More September flowers

More September flowers, before the frost…

Sweet peas

Yes Jack Frost scheduled several unwanted visit  the second week of September. In anticipation of his arrival ( ugh!) we harvest most of the veggies out of the garden, the squashes, the last of the zucchinis,   any still fresh looking rhubarb, a feed of swiss chard and any tomatoes that were ripening. We left the root plants, the carrots, beets and potatoes. We cleaned up dying vines, lettuce gone to seed and overlooked weeds. 

Pink geraniums and mauve lobelia

I dug out some of my gorgeous geraniums and potted them to take into the house for the winter.

Angel bed with yellow helianthus and pink lavatara in bloom 

I clipped off a huge bunch of orange mint (its green in colour but smells like oranges) to dry for tea. (I just lay the leaves and stems on a cookie sheet for a couple of weeks, then take off the leaves, bag them and compost the stems.  I like to add the mint leaves to my other teas in the winter or crush them in my tea infuser and use them straight.

Ruby rudbeckia, 2nd year of growth

Jack did visit for 4 nights in a row, Sept. 9 -12. Unfortunately I was away for 10 days during that time period. Diligent husband covered some of the tomato plants next to the greenhouse, but due to a very bad back at that time, I think he missed a night or two, judging by the state of some of the tomato plants.  (The three smaller pots that he managed to drag into the greenhouse look fine.)

Most of the cosmos plants in the flower beds in the centre of the yard are black and dead. The ones close to the deck, lost the top half, but the bottom halves are still flowering and the ones next to the house are all fine.  My tall Firebird dahlias which were looking so absolutely gorgeous, are also black and dead, and most of the tops of the geraniums are toast.

To add insult to injury, this past week since I have been back Sept 17 to 14 the weather has been mostly sunny and hot. What little flowers are left after the frost are ironically trying to grow again, but there's too little time left for that now.

Autumn Joy sedum starting to bloom

Surprisingly, one of my  Morden rose bushes still has fresh looking pink blossoms on it. Somehow it managed to escape Jack's vengeance.  And of course my Autumn Joy sedum which shrugs off chilly weather is just starting to bloom and show its gorgeous colour!  The pansies that didn't dry out in our August-early Sept drought all survived as well. Snap dragons are very frost resistant, too, but most of mine were all bloomed out already.

Have been cleaning dead cosmos and other spent perennials out of the flower beds. Still lots of work to do in that regard.  Also made 'Garden maps" of 3 of my large flower beds with some notes about what to  remove and or divide, or switch around next spring.  Always something to do when you are a gardener. It's almost a relief that the winter is not far off, just to get a rest. :)

Cool September

Cosmos grown from seed and looking wonderful

I clipped down and cleaned up some of my spent perennials this week, especially the Monkshood (aconitum) which were going to seed (and I don't want little baby Monkshoods all over the flower bed again.)  As I was doing that, I heard a sound like a freight train approaching, and suddenly it got very windy! I was going to quickly finish the job, since I was close to being done, but I got bonked on the head from something that came flying out of a nearby spruce tree! (Probably a spruce cone, but that served as a reminder to get going into the house!)  It drizzled a bit after that, but then soon stopped.

Yesterday (Sept. 5) was a nice, warm sunny day +21C. A pleasant change from the cooler temperatures and overcast weather recently.  I moved one of my peonies, a pretty dark pink one which I think is a Sarah Burnhart.

In the last few years, it had not been blooming much at all where it was situated in a small bed under a spruce tree. Too much shade there now, I guess. 7 years ago it had bloomed really well there, but as the nearby trees and shrubs grow taller, the sun factor changes.  It's 'touch and go' with me transplanting peonies, though… I'm hoping I will be successful in getting it to bloom in its new location.

Tiny transplanted peony stems amongst bearded irises and hollyhocks

I dug put some of the bearded irises at my 'Side of the House' bed next to my Hansa rose. I dug a hole there and removed a lot of the clay soil, as well as 2 big rocks!  (I used  the clay soil to fill in a hole that a Marmot had dug next to my giant Juniper bush.)  Then I added half a bag of good soil to the hole.

Hansa rose at side of house

Next I dug up the peony in question, hosed the soil off the roots and checked for the little white 'eyes'.  I divided  the big root into 3 parts, and planted 2 parts in the prepared hole by the side of the house, trying to get it only 1 or 2 inches below the surface. (That seems to be the optimum height to produce flowers.)  After that I planted 2 of the irises back in that bed, then I watered the heck out of it!

"Sleeping Beauty" hosta

After that I dug up a small Hosta (called Sleeping beauty) growing feebly under my potentilla bush on the west side of my stack stone bed.  I planted Sleeping Beauty in the old peony spot under the spruce tree. I pulled out a lot of weeds and quack grass there and added a few of the irises around it, plus the rest of the good soil from the bag. Then I watered it all.

Tomatoes

We had frost warning for overnight on Sept 3rd and 4th so we covered the tomato plants next to the greenhouse as well as the Firebird dahlias, the red Thompson Dahlia and the orange tuberous begonia tub.  Luckily we got no frost and the flowers in my garden continue to look really pretty.

Back to tomatoes… The Early Girls have been producing a lot of ripe fruit for quite some time now! Yum, they taste so sweet!  The huge droopy "tumbler" on the deck and the smaller one next to the greenhouse have done well.  The New Zealand tomato that I started from seed has given us some huge pale red tomatoes, quite tasty and we've had some Purple Russians, too. Yesterday I picked 7 nice sized juicy red tomatoes off the 'Patio" tomato ( one of the plants from the Tail Creek greenhouse.)

We are 'rolling' in Cucumbers! The 3 plants inside the greenhouse have been producing fruit for about 6 weeks now and we have been enjoying the wonderful fresh taste and also sharing them with friends and family.

Acorn squash giant in same pot with New Zealand tomato

The spaghetti squash plants (that I started from seed) have given us 4 nice ones so far. But what happened to my Butternut squashes? Did I mislabel the seeds or the seedlings? Or did I give them all away inadvertently? I don't seem to have any…

The Acorn squash which I planted as an after thought in the pot with the New Zealand tomato next to the shed has grown like a giant beanstalk creeping across the lawn! It produced a lot of flowers, but the lazy bees seem to prefer my other flowers and the squash flowers weren't getting pollinated. (Then they just fall off and no fruit grows.)

We did eat one huge squash that it managed to produce, though. After that, when it produced more flowers,  Diligent Husband pollinated them, so now we have 3 or 4 small acorn squashes trying to ripen. Our friend Janet, who has one of my acorn squashes growing in her farm garden has out-produced us again, though! :)

Tomatoes growing next to greenhouse always do better than the ones inside…go figure!

More bad weather is forecast for next week…Frost 4 nights in a row! :(

I'm going to be away that week so DH will just cover the tomato plants next to the green house, maybe drag one or 2 pots right INTO the greenhouse, and cover the gigantic acorn squash to keep it alive. Everything else is on it's own, though..

Black-eyed Susans

I hate to think that I'm going to come home to mostly dead flowers.  The Firebird dahlias are looking so pretty and the Thompson dahlias still have a lot of buds…
My Black-eyed Susans at the side of the house are looking very cute! I should move some of them to my stack stone bed, dig up one of the big daisy plants there.

Pink lavatara

My pink lavatara is looking so gorgeous, (although not as huge as last year) and my Cosmos are gigantic and covered in pretty blooms. I had started them from seed and they are flourishing in the rock garden, the side of the house and the long perennial bed.  I'm hoping to collect some seeds to use next year, so Jack Frost please stay away until next month!

cosmos

I picked a good feed of swiss chard today, probably the last of the season,  since it won't taste very good after getting frost. Also want to go pick some last rhubarb stalks to put in the freezer.  The carrots and beets will be fine, but what about my 2 little red cabbages… Guess they need to be picked now, too.

To do: Plant Turbo Rose into the flower bed where my little Morden Sunrise used to be…

Happy fall gardening!

Pepper plants and cucumbers inside the greenhouse