October snow

Not many leaves left on the trees, but they are beautiful none the less....

Ash tree berries add so much color to the greys and browns at this time of the year here in central Alberta.

Rather hard to tell which birds these are from this photo, but they are the tundra swans returning from their summer in the north. They hang out at Buffalo lake for a couple of weeks, then they silently continue their journey south. Unlike the Canada Geese which you hear coming long before they are flying overhead, only one or two Tundra Swans in the flock occasionally make a sound as they are flying.

It's a thrill to look up and see these huge magnificent white birds flying so gracefully and silently above your head!

We were in calgary this weekend and I was amazed to see there are still quite a number of trees there with leaves on them.  There are very few leaves left on the trees here,2 hours north east of Calgary.

Now for the "S" word! Yes, we woke up to snow on the ground this morning! It was still mostly here this evening and those flakes might find some additional company by morning.  I need to go check my 'mulch mounds' around my rose bushes tomorrow to see if they are still in tact or need to be replenished. We had quite the wind today so who knows where my protective coverings ended up!

This pretty much winds down my 2010 garden blog from Buffalo Lake, Alberta.  I have enjoyed it immensely and hope to take it up again in March or April of 2011, and so I thank you for following this humble blog and wish you a warm winter!

October Summer?

Another beautiful mid October day today! It has been warm and sunny like this for the last 2 weeks! The forecast for today is +20C , if you can believe that. Sure makes fall garden clean up more agreeable!

I was out on the Thanksgiving weekend and also yesterday doing more flower bed clean up. That job never seems to end! I keep telling myself that whatever work I do now will mean less work to do come spring, but I know deep down that that is really only partly true.  I am reluctant to hack down anything that is still green right now, where as, come spring, it will all be yellow, dry and dead so that makes it easier. I find myself being selective in what I’m yanking out or clipping, so in reality I will end up going back to the same bed more than once to clean it completely.

I want to leave anything that the birds might like to munch on come winter, but on the other hand, I don’t want all my overly aggressive perennials to go to seed too much. I can already see that I have a massive amount of tiny white daisy seedlings trying to grow everywhere. I weeded as many daisies out as I could, but soon got tired of it and made a note in my gardening journal to finish that job in one particular bed (the lower level of my rock garden) in the spring. 

The birds are nibbling on the seeds of the lilacs which I always leave.

Canada geese flying overhead on their way south to warmer climates

 I was also reluctant to clip the blue sage (called May Night... a beautiful dark royal blue that for some reason I sometimes see at night when I close my eyes before I go to sleep...). The sage spikes still have a few blue flowers at the very tips and I see bees there every day getting the last of the nectar. So I compromised and clipped the two thirds closest to the stairs and left some at the far end of the plant for the bees to enjoy.  We are expecting a hard frost in a day or two ( -7C) so I imagine by then, the bees will be staying in their hives and hibernating so it should be safe to finish the job. (I wonder how many new little blue sage plants will be sprouting up there in the spring.... )

Fall garden, not as colorful as summer, but still has its appeal

Strangely enough, my lilac hedge at the back of the house still has a lot of leaves left on it at this time of year when almost all other trees and shrubs have dropped theirs. Not sure why, but possibly because of all the precipitation we have had this whole growing season.

Lilacs still have their leaves in October

I trimmed day lily leaves and dug up more grass (what a nuisance!) out of the rock garden bed yesterday. 

Then I planted some grape hyacinth bulbs (which my friend BA had kindly given me) in the west side of my stack stone bed. I shared a dozen of them with my daughter who was visiting on the Thanksgiving weekend for her to plant in her own flower bed. She had a little bunch of grape hyacinth outside her bedroom window growing up at our house in northern Manitoba, and we both always enjoyed seeing them bloom in early spring.

I finally got started on cleaning up my wild flower bed and wild it is!  There is so much tall grass in there it’s amazing that other things still can grow! I think that’s another thing to write in my garden journal under “To Do for 2011”: Dig out some of the worse areas of grass especially those that are trying to encroach on my newly planted peonies there, (which I hope will eventually reward my efforts with some flowers!)  I trimmed about half of the maltese crosses and spent daisies in that bed. 

I left the peonies alone though.  My own experience, as well as the Lois Hole perennial book has shown me not to baby peonies.  One year I got energetic and trimmed back the peonies in the fall and added mulch. The next spring the peonies had LESS flowers than they had when I did not trim and mulch them. The Lois Hole book says that peonies need to have the cold temperatures in the winter in order to bloom well in the spring. The only thing you really need to remember to do for them is give them a good drink of water late in the fall to prevent them drying out.

Time to go out and finish the job of trimming the wild flower bed now!  

The last job to do is trim the huge mass of day lilies next to the pond and then put mulch on the rose bushes. I have saved some clippings to do that with and also will add some leaves and some peat moss to hold it all in around the rose bushes to make a nice snuggly blanket for the winter months. I think a bit of water to wet it down should help keep it from blowing away until the snow comes to cover the flower beds. 

But lets not talk about snow just yet!   :)

October gardening

What a gorgeous fall day outside! Actually it is more like a warm sunny August day than early October!  Plus 20C!??? I think Mother Nature is having a hot flash or trying to make up for being so nasty to us weather-wise for most of July, August and September!  Whatever the reason, we are enjoying it thoroughly!

It was a beautiful day to be out messing around in my flower beds.  (The clean up there never seems to end, though!)   I trimmed my rose bushes back, but haven't put any mulch or peat around them yet. I clipped back 2 potentilla shrubs and also the red current which is spreading out a little too much in the middle of my stack stone flower bed. Pulled out a lot of tall grass and other weeds that managed to elude me all summer.

I  dug most of the remaining annuals out of the pots on the deck today, too. I left 2 spike plants in their pots (they both look so healthy and beautiful,) along with a red geranium and an ivy geranium which are both still blooming. I think I will spray them down well and then bring the 2 pots into the living room for the winter.  I had taken a nice slip of my favorite red geranium (Samba Red) about 2 weeks ago, but my little kitty knocked it off the window sill into the sink while we were away and the pet sitters tried to put it back into the pot. It looks pretty awful now, so I think I'll just compost it and keep the nice one in the big deck pot instead.

And I'm wondering how I ended up with 3 Orbit Pink geraniums to over-winter?  Oh, well. They all 3 look nice and just in case one of them doesn't make it till spring, I'll keep them all, I guess. ( I also have one white geranium, one Maestro Blue and one lacy geranium.) I gave up trying to over-winter the regal geraniums with the beautiful 2 tone flowers and sharp edged leaves. The plants themselves did okay, but they took forever to get buds and start blooming after I planted them outside. They didn't really look very nice until about August, truth be told. I tried over-wintering them 2 years in a row, but there are some things that just do so much better in a greenhouse.

Pond minus the gold fish and the stack stone flower bed

We took the goldfish out of the pond today. There are 8 of them altogether. Could only find 7 at first, but after my husband scooped out almost all of the water, he found the last one in the sludgy water. He had it in his hand and it almost made an escape before he got it into the pail! It literally leaped in on its own! Now they will be 'housed' in a fish tank in the laundry room for the winter.  I rathet enjoy seeing them whenever I go to do the laundry.

The job of getting all the algae and sludge out of the pond and clean the filter system is next. Then we leave it mostly empty for the winter, although it's good to leave a little water in it for the birds to drink in late fall.  (Once it freezes and snows outside, I wonder, do the birds eat snow???)

I watered my roses and lilies in my stack stone bed today, as well as my best blooming peony in the small bed next to it. Apparently a dry fall is the most frequent cause of perennials dying, not a hard winter, so remember to water your perennials if you haven't had any rain for a couple weeks.

Next job:  Dig out the glad bulbs and the last  2 tuberous begonia tubers to over winter.  Clip the rest of the perennials in the big round Angel bed including the tall heliopsis in the centre.

After that: trim the perennials in the wild bed at the end of the yard and water the peonies there.

Note: Do not trim the clematis or the peonies before winter. It's best to do that in the spring apparently.

One more thing! The big spaghetti squash that grew in our garden this summer, turns out to be... a pumpkin!  LOL! Yup! I thought it was a strange shape for a squash, but I was positive I had planted squash seeds! Oh well. It is turning orange on the kitchen counter and should make a nice little Jack-o-lantern for Hallowe'en! :)