Hi Meredith! You are Southeast. I am Southwest. Nice to 'meet' you, neighbor! And I see that you fit right in with the rest of our 'family'.
End of season report card
Thank you Candyce - Nice to meet you as well : )
reporting in that i am beat - stated raking leaves in the rain at 7:30 and stopped at about 5. need to go ask my wife to crawl on my back now. sore all over.
BBushes are illegal to sell or plant in MA, and I wish someone would come take ours away! I'm with you, Meredith! I've cut back everything I can reach with hand pruners! I'm hoping he'll step in with the chain saw we bought but only he uses and saw the things down. Ours are only ~50 years old but they were planted right up against the foundation. I'm hoping in the next few years to add a side porch that would include removing the bushes as part of the construction.
Wow carrie - that's almost exactly what's going on here. I've asked him to take the chainsaw to it because I remember when we first got the chainsaw - I asked to be shown how to use it. Well I could hardly hold the thing up with one hand never mind pull the starter thing. He started yelling watch out your gonna get yourself and grabbed it off me - so needless to say I now have no desire to use the chainsaw. : ) I also was holding off on planting too much in that area because I would like an addition there - but I think it will be a very long time before that happens if ever. So I decided it was time to do what I like with it for now.
You guys are way too funny!
Victore - I was reading about Enkianthus - is it fragrant? Did you know that it can easily be grown from seed, but that those that are may not turn red in fall? http://www.hort.uconn.edu/plants/e/enkcam/enkcam1.html
Men and chainsaws!!!! Such power!!!
I don't think it's fragrant, Anita, though I never got down and sniffed. I did not know about the seeds. I really love it. Great shape, flowers and fall color.
mr. thoroughgood.
During a weekend at DD's house in Ohio, she had an orange miniature rose still in bloom (don't know the name) and IB iris Champagne Encore. It has had a once a month'stalk since august. But a day of nasty driven rain & wind & cold temperatures didn't bother the flower a bit.
In Ohio? Wow, must be nice!!
That's awesome! I noticed that our rose bush about doubled in height when the temps dipped near 30 degrees.
be careful what you say victor could be lurking.
I've been visiting ebay way to much too Sherrie. MY paypal account show it too! lol
For plants? Garden stuff?
All kinds of things...got a rare (at least around here) N.Y. Mets hat for DD boyfriend. Got 2 Annes Geedes Baby's.... One Squirrel
http://cgi.ebay.com/Anne-Geddes-Squirrel-Doll_W0QQitemZ380081124550QQcmdZViewItemQQptZDolls?hash=item380081124550&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318
and one baby Leopard
http://cgi.ebay.com/ANNE-GEDDES-DOLL-BEANIE-BABY-LEOPARD-BRAND-NEW-GIFT-TOY_W0QQitemZ380081919028QQcmdZViewItemQQptZDolls?hash=item380081919028&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318
for a friend who collects them
I own one of the butterfly ones and they have Daffodill babies too.lol
schickenlady re: 97 bottles of beer on the wall.... the legend goes that once there was a guy with a really big wall....
Sounds like a limerick, dahlia ...
"There once was a guy with a really big wall ...."
STOP N-O-W
Before we get into trouble. lol
Wow, that's a huge big.
It's been so cold the past dew nights that the rhodie has finally furled its leaves in preparation for the winter snows.
Go tell Aunt Rhodie - sorry, knee-jerk reaction.
Well, I just found this thread. Here's what I've done this past year, successes and not.
The biggest disappointment was when the deer came into my garden one night at the end of July and cleaned me out of daylily buds. They ate thousands of buds off of hundreds of plants in just one night. I could have died. All the midseason ones were past their peak, sure, but many still had a lot of buds, and the late ones were just beginning to take off. Needless to say I was devastated. I will be spraying like crazy during peak and end bloom season next year, so I can enjoy my beauties. And since I've decided to seriously get into hybridizing, I will definitely need to have the buds on my plants.
My biggest success was a new dry bed I put in. I worked on it off and on all season, and I'm telling you, I was pleased as punch with the results. I gots lots of lots of color in that garden. I planted many salvias, coreopsis, gaillardias, some agastaches, some rudbeckias, a cupid's dart, a pink malva, an oriental poppy, a gloriosa daisy (that one actually died), a couple of mulliens, some purple liatris, daylilies, and some annuals, including 'Coral Nymph' salvia, Verbena bonariensis and marigolds. I had so many bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. What a great garden that turned out to be.
This year was a year for collecting many more perennials other than daylilies. In fact, I didn't even buy one daylily till fall. Then I couldn't resist any longer.
I got two new shade gardens started this year. Will finish those next year. One was not finished because of a big choke cherry tree that I was waiting to have taken down. First I had asked a friend's son if he would do it in exchange for keeping the wood for firewood. He said he was interested, but he never got around to doing it for one reason or another. Then my brother said he would do it, but he never came through either. I have one more person who said he would cut a few trees in exchange for firewood. He wants to do it in January. We will see.
One disappointment was a daylily bed I've had for about 4 years or so now where the DL's are just not thriving there. The soil is just too dry and sandy. So what I decided to do was move the DL's to a bed where I had tall bearded irises, as that bed was a bit too moist for the irises. I got that about half done. I'm sure doing that exchange will make a big difference.
There were two daylily beds that I decided to expand and renovate. Both beds had lots of space to add more DL's, so some of the DL's from the sandy, dry bed were moved there, and then I put in new DL's as well. On one of the beds I got it about 3/4 finished. The other bed is about half finished. In both beds I have been incorporating a lot of compost, which I haven't really done much of in the past. My soil here is quite good and doesn't need much amending, but I have so much compost now after building up many piles over the years, and adding it to my beds will make the soil even better, not to mention encourage more worms to move in.
I also renovated most of an old bed that has mostly DL's in it. I put in a baptisia, lifted the DL's and got out any roots of quack grass and other perennial weeds, and worked in plenty of compost. I think next year that bed will look even better.
There was a smaller DL bed I renovated as well, again incorporating compost into it. I removed a couple of DL's and put in a couple of young columbines.
Near that bed I started a new bed. This bed will be very large when I finish. I didn't get much done on it, as it was a lot of work double digging and getting out roots of quack grass, mint and such. I put in some of the DL's from the dry, sandy bed, some new DL's, a couple of garden phlox, and a couple of young columbines. I did dig a lot of ditch daylilies out of there, and we'll see if any come back. I'm hoping I got all the roots out.
Whew! I really did get a lot done this year. That wasn't all I did, but I will post more later.
Karen
Remember when you hybridize you will need space in which to line out seedlings. That space need always makes me cut back on iris crosses.
Good point, Iris. Hybridizing is too easy and takes up much more space than is believable until you've done it. Each seed deserves a square foot of space and full sun along with protection from the miserable deer.
All of the red ones seen here (along with a yellow - same pod) are from one pod and take up about 20 square feet.
Our DL are mainly in the front yard & the backyard one are so close to the house, that the deer haven't discovered them as yet. We have hardware cloth over the small irises which germinated last yr. I am sorry to say that they were not lined out until July, should have been done in May. turkey's doing dust baths are a hazard to the little newies.
I do have a lot of room for the seedlings. I have been trying to decide which of the current DL's I want to keep and which I want to sell/give away. I hate to destroy any that look fairly decent. I'm always of the opinion that even if I don't want them, I'm sure someone out there will. I will also have to be ruthless in culling out any seedlings that I don't want.
Karen
I would give preference to ones which go dorment & be ruthless as to which colors you want. Successful plant in our garden this yr was the annual form of Silver Mound. I would have thaought it would be gone by now after cold weather & several frosts. Some of the side brances are dead but the one in the center still looks good.
Congrats!
I would love to get a freezer, not just for freezing home grown veggies, but so I can buy meats and other things in bulk. Our current freezer just doesn't hold that much.
Karen
Sometimes I miss the big freezer we had in the garage but I don't miss the defrosting day twice a year - that was a major job for me.
Defrosting would be a big job. I hadn't thought of that. What do you do with all the stuff when you defrost? Do you try to use up most of what's in there before you do it?
Karen
Freezers perform best (and use the least amount of electricity) when they're filled. So when you get to defrosting you'd be packing all available ice chests and sturdy boxes with the food. I found it easier doing it by sorting the freezer into specific areas for vegetables and then each meat. I'd pack the boxes that way, too, to make it easier to re-pack it. Other people do it by date purchased. Some items had birthdays!
Ah yes! 'Born on' dates! We have a wonderful upright freezer that has been invaluable to us in this current economy. Once a month, Anna and I make the hour trek to the nearest Sam's Club to stock up on meats. And defrosting is one of those chores that we just know we will have to do, and neither one of us likes it! But we sure do like saving our money on groceries!!!
Sam's was a must once a month with 5 kids in the house! Now I still go there a few times a year, about this time actually to get stocked up for Christmas & New Years.