Twiggybet1's Blog

Leaves keeping me busy...
Nov 21, 2007 | 10:15 AM PST
Tag: rain

The temperature got into the low 50's yesterday, so I spent a good part of the day outside cleaning up the leaves.  Most of the trees are bare now, so I don't feel as if I'm fighting a losing battle.  Every time I filled the trash can with leaves, I brought them to the chipper/shredder and ground them up.  My patio finally looks clean. I worked outside until it started raining in the late afternoon.  Today it has been one of those drizzly rainy days, and it is forcasted to rain for the rest of the week here, so it looks like I wont have a chance to get outside again for a while.  It figures that when it is "warm" it is also wet.  Much easier to clean up dry leaves than wet, I think.  

I need to clean the gutters out.  This year I'm installing gutter guards as I clean them.  I sure hope I get another dry day before the rain changes to snow.  That would be miserable working conditions.  Hubby and I have discussed installing gutter guards before, and he always had some reason for not wanting to get them.  Either he thought them an expensive unnecessary expense, didn't think they would work very well, etc.  I tried to recall the last time I saw him on the ladder cleaning out the gutters and couldn't remember.  So I asked him when the last time he took a turn at it and he told me he couldn't remember ever cleaning them.  Aha!  So it's settled.  We ARE getting rain gutter guards.

I still haven't put a border around the rain garden.  Hmm, what to do?  I am thinking (changing my mind again, dangerous thing!) that a rock border would be more to my liking.  Maybe look more "natural".  That would also make it easier to redo the border if I decide to expand it a bit more next year.  I didn't make it as large as I could have.  It is hard to tell how well it is working.  The area hasn't been flooded, all the water that is diverted there seems to be soaking in to the area like a sponge.  Which is what I want, of course. 

 

The Garden put to bed for the winte
Nov 4, 2007 | 10:09 AM PST

Well, well, well,  what do you know?  Hubby decided to help get the vegetable garden ready for winter.  Yesterday, he pulled the rest of the plants that were finished and tilled it up.  Today, we mulch it over. 

I believe we will have a couple more weeks of falling leaves.  I suppose that will keep me busy. 

I am thinking a brick border for my rain garden.  Although this might be a more time consuming choice to implement, at least it will be more permanent than the plastic edging and (hopefully) stay where I want it.  When we used plastic edging in the past, it seemed to break down after a couple of years, and move out of line. 

Gee, maybe I can get hubby to go shopping with me to find an arbor and/or bird bath today.

mystery bulbs
Nov 2, 2007 | 8:47 PM PST
Tags: bulbs , rain garden , Rose of Sharon

While digging out the grassless area I decided to make my rain garden, I dug up a couple of clusters of small bulbs that I know I did not plant.  They may have been a gift from the squirrels.  On a whim, I picked them out of the dirt and threw them into a pot thinking that maybe if I felt like experimenting, I would plant them in a pot and set them in the bay window and see what comes up.  Of course they would have to wait until I finished up my current project before I did anything with them.  The empty pot I tossed them in was just sitting on the patio and got rained in, and the bulbs were sitting in water and sprouted.  So now I have them potted proper.  I wonder if they are the bulbs I had planted in the spring in a pot that the squirrels raided.  Wouldn't that be something?

 I pruned the Rose of Sharon.  It is still very small, as I first planted it last fall, but the few branches it had decided to grow absurdly long.  So I pruned it back to try to shape it, and saved the trimmings.  I put root hormone on them and have them in a pot on my kitchen table.  My sister just planted a Rose of Sharon this year that she got from her father-in-law when he was moving things around in his yard.  I hope it has different colored blooms than mine, so I can talk her into trading clippings.  She's a pretty casual gardener, though.  She doesn't especially have the interest to spend too much time  gardening, so I'll probably have to help myself to a couple clipping when I visit her.  I'll have to see it in bloom first, though.

I posted some pictures in my photo albums of the rain garden, in process and filled in.  Surveying my work, it seems that I planted mostly bulbs, and the other plants are really small.  I am anxious to see what it looks like in the spring.  The only annoying thing right now is the leaves keep falling and blowing, and I'm afraid to rake it too much because I don't want to disturb my new plants and bulbs.

I think last night's frost finally killed the zucchini.  I didn't have time to pull it today, so I'm planning on getting them taken care of tomorrow.  It's supposed to be clear and dry, about 60 degrees, and that's pretty darn nice for November around here!