Closing Down the Garden: Part One
October 1st! October 1st! I am so happy! This is quickly tempered when I walk out my back door and see that what I have created over the past summer, must be undone for the winter. Do I still not understand that all the planting and buying of flowers I do in May means I have to go back out in October and cut down, rip out, and pretty much denude my yard? Of course, the Creeping Charlie is still thriving. If I had a nuclear device that would harm nothing other than Creeping Charlie, you can bet I'd have a "Say Bye-Bye to Charlie" launch complete with nibblies and drinks for guests.
Yesterday I decided it was time to start on the yard. In order to not be overwhelmed, I've figured out that I will take one section at a time and work on it. Plus, the Yardy fills up quickly, so it's either do a little at a time, or have a big pile of dead vegetation in the back yard waiting until the next week. And it saves my back and legs. Did you know gardening is a great kick--butt leg workout? Just try it. You'll see that night and the next day that you can't move your legs much. Building muscle!
My neighbor has a long fence along one side of my yard, and I have planted lots of hostas along the fence line. This was my first area of destruction:
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| My sad lookin' hostas |
Hostas are pretty indestructible. After all, it only takes one leaf to make a whole new plant! All of these hostas began as just one leaf each. Bud bought them at a garage sale years ago, brought over the bucket, and says "Here you go! Have fun planting!" Yep. Took me a few days.
After about an hour of hard work, here are my results:
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No more hostas!
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Next week, I'm finishing off the rest of this run along the fence. I still have the side of my house to take care of, and last but not least, the garden out back that had a bad summer. I whacked a few things down, but was too disheartened and overwhelmed to keep going. More sunny, cool weather is in store, so I should have plenty of backyard time next week. I did find a few things blooming in my front yard garden:
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| Autumn Joy Sedum |
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| Mums gone wild |
Time to get out the pumpkins and ready the rake for some leaf action! So looking foward to that. Not.
Anything in my yard MUST be indestructible (no green thumb here) so I love my hostas. Your sedum and mums are gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteYou're SUPPOSED to cut hostas back? Ummmmm, I've just been letting them kinda, you know -die on their own. Maybe this is why my blogging wins awards, but not my gardening attempts :-P
ReplyDeleteC-Joy- you can whack pretty much any perennial down and it will come back the next year...learned that from Dee. And so far, everything has come back!
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