Dorie’s Different Reality

Symphyotrichum novae-angliae New England Aster   When most of the summer flowers are puttering out, this beauty explodes on the scene to announce Autumn.

For today’s outdoor activity, I started cleaning out the front flower bed. Normally I’d wait for a crisp fall day with a bit of frost to help me figure out what to pull out. I’m starting earlier this year because it’s been so dry that the seasonal plants are turning brown and “ugly-ing” out-had to go! I debated cutting down the Purple Coneflowers, as there’s nothing left but crispy black “cones”. The seeds might be edible for birds, so I’ll leave them be for the time being. I cut back a bunch of the Asiatic lilies. They stand tall and try to go to seed, but being hybrids,there are no seeds. I try not to disturb the ground too much doing all this. There’s lots of crocus bulbs and the random hyacinth scattered around. I like having the splash of color in April to kick off the new growing season. I try to plant bulbs that I know will continue to bloom and spread, like daffodils. Flashy tulips are colorful but they’re weaklings and fade away to nothing in a couple of years. I’ll go see them at Longwood! http://www.longwoodgardens.com/AcresofSpring.html

I had to run some water into  the fish pond. Usually in the summer there’s regular rain to refill their pond and freshen things up. Not so this year. We need to  buy a large galvanized pail or even a trough for the seven “stupid” fish this year. I started three years ago with little Wal-Mart goldfish and the oldest of them is nearly a foot long now. Last year they struggled all winter cramped in a 20 gal. aquarium, but now they’re too big. The plan is put them in their big washtub with the pump. Sometimes I wish a hungry heron would drop by and save me the hassle. But I enjoy having creatures around. If we didn’t have dogs, I’d get some guinea hens- interesting odd little outer space birds: http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/Guineas/BRKGuineas.html But I have an aversion to eating anything I’ve seen alive and running around; so pretty soon, we’d have to build a barn for hundreds of guinea hens to stay cozy in Winter, so no.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 10:09 am and is filed under Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.