Normal Time

The start of school, cool beautiful sunny days, a hint of color in the trees -   the best season, fall!
Everyone returning to a "normal" routine including us.  No more early morning kid pick ups, swimming lessons, a craft table instead of a dining room table, reading time and knitting time and sewing time, once I clean up the house!

Now is the perfect time to review what went right and what to improve in the garden next year.  The best part of gardening is the surprises.  We cleaned out the garden area to the right of the shed.  The butterfly bushes did not survive the winter, but because they were not competing with them, the three $1.99 rose bushes that I planted probably 4 years or more ago in the same area, had the opportunity to thrive and bloom.  They are beautifully unusual colors, orange, mauve and a pretty red and they have produced lovely flowers all summer and are still going strong.

I forgot, again, to purchase gladiola bulbs in the spring (I need to set some kind of a reminder).  I love having them flower in the late summer because most of the intense flowering of the lilies is over and the fall flowers haven't come in yet.  I always plant zinnias, sunflowers and glads to continue the color.  Because I don't dig out the spent bulbs after flowering, they sometimes survive winter and re-boom and this year I did get about a dozen surprise glads.  Makes me happy!

We planted a very few vegetable plants and got a small harvest.  We are not going to plant a veggie garden next year.  We would like to put a grape arbor with some seating in that area, but maybe will just replant grass and use it for games for the kids.  Croquet and badminton need a little more room than we have available right now.  We had great luck with tomatoes in pots, so that may be a way to get some fresh vegetables.  There are just so many inexpensive farmers markets where everything is available.  Sometimes the cost is not worth it.  This summer has been cool and not very sunny, everything seems to be a bit late, including the sunflowers. Food for thought over the winter.

So for now it is clean up and planning for next year in the garden.