In the year 2023, the Outdoors beckon

[Harriet]

Twins', if you do have a bare bed at end of summer you can enjoy an open space just ready for pansies!

Got a compliment from the men who came and considered our house's gable ends for attic access. They were really impressed with the flower beds around the house. They reminded us they had been here before we moved in, back 3 or 4 years, so knew the house when there was no color to see, just small perennials non-flowering, which were neat but didn't draw the eye.

I've been interested that Google pings me every once in a while, to show me "one year ago today" photos, and at this time of year many have been of last year's flower beds. So, I can see what's doing the same, better, not so good. I'm wondering if the sage is blocking light from the lantana, which isn't nearly as large as last year this time. Or, wondering if the sage's root systems after overwintering are extensive and taking nutrients. The Bubblegum petunia is just as floriferous, though, even those that are right near the sage.

New addition here (although I've grown them for 4 or 5 decades!), the marigolds, are not doing well here. I wonder why. Again, I begin to suspect root systems of other plants taking over. Don't know. Because of guttering, there is six inches more overhang for any near the house, and less rainwater.

Nancy, white marigolds are one color I've never grown. Hope your marigolds are doing well this year. I'm used to them getting bushy and this year, not so much, so it's just a difference of some kind in the place.

I haven't done any gardening for a couple days because we are warned not to go outside much here (smoke/haze air quality).

[Nancy]

Turns out squirrels luv em for a snack!

[Harriet]

Nancy, I'd missed seeing your post - oh, no, squirrels make the strangest decisions!

I'm thinking about first frost, and whether it will take out some flowers early enough that I'll want to try planting pansies. (something I always wish I'd done every winter) If it happens, it would really soften the blow to get to plant bright yellow winter flowers.

Although I'd expected something would die back early by now and leave a space, all the plants are still looking so good, filling up all the space they can. So, I can't bear to bother them. I keep thinking the petunias are showing their age, but then they keep bouncing back. DangerBoy did my weed-eating for me for the first time and was amused at the petunias in the house planter spreading across the concrete and then hanging way down and over, still bushy at ground level, so that he just walked away rather than risk them.

There is nowhere to stick in any pansies near the house for the wintertime. The only option I see would be temporarily planting somewhere safe and transplanting very late, between first freeze and hard freeze, and I don't know if they'd like that. Maybe just a few in the big planter at the back door, if they wouldn't freeze in there with lots of mulch. But color across the front of the house through winter seems like it probably won't happen.

I may glance back through the years here and see when frosts and first freezes happened in my exact area, on the chance I mentioned it...
Nope. All I can find is that last year we still hadn't had one on Nov 1.

Okay, at a site called MorningChores.com you can enter your zipcode and get some info. According to that, there's a 50/50 chance my exact zipcode area will have had a first frost by Nov 9, but a 10 percent chance it will happen as early as Oct 21. Not a lot to go on.

[Harmony]

I'm thrilled that pretty purple mums have sprouted up all by themselves in the space where I had a couple small purple mums a year ago. When they died back I just cut the stems back and left the roots down in the ground. Now they've grown up again like magic and I have several clumps with more purple flowers again. I'm hoping the yellow ones I put in today do the same for next year. My lavender in the planter, however, is slowly dying back after blooming steadily for months. I will cut the dead stalks back and hope it revives next season. Have any of you found that you gravitate to the same type of flowers you might have had growing around your childhood home? I have done that, wanting to again have cleome (we called them spider plants, though I think we're a bit hot here for them), four o'clocks which do pretty well here, mums. Fond memories.

Nancy, no fair for squirrels to eat your flowers! Ours just plant acorns or peanuts everywhere. We have perennial peanut vines instead of grass in the side yard. We planted a yard full of them because it is hard to grow grass in all that shade under the oaks. I find volunteer oak trees everywhere and I'll be digging and find peanuts in their shell nicely planted. I wouldn't mind if some of them sprouted and grew because they have a pretty yellow flower almost continually. My amaryllis is starting to bloom again. It seems to get rejuvenated by a bit of cooler weather.

[Nancy]

Squirrels plant walnuts here I have to go around and dig out trees every so often.
Review I weeded nearly every day this summer not that you can tell ! LOL!
But I do not put sown week killer so the yard does not look like a park.
I got an 16" zucchini this year had to go measure and I guessed it correctly!

I'll be doing up bread with it after I peel and grate it.
Cherry toms did okay this year some kinds of toms got a wilt one other got ends of toms small romas went bad had to pull those out.
Other cherry toms were very tiny.
Vol. squash likes it by the deck and my arbor will get those or pumpkins next year.
Got the iris out for the new deck and put some starts back in next to the house and by the deck.
New grass is doing well now and other grass is coming back now that summer heat has cooled off.

I did some fall decor and that was fun nothing major but glad to say I'm enjoying it again.
I do enjoy my home gardening is fun.
Got the trees out that I wanted to this year and the branches are gone now too yea!
Leaves are not falling yet I rake em over the beds for winter then clean em in the spring.

We have not had frost yet and I still have hoses out.
I've started some prep. like putting lawn patio & furniture away.