Since the October Blooms thread is getting long (180+) and not many blooms. I thought I'd start a spin off thread. Post your fall cleanup efforts, storing your bulbs and other plants for 2010, preserving your herbs, green tomatoes, potatoes etc. Have fun and get chatty!
Don't panic, this pic was from last year!
I managed to dump out my pots of caladiums yesterday and search around in the dirt for the bulbs. (still in cast, so all this one handed). One pot where it got more rain the bulbs were mush, the pots on the porch the bulbs were solid so I brought those in for storage. Hope they have another co-op this spring.
I cleaned out the water hyacinths from the pond and added them to the compost pile. They will just rot and leave a mess to clean out in the spring. After that I was done for the day!
Holly, did your water hyacinths bloom much for you this year? I had very few blooms, the plant multiplied well. The water lettuce was also a real let-down, didn't multiply at all. I bought 2 and composted 2.
OHHH! I have the honor to be the first poster.....
Clean-up? Here is MY "project" for the next DRY and sunny day.
My Red maple always drops her leaves in 2 stages. Yesterday's rain finished up stage #2--totally. The tree is now totally bare--while my Silver Maple is still green. This really extends all my leaf-raking.
Oh, my aching back!!! Gita
Gita, You still have the honor of being the first poster, since I started this thread and my post I just a continuation.
Sure is a lot of leaves, are you doing the bag thing with your leaves?
Hubby just ran the mulching mower over ours. No raking for me this year. That could be a good thing!
Ouch! My back aches too. Picked up all of the branches from yesterday's storm. Cleaned up some more annuals from pots. Finished up with the Caladiums. There was a tiny amount of bulb rot. Most were good. Planted 15 lilies and 12 Echinaceas. Sprayed some killer on my neighbor's encroaching Creeping Charlie.
Lady, How could you put that Dirty word in the title of this thread??
Well it caught your attention, as well as the picture
LOL Blech!
lady--
I still have ALL the bagged/shredded leaves from last fall in the bags under my bushes. Never used them this Spring. Should be just perfect next year. it takes about 2 seasons for the leaves to compost....
I have a hard time digging these into the beds--as all my back yard beds have the maple roots in them.
You can see the trunk of the red maple in the above picture. It is much 'daintier" than the monster Silver maple in the back yard.
I own a mulching mower and NEVER ever bag grass clippings.
I may just have to run it over these leaves--even if I have to do it twice. Raking and getting rid of them seems a waste of "liquid gold".....
If you look closely--you can see the black bags under those tall evergreens. Just went out to count them. There atr 6. Room for maybe 3 or 4 more.
SO pretty outside! Was going to straighten and clean my guest room--NOPE! My garden beckons----
Out with the mulching mower!!!!! Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....
Catch my Vitamin D while I still can.....:o)
Gita
I also planted some Larkspur and more Rudbeckia Cherry Brandy this morning. The Cherry Brandy was from Onewish from the swap. It finally got big enough to go into the ground. Thanks, Allison!
Does anyone have experience with Larkspur? These are my first ones.
I have not planted larkspur in a long time, I treated those as annuals. Much easier to grow then Delphiniums, which they resemble. Stock not as full of flowers like the Delphs.
OK! NO whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr......Just rake....rake...rake.....
Went outside and looked at all the leaves. Started raking them a bit away from the edges of the beds and realized they were still quite wet from yesterday's "monsoon"....Didn't think the mower would suck them up too well.
So--I raked all the fallen leaves in 4 big piles and got out my Toro Shredder Vac and went to it.
Just an FYI----I much prefer raking the leaves in piles FIRST before I use the Vac. Much easier and less time consuming. Sucking them off the ground--well--sucks!
So--here are 1/2 of my labors this afternoon--since my last post above. Four big piles......and the tree that is responsible for all this--my Red Maple.
And here are the results of the other 1/2 of my labors.
3 bags full of semi-shredded leaves. They will be put under those tall, old evergreens with the other bags....
Sprinkled a bit of Espoma "Turf Tone" in each bag to get it all going.....
Notice?---You can now see grass again!
edited to add---this will all repeat at least two more times when my Silver Maple sheds her leaves. Much more than from this smaller Maple!
This message was edited Oct 25, 2009 3:35 PM
And---This is almost a "Trash to Treasure" kind of a thing.....
I have acquired two of these huge spools from my HD to use as "patio tables". These hold the seriously heavy "all house" electrical wiring cable on them. I had my eye on it for a week--as it was getting emptier and emptier. Wrote my name all over it--so everyone was helping me keep an eye out for when it really became empty.
These are trash once they are empty! NOT to me!!!!!
You just need to find some kind of a waterproof top to put on them. Like a piece of laminate or flooring.
This one I just got this Summer. Have not done the top yet. The white, round thing on it is just a thingie that I picked up at the Ikea "As Is" dept. It is enameled metal. Must have been a table top or something.....Wish it was a bit bigger. Would work great!
This is my older one. have had this for 3-4 years. it has a laminate top screwed down.
I use these to put plants on and they also work well as side tables if I have company.....
Thass all, Folks!!!! Gita
Nice work Gita, now for a nice hot soak in the tub, pour yourself a glass of vino and rest.
Nice spool tables, don't find many of those lying around.
Thanks. Lady!
HA! I NEVER soak in the tub! It is showers only for me!
I guess working at HD has a "few" benefits! NOT many--except a very important one. You will NOT get fired just b/c of the Economy. As a PT'er--my hours get cut, miserably, during the slow-times--but I will still have my job.
Come busier times (soon!) I will have my 3 days a week again.
I have even seen these spools on the roadside where they are doing some major electrical work--like at intersections....
If you really wanted one--I would "hound" your HD or a Lowes and ask for it as it empties out.
Gita, I can't believe you have that many downed leaves all ready. Mine have only just started to fall. There aren't enough down to rake. Most of the Black Walnuts have blown away. i have 3 types of Maple and 4 or 5 other types of trees.
The larkspur that I planted is a dwarf Delphinium Tricorne:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2008/
your welcome Stormy... those seeds came from Pixie.. maybe thank her... LOL
from Maine to NJ to PA... kinda cool
I had some blooms on mine back in Sept.
Onewish, I planted another really neat Rudbeckia last week called Henry Eilers. Have you seen it?
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/64951/
no I haven't... different looking
stormy,
My Red maple drops all her leaves in a jiffy. The 1st drop is all the yellowed leaves. The second one is all the rest. having a high wind or a hard rain helps it along.....
Once it starts--in about 2 weeks they will all be down.
I guess it all depends on the "habit" of whatever trees you have.
When I drove up to Penn State last week, there was still so much green in the leaves. They certainly hadn't reached Peak color yet. Normally they do, by the 3rd week in October. Folks there told me that this year, probably due to the wet weather, some of the leaves have been dropping without turning color. I seem to remember someone on DG, probably in Canada or Maine saying the same thing.
The leaves are still too wet to try to get any up. Will wait til Sunday to see how they are. Did manage to bring the leaf vac up out of the basement and make sure it's working. Cut lot's of plant foliage down today. Will do some more tomorrow. More bulb planting too.
Well, I got into shed cleaning the other day and moved the buckets of sidewalk salt closer to the door, and the snow shovels too. And found some forgotten little daffodils and decided to try forcing them, so thye are potted and are "ready for winter"
And dug out some more bags of winter clothes for the youngest sprout--found he had shot right past size 14 and getting tall enuf for 16--yay some hand me downs to hand OUT
Everyday I keep saying I'll bring some more pots inside, and of course, I don't do it. Always find other things to do.
Well, I brought the plants that were outside drying out in tonight, just into the garage. Temperatures here are supposed to go down to 34. As of now, they are calling for a low of 30 on Friday.
I have everything in except my pot of Italian Parsley and the Greek Oregano, but that was deemed to be a perennial by Jill. I will cut it back and dry the little leaves.....then dig in the pot somewhere. if it dies--no biggie. I grew it--but never used any of it in cooking. This is true of many things I use......Oh, well.....I don't cook all that much......
G.
Gita, You are reminding me that I wanted to experiment and see if I could keep my Italian Parsley alive outside this year if I give it a little protection.
I finally brought in 5 pots of calla and wrapped lots of bulbs in newspaper (calla, canna and dahlia). I don't know if the fact that they all had some healthy green leaves attached (cut the ones off the dug up bulbs but the potted ones still are green). I there such a thing as doing this too soon?
Roses, You can't let those bulbs freeze or they turn to mush. How cold did it get there last night? Right now they're calling for a low of 31 here on Fri. Your temp must be a few degrees cooler than here. You could set the pots outside in the day, but I wouldn't leave them out at night.
Our temps dropped to freezing last night.....31*, I think....
I have not been outside yet to see if anything got nipped. Cool tonight as well....Today--highs about 50*.
Sat. and Sunday--in the 60's! Go figure! At least I will get some more garden clean-up going.....
Today--when I get back from playing Volleyball, I will try to mow over all the fallen Silver maple leaves.
I have no more room to bag them and save them....My first raking took care of that.
Sorry for the confusion Stormy,
All my potted bulbs and dig ups have been in for a week now. Did I bring them in too soon since they had lots of big green healthy leaves attached to them?
The forecast is calling for some snow tonight up here.
I pulled up another geranium and hung in the basement. Emptied some more pots for storage and rearranged some torch lights and patio umbrella, hubby put them in the garage, but not where I put them. I have some wooden kegs in the corner and I store them in there so the will not fall on the car if bumped. I am very fussy about my side of the garage. Try to make things safe and easy to get to.
Regarding parsely, I have picked it in winter under the snow. Snow is a very good insulator, it was a nice green color, tasted good, just not crisp.
A bit of computer trivia, if you want to make the degree sign hold down the Alt key and type 167 on your number pad on the right. º
or Alt and 0176 °
have fun.
Thanks, Lady, I'll try that. You are lucky to get that snow cover. We get brutally cold freezing winds and not much snow. My Parsely usually gets frozen to death sometime in Mid to late December. I have this hugh round pot of it and was thinking of putting one of my Walls of Water around it. My Walls of water are not in the best shape. This spring my grass guy weed wacked them and a couple of the tubes now leak.
Stormy, the snow protects a lot of my plants, but anything above the snow, like my evergreens, get the cold and wind lashing. I need to wrap my one evergreen, I still have some time, waiting for the cast to come off the 19th then into a removable splint. I was thinking of ordering these "bags" that are ment to protect , not sure I want to spend $17.00 + shipping for just 1, but it would make life easier.
Lady, With the condition of your arm, it just might be money well spent. Splurge a little to prevent a longer healing time. You need your strength for cookie baking!
LOL, Chris, They are cute!! They even become part of your christmas decorations and don't need an electrical hookup to stay upright! Very economical. See how we rationalize our garden purchases!!
Eyes closed, fingers in ears, singing Lalalalalala. LOL
Well, leaves are everywhere and there's still more to fall so we're only doing this once. Last year my husband insisted we get all the gutters cleaned and ended up cleaning gutters three times last year. The last stone garden wall was finally topped today so the cement and sand goes into the barn until next spring. I still have my garlic, goldenseal, ginseng, and onions to plant. The shed and workshop have been cleaned. They seem to become a dumping ground during the summer and have to be cleaned so we can get through the door to store things in winter. I have to get all my plants indoors before Friday, a frost is expected. Last year I decided to bring in my large urns that are flled with geraniums, ferns and vining plants. It worked so well, we're going to do the same this winter. They are now huge so it's a major project just getting them inside. I've planted all my garden boxes with cool season vegetables so the great experiment has begun. On another thread I saw that someone bought rolls of bubble wrap and lined their greenhouse with it. So, I think I'll try the same for the garden boxes if we have a really cold winter. I still need to come up with ideas for keeping the garden boxes warm enough this winter. Any ideas? Her's a pic of the urn I planted two years ago. They over wintered inside and are now huge! I'm determined to save them and stop buying these plants every year. Perennials rule!
This message was edited Nov 4, 2009 3:06 PM
This message was edited Nov 4, 2009 3:07 PM
