in the spring.

There's always next year. 

With a little luck and a lot of ambition (something I'm chronically short on lately) I'll be able to get more clean up work done.  We have to trek the 70 miles to the doctor this week, too.  I hope it rains that day. 

I'd hate to waste a beautiful fall day sitting in a doctor's office, right?