Yesterday (Dec 9) must have been heaven to meteorologists. Even the (usually wrong) forecasters scored big time.
Because no matter what might have been predicted for yesterday, it came. It came big time.
In the morning the wind had picked up as predicted at 15-20 mph. Clouds raced across the sky, late for some appointment to the East. But mostly the sun shone, bright and beautiful. The temps hovered in the low 50s. All the leaves still on lawns to the south of me, pinwheeled into my garden beds. I would have appreciated the extra mulch except those leaves were all black walnut - filled with juglone and the bane of tomato plants.
The wind picked up. More clouds came. Bouts of rain, then clearing again. Then, around 11:00 a.m. another band of clouds, dark and heavy with stuff. All kinds of stuff.
Another bout of rain, more clouds. The temps tumbled from 51 to 39 within an hour. Sleet. Then hail. Thunder. Lightning. Then a blinding snow squall. Wind. Lots of wind. 30-40 mph with gusts to 50. The wind couldn't make up it's mind, and kept shifting from south to north. Any the leaves that had escaped my lawn to the north blew back.
The wind howled all afternoon and when it got dark the temps really started to fall. 25 by midnight. Right now it's only 15 out there, but not to worry. It's going to soar up to 19 today. LOL About an inch of snow fell last night and there are flakes coming down right now. And it's still pretty windy, 25-35 mph with gusts over 40 mph.
Quite a day. It was as if someone fast-forwarded a semester's worth of weather forecasting class examples into 24 hours. Wow. What a ride. Gotta love Ohio weather.
It's not for wimps.
After getting all the gardens tucked in, mower et al stored in the shed and the woodpile restocked, it was time to kick back and enjoy doing nothing for a while. (Didn't I start reading a book sometime last February? Wonder where I put it...)
Well, that 'relaxing' thing lasted about a day. LOL
Honestly, it's really hard to just shut down cold turkey like that. So, having put down all the garden gear, I had hands free to take up caulk guns, glass cutters, tack hammers, sand paper and (be still my heart!) power tools. Yes, it's time for the opening of the Melissa Majora indoor winter games! (Commonly known as -- home improvements.)
I figure now is a good time to handle all those household projects that got pushed aside this summer in favor of gardening. I'll have to prioritize.
So I'm making a list
Checking it twice.
Gonna find out what I can make nice.
Oh good grief... ;-D
(P.S. For more Household Adventures, check out the new blog page listed at the top of the sidebar. Thanks for the idea, gld! :-D)
Finally, the leaves have all been rounded up, shredded to a point and layered on the flower beds. *oof* (There IS a downside to living in what realtors described as "a park-like setting" with "mature trees".) LOL
But with the new bee beds all those leaves are going to good use. Previously I would just mulch around the house (foundation beds), keep a small heap to use in the winter compost pile and then PAY someone to haul away the rest.
No more of that!
Now I have enough new beds to use every single leaf. In fact, at one point, I was afraid I would not have ENOUGH leaves to adequately mulch the ring bed. But I squeaked by with just enough left over to use in the winter compost pile.
Here's a pic of 4 tucked-in beds: ring, stump, arbor and maple bed.
The bird bath bed:
The privacy bed (which looks really really naked without those gigantic castor bean plants in front of it).
A poor pic of the veg bed:
And, finally, a stitched-together panoramic shot of the whole ring bed. I have not cut back the tall butterfly bushes so I'll have something to look at over winter. But back there the blue salvia and native asters are still blooming away. Yesterday I showed some friends around and we were amazed at the number of bees on the asters. We could actually hear humming, there were so many. I spied honeybees, green metallic bees (sweat bees) and what looked like mason bees (would they still be active this time of year?). It was quite a show - and very rewarding.
Finally, and officially, I'm done with winter prepping garden beds, leaf management, and (hopefully) lawn mowing. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! (Although if this nice weather keeps up I may be having to mow into December! *ack*).
Oh, I may wander out and cut back the occasional perennial stalk or remove the (now yellow) hosta leaves, etc., but that is just puttering - no brainers. *sigh* That's about all I can handle now. After all, by this end of the growing season, there's just not much brain left. ;-D
Even though we had a cold September with early frosts & freezes, November (so far) as been one heck of an Indian summer. Lovely mild days (sometimes near 70!) has encouraged me to go the 'extra mile' when it comes to Fall projects. And I'm not the only one who seem to be over-achieving right now....
Take, for instance, the Robinson crabapple I posted about earlier. Remember how surprised I was to find it blooming in September? Those blooms actually set fruit (see pic). And now, two months later in mid-November, that branch is blooming again! I've never seen the like. I hope it's not an indication of some tree disease or danger to it.
These warm days actually motivated me to address the problem of weeds in the ring bed. I had gotten so caught up with other chores that on nice days I found myself out there pulling weeds just to be outside in the good weather. Good grief!! Most of the perennials have pretty much shut down due to the many freezes we've had, but some are either holding their own and actually excelling at this time of year.
The "Blue Bedder" perennial salvia still sport new flower stalks. These things have bloomed all summer from this season's WS'd seeds. I'll definitely start more of these blue beauties next year.
The native asters have been blooming for 7 weeks now and going like gangbusters. They seem to laugh at nighttime temps that dip into the 20s. I have an 8-foot strip of these along the far side of the ring and show off as a dusty blue mass of petals. I'm going to collect seeds and plant perhaps another 30-40 feet of aster on that far side of the ring. Who wouldn't want a couple of months of color like this late in the year? And the bees? Oh yes, the bees are on those blossoms. (Sorry the pic is blurry, but click on it and you'll see a more focused pic.)
In Fall there is lots of bird activity as flocks of over-winterers or passers-through visit the feeders and birdbaths.
I love crows.
And no one loves a bath more than a robin. Unless it's a bunch of robins. At one point 10-12 birds where splashing in the bath with more waiting around in the Japanese maple nearby.
Of course here at Melissa Majora we cater to the entire food chain. Here our resident (and magnificent) female red-tailed hawk keeps tab on all the lesser critters....
There are still leaves to gather/shred and use as mulch, but, bottom line, I'm pretty much done outside. I still have some deck furniture that needs to be stored in the shed but with weather like this - and the arbor rebuild - you can be sure I'm still using it on a daily basis. ;-D
In a previous post I mentioned that I'd spent a good deal of this summer rebuilding the arbor over the deck. It was a long process and turned out to be just another example of me biting off almost more than I could chew.
But chew I did!
Today was dark and dreary, too wet to rake leaves, so instead I sorted through dozens and dozens of digital photos and put together a pic-heavy post for the Garden Project page. You might pop over there and check it out.
After all, what good are lovely gardens and beds if you don't have a nice vantage point from which to enjoy the view!
Oh good grief! I cannot believe that it has been WEEKS since I've posted. My bad... At one point I was poised to do a nice entry about the Autumnal Equinox and the waning of the growing season. Then it just slipped away as I dove into 'winterizing' the gardens and grounds.Then I was going to post about finishing reconstructing the deck arbor after 2 months of deconstruction, timber reclamation, wood protecting, arbor redesign and rebuild. But it was hard to get me to come in from outside where I was totally enjoying actually sitting under the arbor. LOLThen I was going to post about the success of the left-over WS'd plants at my Mom's neighborhood garage sale. The English lavender, Canterbury bells, butterfly bushes, balloon flowers and bellflowers (not WS'd).Then I absolutely was going to post about what was still blooming at this late date and providing late forage for bees and pollinators. And, by gum, I'm not letting that one get away from me!
First off, the native asters (pic) are just coming into their own blue glory. (OK, bluish-purple glory.)
The green metallic bees are obviously finding them yummy and as recent as 2 days ago cabbage butterflies were visiting them.
The blue lobelia (lobelia siphilitica - pic) is blooming away and I think this particular bumblebee just lives there anymore. LOL
Other WS'd perennials that are still blooming and attracting pollinators are:
Blue Bedder salvia
Feverfew (honestly, not so much traffic all season on this one)
Lavender hyssop
"Apricot Sprite" hyssop
Butterfly bush
Sweet Joe Pye weed
"Tall Boneset" Joe Pye weed
English lavender
Coneflower (echinacia tennesseensis)
Cardinal flower (lobelia cardinalis)
"Dwarf Munstead" lavender (pic)
And, as the pic at the top of this post, the WS'd annuals of Yvonne's salvia and 6-8 varieties of zinnias are still going gangbusters.
And, lordy, let's not forget those scary castor bean plants. In spite of being hit with a couple of early light frosts, those things are putting out NEW flower stalks. What's THAT all about??
One thing I've noticed this season is that bees (all types) seem to prefer blue flowers. Big, small, doesn't seem to matter. Blue blooms get the most traffic. So I'll be adding more blue next year. (NEXT year? Oh man, I'm not done with THIS year yet! Hold my horses, Nellie! LOL)
