Only Six Trees Left to Remove

The tree company called DH on Friday morning and said they  had a cancellation....would he like them to start at 8:00 am on Friday?   Of course, he did.  I came home from work to these scenes:

Big heavy truck on my front lawn...........

It's amazing that the white pads they put down for the truck to drive on, actually worked and there was no lawn damage.

I saw a pile of tree branches, but by the time I got home, they had already hauled away two truckloads of debris, so it did not look bad.

This is all that was left of the apple tree:

It seems that apple tree trunks are a  popular commodity ... neighbors came down asking if they could have the trunks...of course, nobody offered to cut the tree down in exchange for the wood, but if we were paying to have it cut down, suddenly everyone wanted it! :)  I guess it's used for adding flavor when BBQing.  We gave it to whomever was the first person to ask...

At the end of the work day, there was only six trees left to cut down.  They will come back on Monday to finish.

Right now I am feeling ambivalent....there is so much work we will have to do next year...Removing the apple tree has totally changed that border....the path that led to a bench is now in the wrong place...etc. etc. etc.  Where I used to have shade, I now have full sun... We need to bring in new top soil....etc. etc. etc.  It's overwhelming! 

Rather than think about all the work I will soon have, I went out on the deck and cut down most of the Trebbiano dahlias that were blooming so I could bring them inside to enjoy over the weekend.  I made this quick centerpiece for my dining room table:

My next project is to change the dining room chair covers to something more autumn-ish...maybe tomorrow..............

Cold, Wet, Rainy Weekend

The weather this weekend was not a bit nice. Luckily I checked the forecast and knew the rain was coming, so we went out at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday in just above 30 degree temps to put all the deck containers away for the winter.  We worked for just under three hours and had everything cut down and stored for the winter. 

We felt good about that.

Remember the two whiskey barrels with the big Tropicannas? 

No? 

O.K. here is a reminder:





this is the same container today:

We removed everything, tossed out the annuals and have the tender corms & rhizomes in the garage to dry out.  Normally I would have used the hose to remove all the soil, but it was too cold, so I just shook off what I could. In a few days all the soil will shake off.

I think it's amazing that those huge striped Tropicanna leaves emerge from these rather small rhizomes that are drying out in my garage.

 

It has rained so much this weekend that we had flood warnings.  It is still raining now.

The rain has been good for the burning  bush that we moved last weekend.  I snapped this photo from my bedroom window:

  I stood at my living room window to take this pic of the front yard:

The sedum autumn joy is turning its deepest color now.   I may cut it all down next weekend.

This weather is perfect for staying inside and  cooking.

Last week my mother-in-law gave us these colorful peppers from her garden:

 I needed to do something with them before they rot.  So I stuck them under the broiler to blacken the skin.

Once blackened I covered them with foil and let them sit for about an hour.  Then I removed the skin and turned them into this roasted pepper garlic tomato sauce

that I used in place of purchased spaghetti sauce to make a beef spinach lasagna for tonight's dinner.

I hope everyone had better weather for their weekend, than I did!

Poorly Planned Burning Bush Planting

In 2010 I moved this huge burning bush from the front yard to the rockwall garden. 

As usual I was moving plants on the spur-of-the-moment and did not even realize that I had placed it directly behind this cherry tree.  From the side where I was standing, it appeared to be the perfect spot.  Once I walked around to the front, I knew I had made a big mistake.  It takes a lot of work to move this one, so I just left it.  It's been bugging me ever since. You can see that the color is not nearly as vibrant as the one to the right, which gets plenty of sun.

Today, DH put in a ton of muscle power to dig this huge planting hole through hard, rocky soil

 so that I could move this shurb again.  This is the area where we put it:

Did you know that golden privet turns purple in the fall and even has purple berries?

Here is the same shrub in the summer:
 
It's a lovely bright chartreuse color. I do enjoy shrubs that have a dramatic seasonal color change.

Here is a view of the newly planted burning bush from the back of this privet shrub with a backdrop of orange maple tree leaves:

In this view you can see the other two burning bushes in the rockwall garden where it used to live.

 I am hoping that next year it will survive and turn the same vibrant red as the others.

Here it is looking through lavender seed heads from the garden directly across the grass path:

In addition to moving this monster shrub, we spent a  few more hours digging, hauling heavy furniture to the basement, etc.

When we went outside at 9:00 a.m. everything was covered in a light sheet of ice! It got down to 28 degrees last night.

Ice on the top of the potting bench:

 the top of the glass table:

and frozen droplets on the chair back:

It was only cold for a short time as once we got moving, we warmed up pretty quickly.

 

Now we are both pooped and just relaxing as we await the chicken/potato stack dinner I have in the oven.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

Productive Saturday so Far

I got up at 3:00 a.m. so I will have extra hours to be productive today.  I have already done my major  weekend cleaning tasks (done by 6:00 a.m. LOL ).   Then I started to bake a cake, but had to set it aside when I discovered I was out of eggs.  I will bake the cake later this afternoon.

As soon as it was daylight I went outside and picked up fallen pinecones so I could use them in this autumn arrangement for the family room.

I cut down the rest of my red coleus and snipped a few of the grass seed heads for this simple arrangement.

There is a second glass cyclinder inside the pinecones to hold the water. I wish I had thought to take a pic of the assembly.  I will be able to use the pine cone bottom right through Christmas. I will change the top portion to whatever I can find growing outside. I think evergreens will be nice when it's get closer to Christmas.

DH & I spent a few hours doing some pretty hard outside work, hauling all the milk cans, tables, chairs, etc. from the garden and then washing them all off.  It's time to put everything to bed for the long winter.  Everything needs to dry and then we will put it all in the crawl space.

This huge washtub is getting too heavy to haul into the storage crawl space, so we dumped it out.

I removed the tubers, corms, etc., sprayed off most of the soil and set them out to dry.  Yesterday I had the landscape guy at work remove everything from the four planters I did there.  From just five containers, I got all of this!

I still have two whiskey barrels to dig out, but I ran out of time and energy for today.  I have to get ready to go into work at 1:00 p.m. to attend a meeting. It will probably last about two hours.

DH is going to grill steaks tonight, so I won't have to do much work when I get home.  That's good because I think all of my energy is about gone already.

Hope you are having a productive Saturday, too - even if your goal is just to relax.

What a Wet Mess!

It's been cold and rainy for a few days. Since the deck plants have not been hit by a hard frost, I have had to wait to cut them all down and put them in their winter storage home.   It is still raining, so I just snapped these pics from my family room door.




Major mess!!  I was hoping to get all the containers in the storage space this weekend, but if they don't dry out a bit, I won't be able to.  They will just rot if I store them too wet.

I went to the bedroom window and snapped a few photos of the Arbor gardens.  I cut a lot down a few weeks ago, but there is still a lot more to do.

It will probably have to wait until spring now.

The sedum outside the living room window:

All the leaves are falling off. The heads will look nice with the first snowfall, so I will leave these until spring, too.
I was thinking that I am very late in putting my containers to bed this year, so I looked up my October posts from 2010. It seems that I put the plants to bed the weekend of October 22, so I am not late at all! I now feel so much better. :)

Last year on Oct. 19 I posted about my Halloween decorating. This year I am not planning to do any Halloween decorating, so I will repost some pics from last year:

I really enjoyed this vignette last year and I had planned to redo it this year. Somehow time & my energy escaped, and I never got around to doing it. 

I am hoping to do some sort of Thanksgiving decorating this weekend.  We have already made reservations to attend some concerts for the  last Saturday in Oct. and the first Saturday in November, so if I don't get it done this weekend, it probably won't get done at all. I need to find more time in my weekends!

The Big Cut Down has Begun

I snapped this from my bedroom window at 7:30 a.m.

The light was hitting just right and everything looked pretty even though it was only 32 degrees outside.
Still I was ruthless and as soon as the temperature was in the 50's , I grabbed the Felcos, garden gloves and a huge wheelbarrow and set about chopping it all down. 

I worked for an hour or so, took a little break, then went back to cutting. I probably worked three hours and got all of this down - 4 wheelbarrow loads.

The section above was almost all daylily foliage--the worst to cut back. As you can see, three hours barely made a dent in the total amount I have to do just in this garden. That is why I have to start early.

DH was also outside getting a ton of work done--painting basement window trim, cutting grass, removing the arbor planters, etc . He raked up apples and hauled them to the compost area (which never really turns to compost because there is little sunlight).

Back in the rockwall garden this Obedient plant is blooming. You may remember that I have spent the past two years removing this plant from the Arbor gardens as it's very invasive.  I will eventually get rid of this, too; I am way too tired to do it today.  Some people, like Barb at Barb and Dell Designs, have a very pretty Obedient plant--nice fat flowers. I don't. The flowers on mine are skinny, whimpy things, so they must go.

I also cut down the dead dahlias on the deck and rearranged this area. The cannas have big fat buds and I just could not cut them down yet. It is supposed to be warmer this week, so I think they will have time to open into beautiful flowers.  I really can't believe they are still looking pretty good after 4 nights of mid to low 30-degree weather.

One of my side gardens is just now coming into its best bloom with a double perennial false sunflower that I call "Annette's flower"  because my SIL, Annette gave them to me.  When happy, this flower forms a 4-ft. tall thick hedge.  I used to have it planted in this garden, then got bored and moved it to other gardens. It never did well in the other gardens (needs a lot of sun), so last year I moved it back here and it is really starting to take off again.  You are getting the view from up on the deck because after all that cutting down work, I am too tired to walk down the steps. :)

I think "Annette's Flower" may be  Helianthus Multiflorus Flore Pleno.  I just realized that at this time of year the blooms in my Deck Garden are almost exactly the same colors as the blooms in the Messy Neighbor Garden. I call it that because it borders their property--it may even be an inch or two on their property.
It could not match better if I had planned it!  Sometimes things just work out....

Here is a close up of the flower when it was planted in one of my other gardens.



I am so glad I did not poke holes in the washtub I bought at the farmer's market in August. It was perfect to fill with water and bleach to disinfect the arbor wall planters that DH removed while I was cutting down plants.

I save the coconut fiber inserts to use year after year.

I will let these set out to dry completely and store them for the winter.

I am feeling good tonight because last year I did not get any of this area cut down, so I am way ahead already this year!  I think it's time to sit on the front porch  with a glass of good white wine and admire the big coleus planter before it's gone.

I can't believe this Sedona coleus is still looking this good after that cold weather. Coleus is usually the first to turn black at the slightest bit of freezing temperatures. I have not even covered it. I guess being so close to the house has protected all of my containers in the front.  I was thinking of buying a big orange mum  (like Eileen did here) and redoing this planter.  I have since decided not to bother, but Eileen did inspire me to stick a pumpkin face in, just for something different to look at.

This post is already too long, so I can't even tell you about the wonderful food I cooked or the 3 new shrubs I bought and planted.  I will save that for another post.  Suffice it to say that although I may be almost dead from exhaustion, I have had a very, very, very productive weekend!

Tonight I cut down the Rest of the Container Plants

Since my only Pineapple Lily bloom still looked good, I decided to bring it inside. I stuck it in an amber vase and put it in the middle of the candy dish I got last week  from my retired friend.


I dug up the few cannas I had planted in the ground and tossed them in a box in the garage to dry out.

Then, as much as it hurt me to do so,  I cut down my lovely Mandevilla vine.

I would really love to save this vine for next year. But I am not good at saving things inside through the winter. I would have to put it in the basement and remember to water it all through the winter....all the leaves will fall off and make an incredible mess....the plant will probably get some kind of bug....aphids or something........do I really want to do it? I cut it back and stuck it on the deck for now....

It already looks pathetic!  I will probably make a meager attempt to save it because it is not likely that I will be able to buy one next year.  In my small town we can never count on getting the same plants from year to year.

I will leave you tonight with a few fall color shots from my back yard.  
Standing on the deck:

 One of my burning bushes....they are the Grand Ladies of my fall color!

 Looking from the mandevilla vine just before I cut it down:

Looking from the dead hosta foliage in the milk can in the picture above:

Standing on the deck looking through the Buddelia.  Look how tiny the butterfly bush blooms are--just little purple nubs!: