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.
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| 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! :)
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