I posted tonight, but MT must not love me.
Yes....I've been away longer than usual. I've been saving up things to share with you while I've been chained to my office desk. Hopefully, I'll get the time in the next few days to write a bit more.
We are already into November and I've barely scratched the surface of my Fall gardening. The Herb Garden is just about ready for winter, but it's the only garden that has received any attention.
If you have iris, now is the time to add a gentle fertilizer. Go buy a bag a alfalfa pellets, the kind of thing you might feed bunnies. Sprinkle them around your pods of iris, and let them deteriorate over the winter. They'll feed the iris and you'll have the most spectacular blooms you've ever seen.
I need to cut back peonies this weekend, and the plants in the container gardens. The pots need to be emptied and cleaned for storage in the garage over the winter. I want to insulate two roses and a pot of herbs that I'm going to try to store in the garage, too.
Saturday, we plan to attend a wedding reception late in the afternoon, and then go on to dinner with the kids, to celebrate Dear Husband's birthday. We're a little late with that celebration, but this was the first time we could gather. Sunday, one of my nieces is coming for a visit in the afternoon. So, I should be able to do some gardening during the mornings.
So...while my mind dwells on gardens and celebrations, the filing calls me. I'll be back soon.
Comments (6)
Glad you're back - I missed you!
Posted by bogie | November 5, 2004 8:15 AM
Posted on November 5, 2004 08:15
Yeah. I agree with Bogie. Our family just hasn't been the same, with your being missing. I'd think that the tape in your recorder would be chock full by now!
I still have one bed of irises that I want to dig up. Right now it is too wet (remember that we have clay) to dig anything. The sun is shining, though, so we're feeling good about the weather today. We had our first frost--a really beautiful, heavy one on the grass-this morning.
Posted by Cop Car | November 5, 2004 1:35 PM
Posted on November 5, 2004 13:35
Missed you girl! Have fun playing in the dirt!
Posted by Joe Smitherman | November 5, 2004 2:28 PM
Posted on November 5, 2004 14:28
I don't think we can get alfalfa pellets here, unfortunately, but I will try feeding the irises - I've nver thought of doing it before.
Do you have to take roses in there? Ones here are fully hardy and, indeed, will sometimes carry on blooming right through the winter!
Posted by Blue Witch | November 6, 2004 7:36 AM
Posted on November 6, 2004 07:36
Thanks, Bogie!
Cop Car..I buy my iris from Cooley's in Washington State. They won't even sell them to me after August because they can't guarantee the iris will have long enough to settle in and take root before the hard weather comes. I'm astonished that you can still move your iris this late in the season. You're clearly in a warmer zone than we are.
Thanks, Joe. I'm going out to play in that dirt in just a few moments! (Assuming I can break away from the blogs....lol)
Blue Witch, alfalfa in any form will work. I use the pellets because they are convenient.
The winter temps can get to -20 degrees F. here, so even if we have a fully hardy rose, they need help to make it through the winter. Usually we cut the canes back to a foot high, or less, hill dirt up over the grafted area, and then either cover them with styrofoam rose cones (which I detest), or ring them with cylinders of wire and fill the spaces in with chopped leaves. I remember describing this to a New Zealand friend and he wondered why we would even bother with roses considering all the effort it takes to keep them going.
The in-ground roses were infested this year with something that killed them off, so I won't be re-planting roses in that spot. The two that I have in containers may have to stay in containers one more year, so I'll try to winter them over in the garage.
I didn't intend for this to turn into a book, but I hope that I answered your question.
Posted by Buffy | November 6, 2004 12:31 PM
Posted on November 6, 2004 12:31
Here in the Wichita KS area, we usually get down to about -8 degrees F. Although it felt much colder because the wind was howling, I think that the lowest temperature to which I've been subjected in this area was about -17.
Did I say anything about the irises living through my efforts? LOL If they do live, OK. If I want to assure that they'll live, I'll stick them in the basement refrigerator (as I did the ones that I sent Bogie this year--think they were refrigerated for 6-10 months.) Of course, no one expects irises to bloom the first season out of the refrigerator.
Posted by Cop Car | November 6, 2004 5:43 PM
Posted on November 6, 2004 17:43