Coffee Time

Every year, as the perennials emerge, they get a haircut from anything I left for the birds over the winter. Then they get a sprinkling of coffee grounds around them. Not to wake it up, but to keep the slugs away. I started that years ago, and it has served the garden well. The holes we get on leaves each year since then are usually after the Japanese beetles hatch.

Last Saturday I gave the sedum out front haircuts. Then I sprinkled them with coffee grounds. There were also the tulips and one daylily starting to pop up, and they got some coffee grounds love too. May as well. Can’t hurt, I don’t think …

The tulip and crocus areas out back also got the coffee treatment. Hoping it deters sir bunimous from chomping down. If not, I have an all natural powder I buy. It worked at the little house up north to deter deer and bunnies. The downside of that is it looks not so pretty, and it is only good through a couple rains. Hopefully the coffee grounds will work and it won’t be needed.

And the winner is …

The winner of the first “green” spotted in the gardens at the townhouse is …

a sedum!

More to come.

70s ahead.

The amur maple and broken off limb are still sitting in the front yard 😂 The birds and squirrels have been seen sitting around the broken off branch – easy seed eatings, right?

A volunteer opportunity came along today, for the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. (Angels sing)

Sooooooo tempted!!! It is even one of those opportunities where I can use my 16 hours of paid volunteer time through work! (That’s how I heard about it 🙂 ) The date listed right now is smack dab in the middle of a busy work week next week though. Still sooooo tempted. To be even a tiny part of that glorious place and love on the plants and be around others who love it and share and learn from and with them? (angels sing again!) Please believe me when I say I love and have loved that place since the kids were very young and we lived 10 minutes away and took them there to exhaust them – lol. Work events there, church events there, anniversaries there. And oh how it has grown! Contemplating. Seriously contemplating. Last time we were there I was actually jealous of the people weeding and working with the plants! It is just quite a drive now to get there. But still contemplating.

Did I say I am SERIOUSLY contemplating? Maybe a Saturday thing.

Planting days are numbered

It started yesterday – winds strong enough to make the falling leaves look like a shower. A cold front moving in. By Tuesday night we are forecasted to have our first frost here. Our planting days for 2022 are numbered. Time to get the rootings planted.

This year I rooted two Autumn Joy sedum from breakage (planted them together), one Sundazzle sedum from breakage, and one coneflower from breakage (planted them together). If they survive the transplant and the winter we will have three new baby sedum and a new baby coneflower in the spring.

The two Autumn Joy rootings I planted out front.

The Sundazzle and the coneflower rootings I planted in the corner by the patio, where I was deliberating what I was going to plant there after we pulled out the Patriot hosta last year. (There is too much sun there for the Patriot hosta.)

As an example, these are Autumn Joy sedum rootings, all grown up 🤗

Triple BZZZ

It is Autumn Joy Sedum time, and the honey bees are enjoy every minute.

Stretch!

I don’t remember the Chocolate Drop sedum and the Sundazzle sedum stretching so much toward the sun in prior years. Maybe. I suppose that will be another research project for the winter.

My daughter-in-law puts the shorter sedum in the front of the taller sedum. I have a couple rootings in the seedling box. I may try that.

Can you see it?

Ever so slowly, the Autumn Joy sedum are starting to pink up.

Better stuff

I say no to some very “good” stuff, so I can make time for better stuff. Sometimes there isn’t a choice, but when there is – think. Time is finite. Use your voice. Make that choice. And then … Rejoice!

Here’s some Rejoice in the Garden time

Walk around the garden. Maybe sit right in the middle of the garden

The start of the sedum blooms (2022)

I am watching and waiting for the Autumn Joy sedum blooms to begin to turn color.

While I wait, the Chocolate Drop sedum and the Sundazzle sedum are beginning to bloom.

Soon

Soon the Autumn Joy sedum buds will start to turn, slowly, from green to pink to magenta.

We need some September color in the gardens. And Mums are not my thing 😉

Their Portion

I have an acceptance that I actually have come to embrace. It is called Their Portion. It goes like this –

The deer at the little house up north got to eat the hostas without me putting up a gate or fence. They brought me so much joy all year, and especially in the winter when there was no gardening (except planning).

We had a compromise – one where they set the terms, of course. They ate the hostas and they left the sedum alone. I could have claimed a planned decoy, but truly, they held all the cards.

Hey, hostas were kind of like perennial lettuce in that scenario 🙂 Acceptance.

The bunnies are more than welcome to start eating the hostas in the fall at the townhouse. Please do! Less for me to cut back! Even chomping down on a hosta bloom or too. Have at it!

Where it gets dicey is digging and chomping of new plantings.

IF we don’t find a little house in the cities where I can freely garden, AND I am relegated to townhome landscaping, I think I will need more “safe places” like this to grow things to bring to the camping/hunting land up north.

So seedlings and new plants are protected from this

Notice the soil “aeration” and the liberal “deadheading”.

Our outdoor buddies bring us joy.

They get their portion.