Your Least Fav F*a*l*l Gardening Chore?

I have decided that my least favorite garden chore is gravel removal. Should have thought of that sooner. Second least favorite is weeding.

The dahlia is supposed to be Margareth Kleene which I ordered but I don't think it is. Good thing I LUV surprises ^_^

Thank you all for your good wishes.

I absolutely love those dahlias!!!

Sorry folks,

Things have been much to busy around here! Hand snowplows are usually available at our local Ace & True Value hardware stores. Last year they were $60.00. I need to replace my old one & get another for the downstairs. Remember two things, get one with a metal tip & you need someplace to push the snow.

Thanks, Pewjumper!

Back to fall chores here. Today I mean to plant bulbs and pot up some refugee house plants that a friend gave me. It was a weak moment that I took them in because I am awful with house plants. There seem to be a number that manage to winter over in my studio but it isn't particularly happy for them. By March they are screaming to be let out and generally they can't go until May and we all hate each other by then. In fact, I need to go water them now.

I've done a lot of Fall garden chores over the past week. Yesterday I had to toss out the hanging baskets that are now done for... but they were all so beautiful all summer (as I told them as I disposed of them). Pulled out the frozen coleus, planted the two big hydrangeas that have spent their summer in pots. Brought in the remaining hanging baskets that might live inside for a while, my topiaries, Boston fern, and mandevillas. I'm going to plant my bulbs any minute now, and yesterday I received a package from my Mom and Dad... filled with LOTS more bulbs! I'm so excited, because my budget wasn't allowing for many bulbs this year, but now I will have tons of daffs and tulips and crocus! Gotta go buy a dauber (sp?).

Not a good relationship with houseplants roybird? I like having a few plants inside. They bring more life into a room for me.

I have a stunning jade tree that has been with me something like 35 years. Maybe more. I bring it in and it does well inside -- but is happiest outside. Then I bring in all my geraniums and amaryllis and one clivia. The geraniums start out pretty and go down hill all winter to the point of looking like waifs when I put them out in the summer. I don't know why I do this. It is really probably more trouble than it is worth but it is a ritual of many years now. I also have amaryllis ( boy that is hard to spell). They come in and start sending up new leaves and bloom stalks as the days get short. They make beautiful flowers beginning just a bit before Christmas. They bloom -- one variety at a time with very bold red or red and white blossoms for some time. Then they start looking ratty until I take them out in the spring for renewal.
I now have a clivia, a hand me down from my friend Theresa, which I am not used to yet. It sat around inert all last winter but late in the summer it put out a bright yellow bloom. Hmm. Maybe I am going to like this plant after all. The next question is, will it like me.
I have one very tough cylamen that lives year round by my kitchen sink. It dies back then comes out and blooms about twice a year. I can never remember when. Having it next to the sink in the kitchen means I usually remember to water it. I can't believe it has survived the neglect I have subjected it to. Cyclamens look so dainty that one would think they would be delicate. Not this one. Someone even put it outside for dead once and it just popped into bloom again.
I gave up on keeping herbs indoors over the winter. Basil gets a wilt and dies -- always. Thai basil sometimes makes it all winter but doesn't do much. Rosemary dies if I take my attention of it for a minute in the late winter. Nowadays I can buy fresh herbs at the grocery in the winter if I need them and I only keep potted herbs in the summer. I run out and cut fresh thyme and oregano from the outdoor plants in the winter. Oregano that has dried on the plant is still tastier than bottled. Maybe I will have rosemary outdoors all winter, too.
Only a select few plants are tough enough to live through the winter at my house and I am wondering if the geraniums are worth it. They drop leaves all winter long and make a mess.

Perhaps there is an alternative to the geraniums that would not have the same set of disadvantages.

I have to say... I was never much of a geranium person until this year. I have a wrought iron plant stand outside that holds 9 potted plants. I put 9 4" geraniums in there at the beginning of summer, and they bloomed and lasted beautifully all summer, even staying in their small pots. I saved 3 of them for inside. We'll see what happens. I am now officially a geranium person, I've decided.

We are heading for the deep freeze so I have to haul in some plants from containers RIGHT NOW! if I want to save them. I only have one houseplant, Methusala, an unkillable african violet although spider plants and ivys live inside over the winter.

Good luck, DN!

Yes, I saw that big blob of a cold front moving across Canada on the weather map this AM. Hope it isn't too brutal.

I am off to remove some more gravel so I can plant another plant.

I do o.k. with some things. My giant dracenas, the verbena shrub, "Steve" the spotted succulent, Aloe...I like agaves, cactus. There is barely room for me in my studio let alone all these wimpy plants!

The "blob" is not confined to Canada. It knows no borders.
Our forecast: 35F tonight, 22F Wed. night, 15F Thurs. night and 6F Fri. night.

Oh, a big blob! My condolences Montanans and others affected.

Ouch - 6 degrees is COLD!

Under these circumstances, yes. In January after a week of -20, 6 degrees seems mild.

Oooh. Cold premonititons!

Wimpy plants!? You stay outside on a January evening with nothing on but your foliage! I'm still amazed when things survive that kind of cold.

Dave Who Is Dave certainly said it there.

I love my geraniums. Not that the four sitting in the bucket in the kitchen for the past few days are convinced of that fact at the moment. But, Ta Da! I did manage to go out to the hoop house today and I turned off the fan. The official acknowledgment of the demise of tomato plants. Air circulation will no longer help them.

Then I found a bag of potting mix, a trowel, and clay pots, loaded them in the wheelbarrow and wheeled it to the kitchen porch. Where I abandoned it until my DH came home and dragged it all indoors for me. I took a nap from the exertions. What a ridiculous fall when such simple little things are like climbing Everest.

If the geraniums are lucky, they get to go into their pots later today.

You need to take care of yourself right now, mulch. Let the garden go. It will still be there when you are healthy again.

That's right, Mulch. You are more important than the geraniums. I say my indoor plants are wimpy because think of all the ones who winter outdoors! And they like it! It's about being appropriate to the area. I know someone whom we have sometimes referred to as "a hot house flower ". A person could also be "weedy". "Salt of the earth". An "old sod". "Shrinking violet".
Hmm.