In the Garden: October 2010 Archives

I noticed while I was on my hands and knees a few feet further down the garden that a small patch of iris was really short on dirt around it's roots. Since I was there, I added som dirt, bringing it up around the edges of the rhizomes. Iris do really well in cool weather, so I thought there might be a bit more growth this fall, as they get ready to settle in for the winter.

I was putting a chrysanthemum in the basket by the front door and looked down at the iris as I passed. I could see the roots again! Apparently, where my iris is planted there is a back door to a chipmunk burrow. It's too late in the season to move the iris, so every day from now until the chipmunks go into hibernation, I'm going to have to add dirt around these iris.

Doesn't this have the feel of one of the Looney Tunes cartoons? I can just see one of those characters pouring tons of dirt over the iris and the chipmunks flinging back out again at jet speed! Darned little rodents!

I've planned to get into the gardens for an hour or two a day, while the weather lasts. It's got to be easier on my body, and on my schedule, to spread it out over several weeks. With that in mind, I went out yesterday to plant six tulips about about a dozen lilies in the garden closest to the front door.

I wrote earlier that I had trimmed back half of the vinca in that bed. As I got ready to plant the lilies, I thought that it would be wiser to cut out the superstructure of the vinca, and remove as much of it as possible. I told Cop Car that I'm not kidding myself that I've eradicated it, but at least it will start from a much smaller base next year. That little project took the half hour that I thought I would be spending in the garden.

I started moving dirt with a trowel before I smacked myself in the head, got up, and started to shovel dirt out of the way. Clunk! Huh?? I tried again. Clunk! Okay....back to my knees with the trowel. I heard a metalic scrape. Light began to dawn. Probably 15 years ago, in an effort to outsmart the chipmunks, Dear Husband created a box for me out of hardware cloth. It's a grid of wire that must be a half to three-quarter of an inch square. I dug out a huge hole, lowered the box into it, partially filled in the box, planted the tulips, covered them, lowered the lid, and covered that with dirt, too. It's been buried there all this time. ONE lonely tulip has bloomed every year.

I figured that I was this far along, I might as well dig the thing out. Oh boy.....do my muscles feel it! Most of the work had to be done with a hand trowel. When I got most of the box emptied, I used the shovel to lift it out, and it came out in pretty darned good shape. There were two crocus bulbs, and three baby crocus bulbs. Not a single tulip to be found.

By that time, I had a hole that was perfect for the tulips and the lilies. IF the chipmunks let me have a year of bloom on the tulips, I'll be lucky, but the lilies should last for a while, and be a nice addition to the garden.

I have been THINKING about gardening for a month or so. Lately, I've been telling myself that I needed to take advantage of the wonderful sunny, not too warm days, to get out and begin the work of putting the gardens to bed for the winter. When I started falling asleep planning what needed to be done, and waking up, thinking, "I'd better get into the gardens today, the rain is coming," I figured I'd better DO something about it.

This morning I worked in the herb garden. Because we put a new layer of chat down in the walkways this year, there wasn't much that needed to be done there. What a relief. It's stupid to spend your time on your hands and knees weeding a walkway when it's chilly and damp! I'll put some Preen down later this month and perhaps that will help head off any seeds that have strayed from the garlic chives and feverfew and lemon balm.

I clipped the tomatoes at the base of the stems and then lifted out the branches and the supports. I decided to cut the garlic chives back this year, but I waited too late to keep them from spreading their seeds. I'm seriously thinking about digging them out next year. I don't use enough of them to justify the headache of weeding out the new plants.

I cut back the sweet basil plants. There are still two small globe basils, but I'll get them the next time. I'm growing zinnias in the herb garden this year. Zinnias were one of my Dad's favorite plants. I thought the seeds I had would be plants about twelve to eighteen inches high. These are HUGE! I think some of them must be over 36 inches tall. I've left them for the time being because the birds seem to like the seeds, and we've seen humming birds visiting them. Once the hard frost kills them off, I'll probably cut them down.

After lunch, I worked in the sidewalk garden at the front of the house. I pulled spent plants from several planters and moved three of the planters into the garage. I've had volunteer tomatoes growing in the volunteer vinca, and I ripped out all the tomatoes on the north side of the sidewalk, and half the vinca. I added dirt around the base of a very old Palace Purple huchera, and planted three small starts that were knocked off when I weeded. I have six tulips and about a dozen lilies to plant in that area when I get the rest of the vinca cleared out.

I still have some iris to clean out, and a dahlia to lift. I hope it will store over in the basement during the winter. I want to put straw down over the ferns and some of the daylilies, and there is a garden on the east side of the driveway that needs some TLC. I'm not done by a long shot, but I got a good start today. I think the rain that we are supposed to have this week will make some of the chores a little easier to do.

It was a good day for gardening!