Weekend Experience - Garden Cleanup Almost Done! - by Sunscape

We had a very busy weekend tidying up a lot of the gardens around our home. We were expecting a few days of rain, so we decided to make hay while the sun was shining.

The main vegetable garden is done, well, except for all the weeds i n the paths. Ugh! Don't know what I will do about those.

Both shade gardens on the west side of the house, running all the way back to the greenhouse, are totally done.

We pulled out the last of the zinnias and cut back all the perennials that still needed trimming. In this butterfly garden, many of the plants have grown so much that if I have time, I would like to divide some of them.

Back in the huge garden we are taking out, we worked on moving a lot of the soil up into the woods. Let me tell you, that is one huge job for us older folks.

It's starting to feel like we are making some progress, but there is still a large section that will have to wait until spring. I'm hoping to have enough of the soil removed so that we can rent a tiller to help level it out. Perhaps then there will be enough time for grass to grow before winter sets in.

Today the weather will be pretty decent, so I will work on taking out a few more loads.

All the hosta plants surrounding the back porch and pond got cut back. I plan to divide a few of them this week to share some with my brother from Va. You can see that I was being supervised by the frogs while cleaning the pond area.

I found one last strawberry in the tower gardens, and it was so sweet. I had put the trailing vines from one tower into the other one, and they all rooted nicely.

I'm hoping that all the babies make it through the winter. Any ideas about that? Should I surround the towers with netting or anything similar to protect them?

This will be the first year I'm leaving them out, and I really want them to survive.

This Habanero pepper plant was at the top of the tower. I picked them and froze them, and that was the last of the vegetables for the season. Yay!

The Mandavilla Vine's last flower bloomed this week.

I plan on transplanting it into a smaller pot and bringing it indoors for the winter months. I imagine that it will do just fine in a south-facing window. Then next spring I can put it in the greenhouse until it warms up enough to put it back outside.

She sure was beautiful all summer long with the Blue Lobelia. I saved a lot of seeds from the Lobelia and plan on growing twice as much next spring.

Here is the Fall Crocus in full bloom. It is the only one I have, and I think it is just beautiful. The last flower to bloom for the year.

I almost forgot that I took a photo of the Harvest Moon and Saturn beneath it. That was a delight to see. My harvesting is done for the year, and now I will spend the winter months going through my home to declutter what is no longer useful at this stage of our lives. There is always something to keep us busy, right?