Procrastination of a sort
Oct. 26th, 2009 01:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
botiasIt's time to make the newsletter. OK it was time two days ago. Nevertheless, I'm almost done and have worked late-ish into the night, the morning to begin, bright and early, by escorting 7yo to the dentist. Woe. So, I'm rewarding myself by spamming you all with dahlia pictures. I scrutinized the offerings of many a dahlia merchant over the weekend and made many painful cuts to my wish list which originally contained twice as many plants.
A local garden columnist insisted that October marks the start of a new gardening year. Perhaps she's right because I suddenly clicked into the gardening groove again after neglecting it as soon as the rains started. After a month or so of feeling generally blocked and not knowing where to start with it, I mowed and edged the lawn (now you can barely see all the dandelions and it looks so lush and green!), generated a brimming pick-up truck load of trimmings, and redid 2/3 of my big flower bed, separating perennials, moving things to the back of the bed that should have been moved last season (like the Rose Campion), shifting things that I liked this season, and ruthlessly discarding things that annoyed me. Out: Interesting smelling plant that got too huge and didn't bloom enough, Summer Berries Yarrow which bloomed nicely, but always fell all over everything else, the wild blue aster (see the falling all over everything else). Going In: Artichokes/Cardoons, they have the most gorgeious toothed silver leaves, cool purple flowers the size of nerf balls, and manage to be large without falling over; and there will definitely be more Cosmos 'Pied Piper Red' which is still blooming. The petals actually are seamless tubes. Huh. I thought they were just curled over. How cool is that? Don't answer.
They really do look like that, plus cheap and easy to grow, perennial, and flower profusely until frost strikes them down. *shakes head* I think I am in love. >:( So are slugs and snails, but that's really their only drawback.
A local garden columnist insisted that October marks the start of a new gardening year. Perhaps she's right because I suddenly clicked into the gardening groove again after neglecting it as soon as the rains started. After a month or so of feeling generally blocked and not knowing where to start with it, I mowed and edged the lawn (now you can barely see all the dandelions and it looks so lush and green!), generated a brimming pick-up truck load of trimmings, and redid 2/3 of my big flower bed, separating perennials, moving things to the back of the bed that should have been moved last season (like the Rose Campion), shifting things that I liked this season, and ruthlessly discarding things that annoyed me. Out: Interesting smelling plant that got too huge and didn't bloom enough, Summer Berries Yarrow which bloomed nicely, but always fell all over everything else, the wild blue aster (see the falling all over everything else). Going In: Artichokes/Cardoons, they have the most gorgeious toothed silver leaves, cool purple flowers the size of nerf balls, and manage to be large without falling over; and there will definitely be more Cosmos 'Pied Piper Red' which is still blooming. The petals actually are seamless tubes. Huh. I thought they were just curled over. How cool is that? Don't answer.
They really do look like that, plus cheap and easy to grow, perennial, and flower profusely until frost strikes them down. *shakes head* I think I am in love. >:( So are slugs and snails, but that's really their only drawback.
