What's your garden like at this time of year?

[Pilgrim]

Autumn leaves blowing 'round
Morning dew on the ground
Fall colors turning brown
Winter's lurking with a frown.

 

[joyshirley]

Neat little verse, Mr O!

 

[rebornfree]

just what I am doing, tidying up, which is quite satisfying... my husband found a pile of leaves in the corner of the garden and underneath is a hedgehog hibernating. We covered him up carefully...

I find it satisfying too musicalpilgrim. How lovely to see a hedgehog hibernating; I wonder if you'll catch sight of him in spring.

I have some weeding that needs doing here and I hope to have a young friend of ours call over and whip through it for me. He does a great job and works fast. I will pay him for his time and it will save me a lot of work and probable pain. Now that Spring is well underway here, everything, including weeds and grass, are going for it.

I'm sorry that you might find weeding painful, js; how good though that you have a young friend who will do it for you. I hope your garden is looking beautiful.

Autumn leaves blowing 'round
Morning dew on the ground
Fall colors turning brown
Winter's lurking with a frown.

Sums up autumn nicely, Mr.O!

I love being in the garden late afternoon in autumn. The slight chill in the air gives me a sense of expectancy and going indoors afterwards to a warm drink and cheerfully lit home is one of my pleasures. Unfortunately I left it so late this week that I could hardly see what I was doing when planting bulbs. Firstly I carefully planned an arrangement of hyacinths with daffodils around them, before realising that I'd done it the wrong way around and then I didn't have enough light to know what I was planting, so I did a trough at random, and am looking forward to seeing what appears in spring.

 

[Rescued One]

Well, everything freezes in November. But I ran across a photo I snapped of my bee balm(monarda) in June of 2007. I hope you don't mind an out of season photo.

 

[musicalpilgrim]

Well, everything freezes in November. But I ran across a photo I snapped of my bee balm(monarda) in June of 2007. I hope you don't mind an out of season photo.
View attachment 212570

That's beautiful!

 

[Rescued One]

Everywhere I see piles of dead leaves and they aren't from my evergreen trees!

 

[musicalpilgrim]

We have had a little snow...i hope the hedgehog at the bottom of the garden is nice and cosy under the leaves.

 

[rebornfree]

A little snow here too, but I'm roughly in the same part of the country so it's not surprising. I hope your hedgehog is keeping warm too, musicalpilgrim.

My garden needs a bit of a tidy up. The sedums have died and should be pulled up, and I haven't pruned my rose (which still has blooms) or fuchsias. I hope it warms up, after the cold snap, so I can get it done next week.

Is your garden in full bloom, js?

 

[joyshirley]

We don't have flower gardens at this home, Sue, except for some lilies. They are all out now and are very pretty - a deep red colour. We have some camellias as well, but they won't flower till much later on. I like fuchsias. We had some at our previous home.

 

[rebornfree]

Deep red lilies must be beautiful, js, and I love camellias too. I hope you don't miss your other garden too much.

 

[joyshirley]

No, not really, Sue. We weren't there long and though it was a pretty garden it wasn't hard to leave it. Movin' on, as they say.

 

[rebornfree]

I'm pleased you don't miss it js.

 

[joyshirley]

If I were to miss a garden, Sue, it would be my parents' beautiful gardens from back in the day when they were still both active gardeners and their huge gardens were riots of colour and fragrance. Also the garden we had when our children were growing up as I worked hard there and had many beautiful native shrubs and a few trees as well as pretty flower beds. One day we may put down permanent roots and have a wee garden all our own, but until then I spose it's true to say I try not to get attached to a house and its garden as we will inevitably move on at some point. I'm glad you get such joy from your garden, Sue.

 

[Rescued One]

It reminds me of a poem I loved when I was young. The Watcher by Omar Lee Reed.

The snow fell silently all the night
And slowly all the world went white...

 

[rebornfree]

I remember you saying about your parents' garden joyshirley. ('Potatoes' comes to mind - didn't your father grow them?) The colour and fragrance sound beautiful and I remember the photos you've posted of your previous garden with the exotic (to me) trees and shrubs.

My father loved gardening, and although I grew veg when I worked part-time I found it too much when returning to full-time work. Phoebe Ann's post has reminded me of a discussion we had with two other couples. They were saying when their garden looked the best - one was "spring" the other "summer". I replied that ours looked its best under a foot of snow! However by the time I was reaching retirement I had an instant when I just wanted to garden. It was like someone turning on a switch and since then I've loved it. The garden is very small here (not the one I grew veg in), which makes it manageable. It needs tidying up now, and am wondering if it is too late to prune the shrubs.

 

[davedajobauk]

You can expect some 'frost burning' of the cut stems Sue Sis'

But it would be best, to do it whilst the plants are dormant
and to cut away any frost-damage before the shrubs awake in Spring

~if you leave it until Spring... the 'wounds' may become diseased
at a time when the sap is again flowing

 

[rebornfree]

Thanks Dave, that is very useful. I'm going to try and do it next week.

 

[Rescued One]

This was March 2008, but I think it gives you an idea though it's more snow than we have right now:

 

[joyshirley]

This was March 2008, but I think it gives you an idea though it's more snow than we have right now:View attachment 216360

A beautiful wintery scene, Phoebe Ann. Lovely photo!

 

[davedajobauk]

Very WET and Muddy