Roses and Sedums--Is This Goodbye?

Lately, I just can’t get over how beautiful my roses and sedums look out front. It seems the cooler weather brings out more vivid coloring in the roses, and the sedum (variety ‘Autumn Joy’) is just doing its awesome thing where it starts out a dusty pink then gradually keeps getting darker and darker pink/coral/rusty red as the temperatures drop.

 

I have been trying for several weeks now to catch a picture of the way my miniature rose echoes the colors of the sedum behind it in my front corner bed, but somehow the camera isn’t picking up what my eye can see. Lack of skill on my part, I’m certain.

After a rainy, windy day today, the temperatures are supposed to drop down into the 30’s here in the next couple of days. After taking some pictures of them in their flowerbeds yesterday, I cut all the roses and rosebuds I could find and brought them into the house to enjoy in an arrangement. I can see it from where I’m sitting right now, and it is making me so happy!

If the frost isn’t as deep as expected, they may last outside another week or two, but remember we had snow last year in the first week of November. 

So even with a possible reprieve this weekend, the end is near.

What will you miss most from your gardens this winter?

All Good Things Begin With Dirt

*****************Breaking News!***************
We had our first frost last night.
I guess it's a good thing we picked every last tomato yesterday and brought them inside to finish ripening! Now it's really time to get a move on with planting projects outside!
That was all.
As you were!
****************************************

We went exploring a few weekends ago, and found a local farm that sells compost, topsoil, manure and so on. DIRT! I was glad to find it, especially since they were fairly close to our town and they also deliver. Fast forward to last Thursday.

Two quick phone calls and about an hour later, we had all the dirt our little hearts could desire...for now. Let's see, it was 6 yards of "aged manure" to spread over the vegetable garden, 3 yards of topsoil to fill up the new flowerbeds out front, and 2 yards of compost to put on the existing flowerbeds. That's a lot of dirt!

My 5-year-old insisted that dirt wasn't exciting.

He must not have caught the gardening bug yet!

On the other hand, I was very happy to see all that dirt!

You see, I have ordered quite a few shrubs and bulbs, and plan to buy some more in person.

It's helpful in such cases to have the place where you're going to plant things all ready to go when they arrive. Otherwise, you get plants languishing in their pots for a long time, or possibly dying (ask me how I know this) while you're still getting the flowerbed ready.

The driver was nice enough to dump some in the garden, then come back up front to dump the topsoil, then take the manure back to the garden.

I guess it's a good thing we haven't planted grass back there yet.
This wouldn't be happening if we had!
As it was, it was very convenient to have him just back right up to the garden.

So. Now we will get all this lovely dirt/compost/manure put where we want it, till 'er in, and as soon as those plants start coming, I can start putting them right where I want them.

Hooray!

Excitement.

You know you're a gardener if a great big truckload of dirt makes you happy!

Frost Bouquet & Late Fall Chores

 The light frost 2 nights ago was just a warning.

Forecast predicted a hard frost for last night.

It was time to bring in the last of the flowers and veggies.

Making a frost bouquet is easy--you just cut everything you possibly can!

I did not get to all of the cosmos, and I left some things that are a little tougher than most--the salvia and catmint, among others.

The other thing to bring in were the last of the tomatoes and squash.

I was surprised how many little squashes there were.

I've still got one small patch of carrots out there to harvest, but that's about it.

Sure enough, we had a hard frost last night.

The garden's looking pretty withered and sad this morning.

It will be time to start clearing out the vines and plants that are left, now.

As much as I love the vegetable garden, it's always satisfying to me to get it cleared off and "put to bed" come late fall. 

Other late fall chores to do:

** Empty flowerpots and put away in the shed.

Although it's the more expensive route, I always dump all the dirt from the flowerpots into the garden and start fresh the next year. I don't usually add fertilizer to my flowerpots over the summer, so the few times I've re-used the dirt, my plants did not thrive; the soil was too depleted. 

** Put deck chair cushions away in the shed, as well.

My kids have a clubhouse in the top of our shed--they will be delighted to have some nice soft cushions to sit on up there! The trick is catching a long enough break in the weather so that they're all dried out before I put them up there.

** Empty hoses as much as possible and put them away in the shed.

** Blow out sprinkler lines and turn it off (we get someone to come do this for us.)

** Weeding or last transplanting.

Ready, set, go!