Bulbs are Finally In!

I wasn't going to plant any bulbs this fall.

I know! Craziness.

I don't have any more spaces ready for tulips and daffodils, other than the slope, which tends to chew them up and spit them out.

Then my husband talked me into it. It took some real arm-twisting.

After about 1/2 a conversation I said, "Oh, alright. Alright! Okay?! I'll put some bulbs in!"

I ordered 120 smaller bulbs, early bloomers:

50 each of rock garden iris mixture & muscari mixture, plus 20 snowdrops (Galanthus Nivalis 'Flore Pleno').

Then I procrastinated. No other word for it.

 

To my dismay, after an extra long fall, it froze solid for 3 weeks, with daytime temps in the 20's.

I thought I had missed my chance, after all.

Lo and behold, the last 2 weeks have warmed up.

A reprieve! Yes!

 

I just got the last of them in today.

Scattered around the top terrace out front, and a couple small patches by my front steps.

Glad to have that done!

I'll be even more glad early next spring, when these little beauties start their show.

 

 

Flowerpots' Last Hurrah

We had some good times this summer, these flowers and I.

 

[These pictures were taken about a month ago, before hard frost had set in.]

 

 The succulent boat in front sent up alien stems with strange little blooms on them.

 

The geraniums (middle) were awash with color at several different points, despite uneven watering.

The herb container didn't do much of anything, actually.

It smelled nice for a few months.

And would you look at that asparagus fern?

Incredible! It almost makes the dead bellflowers look picturesque (or so I tell myself.)

The round blue pot in front obviously gave up quite some time ago.

These were pretty awesome while they lasted.

Now in death, they too have taken on alien life forms.

 

I might have mentioned it [twenty times] before, but the decision to get our yard done pretty much sucked the gardening life out of me there at the end of the summer.

I didn't have access to water outside for a good month and a half while the yard was graded and the sprinkler system put in. This all coincided with a decent heat wave. By the time the thought occurred to me that I could actually water these containers with a pitcher of house water, it was too late for most of the flowers.

 

I did finally get them all winterized a few weeks ago (before hard frost killed off the succulents.)

Go me!

The succulents now live inside as houseplants, where the lack of water will probably not come as a shock to their systems at all. I couldn't willfully kill off the asparagus ferns, so in the end I planted them all in my vegetable garden, bottom terrace, front and center.

They are still green, even after 2+ weeks of below freezing temperatures!

 

All the flowerpots are now tucked safely away in the shed.

I have high hopes that next year will be better all around.

We'll have a lawn that we can walk on!

That makes a pretty good starting place, I'd say.

Fall Colors

So my last post was all about how I'm ready to be done done done with the vegetable garden.

My flowerbeds, on the other hand, just continue to delight me.

 

Check out the fall colors I'm enjoying out front!

 

That lovely orange is a peony.

I know!

I don't remember it doing that before!

Maybe I had already cut it down in years past?

I feel sure I would have remembered that gorgeous color.

 

These mums provide a nice spot of pink right as I pull up to the house.

Closeup of the peony.

Snowball bush on the top terrace.

So pretty!

Add them all together, with the green from the boxwood and the deep brown of the Echinacea and wow! I could stare at it all day!

When I planted these I didn't realize how much I would enjoy them in the fall.

Plus, there is no work involved for me at this point, just enjoyment.

Makes it even better!