Fall Clean up

This is such a sad time of the year for a gardener. It's clean up time. Most of my flowers are done. The annuals in most of the deck pots are touched by frost or worse and I have stopped watering them. I still have 4 pots that I can't part with just yet, though. My red tuberous begonias are still looking so wonderful and I have brought the pot up close to the house. My 3 pots of gazanias have also avoided the frost and are still blooming.  They are in the same location as the begonia pot and I have been throwing a sheet over all of them to cover them at every night. Oh, and one pot of pink geraniums with a tall stately spike in the centre....  It's hard to go down to nothing!  :)

As I may have mentioned, I dug up a half dozen geraniums to put in pots and bring into the house for the winter. They often bloom in the dreary winter months and provide a welcome burst of color.  My dahlias have made it back into the paper bags of peat moss and stashed in the Rubbermaid container in the laundry room.   Still have some glad bulbs to dig up and my canna lily as well.  My canna did not bloom this year. I'm hoping that next year I can give it more of a head start in my greenhouse and maybe I will plant it in a pot on the deck instead of at the side of the house.

I'm still clipping perennials as well, and making pretty good head way there, but I am so reluctant to yank up or cut off anything that's still growing. Just seems to go against the grain somehow. I have used some of the plant clippings to mulch 3 of my rose bushes and I hauled a pail of peat over to my stack stone bed to mound around them, too. Amazingly my Love rose bush had another gorgeous blossom on it which I cut off to bring into the house, along with a blooming Hansa rose stem from the shrub at the side of the house.  Hate to let Jack Frost have his way with them...  3 more rose bushes still need winterizing. I have watered all six of them as well as my clematises. We have had next to no precipitation since early August.  Got a bit of rain this evening, but I'm not sure how much. Will have to check the levels in my rain barrels tomorrow.

 A few days ago I dug out some of the grass infested maltese cross plants in my long bed  and replaced them with 2 columbines which I had received from Janet R, a friend of mine, quite some time ago. They bloom a beautiful burgundy color and I am looking forward to seeing them flourish next spring. There are still a number of other Maltese crosses and a whole wack of daisies that will have to be removed next spring from the Long bed and the Angel bed as well. And I don't even want to think about the grass.... :(

My new stack stone bed has had nothing trimmed off yet either. If I don't get around to doing that I won't worry about it. There's always next spring. :)