It's fall! (yay!)

It really is - the flowers say so!

These are my fall crocus - what delightful things they are!  In the spring, the bulbs put up wide green leaves which die off at the beginning of summer (and then I cut them back), then at the beginning of fall, these delicate, light purple flowers reach up to let me know cool temperatures are on their way.

I love these flowers - not only are they heirloom flowers, but family heirlooms as well!  My grandfather gave bulbs to my father (in the late 40s) and Dad gave some bulbs to me.  So I not only love that these ethereal flowers are the first sign of fall, but also that my family has enjoyed them for at least three generations.  And the very best thing?  The bulbs multiply!

>^..^<

Herb harvest

Well, one herb anyway. After doing some fall yard cleanup this morning, I cut some sage for drying. Stuffing for Thanksgiving, soups, stews – we do use quite a bit of sage, but this might be a tad excessive.

Got out my “drying string” and hung it across the window opening above the kitchen sink (window looks out into family room and dining room). Uh oh, I’ve run out of space on the string and still have quite a bit of sage left on the counter.

And now I have to figure out where to hang the rest of the herbs!


>^..^<

Garden stuff

In case you’re curious about why have I been having dirt under my fingernails instead of thread snippets on my clothes, here's what we’ve been doing.

Some people rearrange furniture. We tend to leave the furniture be and rearrange plants instead. We have what seem to be good ideas for placement and then later realize hey, these plants would look really fantastic over there!

My parents had lots of flower beds in their yard. Down one side of the back yard were cups-and-saucers plants. I have a very vivid memory of my father dividing these plants when I was a bitty thing – he’d dig up a plant, then chunk through it with his garden spade (ack!).

Dad gave me a handful of these plants when husband and I moved into our first home. For *years* I neglected them, to the point that the cursed vinca planted by the previous owner completely overgrew my beloved plants. But while doing garden cleanup to ready the house for sale, we discovered they’d somehow managed to live through all that. Delighted, I potted up my seven plants and hauled them to Pennsylvania, where I planted them in our new back yard, and they've thrived.

Here they are from this spring – you can see from the leaves that they’re a type of primrose:

When I told my Dad last wee that we were dividing and moving the cups-and-saucers, he told me that my Mom’s father had given my parents the plants for their first garden. Cool, right?

Here’s the space along the front walk after we dug up, divided, and replanted my cups-and-saucers (funny how fresh mulch always looks so different from what's been there a while). After a week or so of settling in, I’ll cut off last fall’s leaves and they’ll look more kempt.

>^..^<

Serendipity

Husband and I both love decorative grasses and we've bought several kinds over the past few years. He occasionally gets excited about plants and buys things when we have no idea where they're going to go. The year before last he did this with miscanthus grasses (ETA:  miscanthus sinensis adagio), and after they'd lived in pots on the patio for a month or more, we picked a spot (sort of a what-the-hell decision) and stuck 'em in the ground.

Whaddya know - they look really good!

I'm now somewhat in love with the concept of decorative grasses between or in front of evergreens.


>^..^<

Cuteness warning...

House in Erie has this raised planter thing in the back yard:

Plants (and, unfortunately, weeds) in planter are overgrown and need attention, but you can see that the previous owner left us some ... things that turned out to be, uh, decorative geese.

Which just happen to look both bizarre and dead in the photo of the planter (they're the gray and white blobs at the near corner of the planter). *shrugs* When I first began work to remove weeds (including nightshade - bleah!!), I also discovered a small sundial and a moderately beaten up and chipped painted cement skunk, which I immediately reclaimed from the viney weeds and neglected plants and placed on the edge of the planter facing the big window in the dining room.

*adores silly garden ornament*

But look! (*squee*) Somebody else likes the little skunk!

>^..^<

Springtime! (or, oooh, look - yard pictures)

First, let it be known to all and sundry that I am *not* one of those people who is filled with bustle and energy come spring. I hear tales of people who fling open their windows and clean their home from top to bottom and I cringe. Spring saps my energy - all I want to do is curl up in a little ball and doze.

But the yard doesn't care that I have no energy. Still, it really is tremendously satisfying to get stuff done. It's even more satisfying to watch the bulbs and perennials grow and bloom. ;)


I really ought to know what the yellow-blooming plant is, but can never remember. We got it as a freebie when we bought something else. What a delightful plant! It takes no effort save cutting it back after it dies off for the winter, and it looks incredible year after year. On the left of it is a burning bush we just transplanted from the back fence, and on the right you can see the nandina that's rather the worse for wear after all the snow this winter (but the leaves are healthy so I staked and tied it, and am keeping my fingers crossed).

Hosta and a handful of lily of the valley. Gotta love the hosta - you can almost see it grow when the leaves come up in the spring.



A whole raft of lily of the valley (can you tell I love these?), about ten feet to the right of that hosta.

Trying again to grow grass beside our dogwood. I'm about ready to let the pachysandra take over (and yes, there's a lot of straw, but around here spring often lasts about four days before we have summer heat and I want to make sure it's protected).

How 'bout a man-battles-nature story? Four or five years ago we made an island bed in the back yard with a zebra grass at one end. The zebra grass is incredible - it's gorgeous in the summer and fall, and beautiful in winter as well. It's also big and very, very determined. After being hammered by 22 inches of snow this past winter, it lifted back up when the snow melted! But it was too close to the snowbell tree (translation: we had no clue the grass would become so huge!), so we knew it had to be moved. And since we were going to dig it up and move it, we decided to take a chunk of it to Erie so we can enjoy it there after we move.

Husband dug around the grass and tried to … erm, pry it out with the shovel. Grass said no (husband bought a new shovel on Friday). Prybar (this is a five foot long, one inch diameter piece of iron? steel? anyway it's *heavy*), mattock, pick, axe, chainsaw. Grass said no. Husband is stubborn and the grass finally began to yield to very concerted use of axe and mattock - we got not quite a quarter of it out, in two pieces which I quickly potted. (the two on the left are Karl Forster grass which will be transplanted to Erie in a few weeks)

Then we got another quarter out and quick-like-bunnies replanted it far enough away from the tree that had been crowded. Running out of light, we gave up for the night.

The next day, husband got the remaining half dug up, cut in two with the chainsaw, and replanted along the back fence.

For comparison (and to understand why my feeling is pretty much ohmigod, we've *killed* it), here's what the zebra grass looked like last summer.

And then there's the front yard. I will never forgive the previous owner of the house for planting vinca behind the shrubs. You can't really get rid of vinca. I truly believe agent orange couldn't kill it. Spent two weeks pulling garbage can loads of it out of the big front garden several years ago and now I merely have to rip out every leaf that shows its shiny face (constant battle). This year I'm determined to beat it back on the other side of the front door. Here's what I'm fighting.

The tall growth in back and on the left is the foliage from my fall crocus, descended from bulbs my grandfather gave my mom. Big strong leaves in spring, delicate flowers are the first indicator of fall.

Have gotten the %#$@?& vinca out of about half that garden at this point. And look! My cups and saucers survived - wheeeee!! *dances tired happydance* These are divisions from plants that were in my back yard when I was a kid. Old fashioned primrose (uh ... aren't they?) - they're cups'n'saucers because each bloom is double.

>^..^<

a few more yard pics

Yay, I finished a big yardwork … thing. This is *huge* for me because I completely suck at doing yard stuff in the summer, probably because I'm no good in the heat. Showed you in-progress pics a couple weeks ago, and some of you have heard about my adventures digging up flagstones hiding under the grass (previous owner put them in as a path to the old shed eons ago - the grass had grown over most of them long before we bought the house).

The "briar patch" is the back right corner of the yard where the old shed used to be. We never figured out how to remove the concrete slab the shed had stood on, but apparently forsythia (which you just can barely see, hiding behind the crape myrtle on the right side) will grow in only an inch or two of dirt - amazing!

Here's the little path made with those reclaimed flagstones. Now there's no skinny strip of grass between the corner and the tree - yay!

View from the other side, where you can see the brown-eyed Susans starting to pop.

And lookie - flowers! I love these tall phlox - will someone please tell me why I didn't get a dozen or so? *headdesk*

>^..^<

Yard pics

I keep squeeing whenever online friends post garden or yard pictures. Mumsypower finally gave me a gentle tap on the head and pointed out that I could share some pics of my own yard. Hmmm... not much in bloom - seems I tend toward spring bloomers blooming plants.

Here, let me take you on a tour of my yard.

Very close to the back door for easy-picking purposes, the basil and oregano look especially happy - yay! Oops. Should have come into the kitchen and taken a picture of the oregano and chives (picked this morning) drying on lines. *headdesk*

If you looked up and to the right of the little herb garden, you'd see the island (better known as my husband's way to have less grass to mow). That zebra grass on the right end - the one that's too close to the tree now that it's gotten so big - is nearly eight feet tall. Jenthegypsy has (had?) a picture of the two of us beside it from last summer. If hers came out, that is. The one on my camera wasn't good.

Let's walk to that monster grass, okay? Turn right and see the mostly new bed around our volunteer maple tree (the thing was growing right beside the house, up against the downstairs bathroom window - husband rescued it and now, six or seven years later, it's finally stopped being completely one sided). If you look closely, you can find where I left the shovel chunked into the ground when I gave up last night. ;)

Just to the left of the last pic, this is what I'm currently working on - connecting the tree bed to the large bed in the corner (aka the briar patch).

Oh look - a helper! I missed getting a pic of the chipmunk who usually comes to visit, but the bird stood still quite nicely.

Moving left along the back fence, here's my sprawling sage plant, flanked by not-yet-blooming brown-eyed Susans on the right and my sweet Cordelia kitty's memorial weigela on the left. My rosemary bush is out of the picture, to the left of C's plant.

Still going to the left, the raspberry bushes are loaded for the first crop this year. *hopes the birds leave some for me*

And then a raft of day lilies. The very plain ones are almost over but this later blooming one demanded that I pay attention to it. You can see a bird-planted bit of grapevine that I need to go pull out on the right side...

Where'd the random grapevine come from? Concord grapes growing on the left side fence.

This is the back side of the central island. The three curved bump outs are bushes husband moved outside the island to alleviate overcrowding. Connecting them back to the island itself was what I worked on a few weeks ago - couldn't get the mower to the strip of grass between bushes and island, so I did away with it.

The island has five or six butterfly bushes. They're the coolest things! I just love seeing the butterflies (we get mostly tiger swallowtails and monarchs) flutter from one flower to another.

Lots of liriope (hey, Jenthegypsy - how do you pronounce that? is it LEER-e-ohpe, or is it like caliope?) along the side of the shed, and you can just see one of those flagstones I was digging up over the weekend.

Against the fence between the front and back yard, this used to be a shady bed till we had to cut down a couple of trees. Now my poor bleeding heart comes up and gets blasted by the afternoon sun before it ever gets a chance to bloom. I would dearly love to dig it up and transplant it, but the bed is much higher than it used to be and I cannot get down through the omnipresent tree roots to find to the main root of the plant. :(

This bed is in front of the house. Daffys and grape hyacinth are, of course, long gone, as are my Siberian iris. More brown-eyed Susans (left and right) will be full of flowers in another week or two, the lambs' ears are doing well - pleasantly fuzzy, and you can just see one of my dark huechera behind them. I don't remember what that thing in the middle is. Just planted it this morning - a coworker with a black thumb gave it to me so she wouldn't kill it. Hope it keeps blooming - I really like the color of the flowers.

>^..^<