I Must Remember this Date

Today may be the last day that I scrub my floors on my hands and knees. I like clean floors, but I am really tired of  crawling around on my hands and knees to get the job done.  Last year I bought a Swiffer and it works OK for a touch up, but it's not so great for the weekly (weekly-- in a perfect world) deep cleaning.

So this morning I searched for reviews of floor sanitizers and I found that the Haan has a good rating. I had never even heard of this brand, but then I have never looked for this type of product.  I decided to trust the reviews I found and I ordered the latest Haan model.

 It should be here by next weekend.

According to the advertising, the Haan S175 kills 99.9% of germs with no chemicals. You just use tap water and the machine heats it to over 200 degrees and it cleans and sanitizes.  I cannot wait to get it!

After  cleaning my floors the old-fashioned way, I  went outside to walk through the gardens.  It's been a month since I walked this area.  I was startled to see this leaning tree with the bark gone at the bottom.

 I gave it a slight push (wearing my long winter coat that makes my arm look incredibly HUGE).

 It fell to the ground!

Whoaa! I felt like Super woman! :)  I guess it rotted away.  Good riddance is all I can say. 

Yesterday my sweet husband, knowing that I had a pretty bad week,  came home with these pink roses for me. 

Aren't they lovely? I like them in this Mason jar.  They even smell nice.  It's rare to find a rose with a fragrance these days.

I hope you all had a good weekend. I was happy to stay home and get caught up on my household chores.  I hope you did something more interesting!

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!

Rockwall Fall Color from Opposite Direction

I have had a couple of emails asking just where this fall color garden is.  Some of you think it's a new area, but it's just my old rockwall garden that I have spent the past three years trying to change into a shrub/grass/tree garden.  It has been a big pain to remove all the perennials and I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to get rid of all of them. 

These views looking toward the area I showed you in the last post, may help you remember which garden this is:

 

slightly further back giving you a view of the mossy rocks that I love:

 I like the yellow color of the hostas in autumn.  I am leaving hostas here as they will grow in shade.


15 feet further back:

 I think the dead wild fern foliage looks good with the fall colors.

 

the very end of this 100-foot garden looking toward arbor 3:

Both ends of the rockwall garden are flanked with large maple trees.

As you can see, there is not much planted on this end.  I put the Alberta Spruce's in a few years ago. 
This end is shady due to the two large pine trees. I will need to research  shrubs/grasses that will grow in shady areas.  Right now I am still trying to get rid of the gazillion perennials I had here.  It all takes time!  I would welcome ideas for shrubs that will grow in a mostly shady area.

Yesterday I planted the dwarf fountain grass 'hameln' at the opposite end of this garden. 

The few seed heads that are left, make a nice foreground to the burning bush. I can't wait until next year to see how it looks when it's a bit larger.

Burning Bushes and Maple Trees

Warning: Photo heavy!

Fall color pics that I took about 30 minutes ago in my yard.  I don't think any other commentary is needed.

I hope you are all enjoying this colorful season as much as I am!

New Shrubs/Grasses to Plant

I have had such a busy week and this week looks like it will be the same. I like to be busy, but not too busy. I am sure you all know what I mean.

Anyway, thanks for the comments last week.  I read and appreciated every one even if I did not email you to say so. 

Today I went right from work to Home Depot where I found some great bargain shrubs/grasses. 

I am posting pics of the labels of all of them. This is for my own benefit.  Next year when I wonder what I planted, I can look back here and find out.

The tallest grass is switch grass:

 I am very excited about this lilac shrub, Miss Kim:

 I love fountain grass in my summer containers. This perennial version looks beautiful in the name tag.

 I bought two of these dwarf  Midnight Wine Weigela.

If any of you have any of these plants, I would love to hear what you think about them. I probably won't plant them until the weekend, so if you have any suggestions on companion plants, I would love to hear that, too.

Tree Frogs must have an Internal GPS system

While cleaning up the deck, I threw away a wicker table that had seen better days. I had a bird house planter  on that table. When I removed it, there was a big tree frog living underneath. I gently kicked him off the deck into a flower garden area.

A bit later, I brought out some pillows and other thing to spiff up the area.

I used a double decker birdhouse as a centerpiece on the table. Right after I decorated my new table area, I went outside and found the tree frog right back in the same area where his original home was.  The table I tossed out was replaced by a chair.  The tree frog was sitting in the sun on the arm of the chair.

As you can see the handsome fella left a little gift of froggy doo-doo.  YUCK.   I went inside to get something and when I came back out, he was on top of the mat I had just put on the table! I think he saw the double decker bird house and thought it would make a nice new home.

Whatever the reason, I do not want him on the area where I plan to eat dinner.

I don't think that is an unreasonable thought, do you?  I gave him a little nudge to turn him back around, hoping he would jump off the table.

 

I had to gently push him to the deck floor and then ever so gently  off the deck (4 ft drop, but he always lands in the flowers, hanging on to a stem, so it's not a harsh landing. Five minutes later I walked around to the area where I had knocked him to and found he had already climbed all the way back up! Do you see him on the left side?

 

Unbelievable! I ran back up the stairs to find him just a few feet from his original home.

"Stupid frog. Get out of here!" I yelled as I gently knocked him back down.

Five times I did this and five times he returned to the exact same spot.  I guess I will just  have to learn to share my deck with him.  As DH said, after five times, he deserves to be left alone. I think most of you will understand why I insisted on eating dinner inside!

(Almost) Autumn Deck Rearrangement

I spent a couple of hours on the deck this morning removing about a dozen ugly spent containers as well as the two framed planters on the lattice wall.  There was still a few weeks of life left in many of my planters, so I reorganized those.  I clustered the ones that still looked decent to show off their best sides.  I even reused the green picture frames.

I love this Proven Winner Colorblaze Keystone Kopper coleus with the autumn-acceptable clash of the orange croscosmia.

Here is the whole container cluster:

I did a second cluster arrangement around the whiskey barrel on the opposite side of this entrance. 

It has red Rembrandt dahlias.

I just pulled the red dahlia containers from this corner crate display of red and pink dahlias.

 All of the pink were hit by whatever  bug has been destroying all my dahlias, so I cut those back and just left the red with the sweet potato vine.  This area is now home to my white glider.

I did a blue/green table arrangement in the area where the white glider sat all summer.

I have since decorated this area a bit, but the sun is washing out pictures, so I will have to show that on another post.

I think I should get at least a month of enjoyment from this new deck-or-ating.  I am hoping to have at least one meal out here on the green table.

Look what DH found today:

A humongous bright green caterpillar!  I think it's one of those tomato-eating horn worms. Am I correct?