Roadside Shopping

:)
People are chucking their spent mums . . . again.
Yay!
I picked up three big mums and a pumpkin large enough for about four loaves of pumpkin bread. I love it when people have money to throw away.
Clearance sales are still on at Lowe's - huge Boston fern and two 'Double Take' Spaths (left outside to get frosted - ugh!) for a buck.
Go me!

The weather looks like I'll be able to get the mums in the ground on Friday.
I got the Iris cut back for winter and did a lot of weed pulling. Most of the flowerbeds are cleaned up. I'm still doing that nit-picky thing I do, though. I can't help it!

Planted the garlic a month ago and they're growing very well. Transplanted the rhubarb into the garden at the same time - I don't know how they'll end up taking it. We'll see.

Collected some more seed - aster and Zebrina Malva. I'm hoping those don't become a thug.
The large pond pump and flow-through pumps have been turned off and the smaller winter pumps turned on. The koi are sulking, but it can't be helped. They'll be fine, as always.

Now comes the real limbo. Too much love for the houseplants while I twiddle my thumbs waiting to start the wintersowing. It won't be as much as previous years as I can't afford the potting soil. Oh, well. I'll just have to pick and choose a little more wisely about what I want most in the flowerbeds next year and use the peat I already have - whether appropriate or not. On a side note: I was a little miffed when someone mentioned that they bought eight bags of potting soil for 8 something a bag and thought that it was no big deal and pretty much petty change. Huh? When your figuring out which bill to pay and which to leave . . . ummmm, 60 something dollars is a lot of money! What the hell is wrong with people saying it's no big deal to just go blow 60 bucks on soil? I could almost see her shrugging her shoulders with the 'what's the big deal' attitude. Grrrr.

I need to sort through my seeds again and get them in order. Maybe I'll wait on that until after Christmas when I'll be ridiculously sick of having nothing gardenish to play in.

Still so far, so good on the rosemary.

I still need to tent my lavender with some burlap.

I found out that my Polka Dots are more of a pain in the ass than I thought they would be.

I can't get the stem rot stopped on those stupid begonias, so have about a thousand cuttings piled everywhere now. If I end up with not one begonia come spring, I'm gonna be hot!

The Majesty Palm is still puttering along and throwing up new spears.

Oh, and the weirdness for the month - a Foxglove and Lupine are flowering! What the frig is up with that? The snaps that are still in full bloom aren't a surprise, but the Lupine certainly is. Also had a Delph just get a very late bloom frozen off. Hmmm . . .

Plans are in the works to widen the garden next spring and plant potatoes again. Yay! We haven't had the room for them in years.

I may do some more roadside shopping this weekend. Hehehe.

Hurry, Hurry!

The tree rats are getting pushy with their fall hunter-gatherer behavior. Not a good sign.

Sigh.

Today I guess I'll grab some hardy geranium cuttings to start new plants during winter.

I'm all seed gathered out. Man, that can get exhausting after a while. A sweater box jam packed full of flower seed should be plenty for winter sowing, right?

The new flower beds aren't getting anywhere. With D working weekends, my fall schedule has been thrown completely out of wack. The only good thing is that at this delay rate we'll be able to mow the leaves instead of rake. The clippings will be fantastic for the compost bin, too.

They finally chopped the corn field across the street. Yay! I have a view of the neighbors woods again.

I really should get out there and weed out the beds, but I just don't have the gumption.

The mums are looking fantastic, as are the snaps that rebloomed and the zinniaa are still going strong. The calendula have slowed, but are still hanging in. I've ripped all my containers and dragged the rest in for the winter.

The ponds are netted, but with the warm weather, the water is staying warm enough that the koi still wait for their meals every day.

I ripped out a lot of spurge that had gone bonkers, so the rock edges look neat and clean again. We got the rest of the stepping stone laid down through the pond walkways. Looks nice.

I transplanted a lot of thyme to the edges of the arbor pathway - regular and variegated. The contrast against the stone looks better, even though they're small yet.

I planted a few blanket flower sprouts in the half of the pond flowerbed that did get finished. I think I'll complement them with some black eyed susans, some verbena, lupine, maybe marigolds along the outer edge (lamium was a thought, but that's doing fantastic spillage on the opposite side of the path) and some zinnia on the inside edge. And a few drifts of cosmos - gotta have cosmos.

Hmmm ... maybe some purple coneflower. Nahhh, too clashy. Possibly gloriosa daisy. Iffy.

Amazingly, the mailbox bed is still doing well, so I'm holding off on ripping anything out of there yet.

I still need to clean off the front arbor and decide what will be climbing there next year. Someone offered me black eyed susan vine and some cypress vine, so maybe I'll give those a try at either end and put the pink hyacinth bean that did so well in the center. I don't know, I'll have to think on it.

Who's hogging the sun?

Ugh! I can't imagine how they deal in the northwest.

I feel accomplished today: I figured out the email link. lol. Ahhh, small steps.

Des has been invited to a friends Halloween party on Saturday...then I got to the bottom of the invitation - 'costumes required.' Uhhhhh.....
Needless to say, she's freaking out about it. I came across some 'maybe do' costume ideas. Hard to find something to whip up out of nothing. One idea was a Trailer Trash/White Trash costume. (Deja Vu) White trash bag, attach trash.
Baseball cap with leaf hanging in face: Leaf blower. lol.
Don't know what Des will think of the ideas though. Oh, yes, I do: "Ick! Mom, are you nuts?"
At this point I'm thinking of just ripping up the dead tomato plants, pinning them on her and telling her to go as a compost heap. Well, it is original, right?

Any ideas for a quickie costume?

Dug up the elephant ears, paired them up in a container with some of the impatien cuttings. I waited too long and they look thoroughly peeved with me, but hopefully they'll bounce back. I swear, if I keep this procrastination up, the Garden Gods are going to get me! I was thinking about taking the impatiens out of the pond and waterfall and bringing them in too, but to where? Besides, they're so happy in the pond. (ok, so that's my excuse for not having to deal) But they are huge and still flowering their little heads off. It seems they're the only thing I can get to grow in the pond these days that the koi will leave be. Those and chocolate mint, which they completely ignore. I guess Des and I aren't the only ones that hate chocolate!

Drizzle?

Angry gray clouds are moving across the sky today, dumping bucket upon bucket of uneeded rain. Our tiny little creek has turned into the rushing Colorado river once again, bringing back nightmarish memories of the June flood. Thankfully, they said the flooding won't be quite as bad this time.

It is a rather depressing garden day. The ravaging winds have stripped the maples bare, the ground is littered with dropped pears. Everything is yellowed and drab, preparing for it's long winter slumber. The corn across the road is brown and dead. I wish they'd cut it.

One lone holdout of color left: dianthus. They are insistant there is still time to bloom and show off their beautiful points of blaze pink.

I brought in the spike plants and transplanted them into containers I can just stick outside in the spring. They aren't happy about it (really, what did I expect?). There are a few volunteer sprouts of pink vinca emerging in the pots with the spikes. I'll baby them and just maybe they'll make it until spring.

Even in all the depressing grayness my mind turns toward planning spring plantings and WSing.
Roll on winter, roll on.

where's the sun

Even with all this eternal rain, I feel as if I'm getting at least a few steps forward toward winter.
The tulip and daf bulbs finally got into the ground.
The iris are divided, pinched and replanted. Wow, had they multiplied.
Wind chimes all in.
I still have to figure out something to do with the park bench. Maybe covered against the front wall. It would be protected from harsh winter and it could double for my WSing.
The spike plants still have to be repotted and brought in. I probably shouldn't bother, but I love them and don't want to pay 3 bucks a piece come spring again.
Made a new trade this morning: chocolate mint for money plant seeds. I know the money plants will spread and look messy and I'll probably be kicking myself next year, but ah, well.
I still have some seed collecting to do, phlox, clems, almost white sunflower, etc., but I'll get to it eventually.
M stopped up and got some impatien cuttings. I showed her how to make the newspaper pots. She's always so excited when she first starts out, but the enthusiasm seems to drop off fast and she never follows through. I'll bet anything that she ends up letting them rot instead of going through the hassle of having to make the pots. I mean, come on, they're a peach to make and what is better than free? Screw it, let her spend the money on new plants in the spring, cause I swear to God, she is so not getting any from me when I'm loaded with plants and she couldn't be bothered. Why do I let people do that to me every single spring? Just like the tomato plants I nurtured all spring-she didn't even plant them til August, then proceeded to mooch tomatos off me last weekend because hers never got any. Well, gee, wonder freaking why? What a waste!
It's as bad as with the sewing-why can't I just say no? These people are quite capable of doing it themselves!
I think I got blogger seed dissed. :( Offering seeds and then not even replying is pretty crappy....