Digging Up Dahlia

Yesterday, I somehow remembered to dig the dahlia up and bring it into the house before this week's frost. I left it in the ground a few weeks after the top withered away and during those days, we had a few days of freezing night temperatures. Hopefully it will be okay and the frost didn't affect it too badly. I guess I'll just have to wait until next year to plant it and see.

Bulb Plantings

Yesterday I finally had some time to plant out the bulbs I received from John Scheepers. They did a fantastic job of planting the bulbs which were in great condition. Unfortunately, they sat around the house for maybe a week before I was able to do anything with them, so hopefully they will take.

My Purchase

Allium Globemaster	Planted 3 at the side of the house by the railing. The bulbs were huge! I hope I planted them deep enough.
Asiatic Lily   White Heaven	Planted 5 in the bed directly in front of the house.
Hyacinthoides non-scripta English Bluebells	Planted 25 behind the house, by the broken raised bed and near the maple tree above the stone wall.

I should probably buy some mulch as the ground is becoming very dry and maybe some topsoil too.

Two of the hollyhocks out of the three that were planted died, but the one that is still alive seems to be doing okay. The peony has some change of color, but has not succumbed to the cold yet. The butterfly weed seems to have become dormant so I cleared away the dead stems when I was cleaning up the cosmos which were looking very ratty and neglected. Next year, I will do away with the cosmos and am thinking of planting some irises there instead. I didn't get around to digging up the irises out back, so maybe I'll do it in the spring. The orange day lilies should be moved towards the side of the road too. My inspiration came from seeing the same orange lilies massed along the side of the road in Pennsylvania along River Road.

Fall 2013

It's been busy for me the past few weeks, but I managed to capture some pictures of some of the fall flowers for this year. The dahlia was planted earlier this year sometime during the spring. The chrysanthemum was planted maybe sometime in September. I watered both when they were first planted, but then forgot to water them afterwards. I think the dahlia is looking pretty good, although, I wonder if there would have been more flowers had I remembered.

Chrysanthemum Ajania Pacifica from Rutgers Nursery

October 17, 2013

Dahlia Fimbriata - Kogane Fubuki from Home Depot
October 17, 2013

The same dahlia
October 21, 2013

Fall 2013

I started to post my gardening activities for 2013 on my main site, but I think that maybe I should just keep all of the gardening activities together for those who are not interested in reading about medieval and other strange miscellaneous stuff.

I have started to do a bit more work on the garden since the weather is cooler. This past Sunday, I divided the yellow daylilies which the previous owner had set out front and move them to the back near the mailbox. They were dwarfed by the ornamental grasses and I thought that they might look better by the mailbox area. In their place, I planted broom, which I brought in the spring, but didn't know where to put it and so didn't get around to planting it until now.

With the daylilies in the back, I decided to move the other daylilies which I received from White Flower Farms earlier this year to the back also. I thought that it was shady by the mailbox, but have come to realize that it probably isn't as shady as I had originally thought. I also move two of the lavenders (also from White Flower Farms) to the same area. There are two more that I need to move, but haven't had the time to move them.

The hostas that were planted there last year and the azalea which I unknowingly planted behind some peonies have now been moved to the back of the house in one of the areas by the back door. The azalea doesn't look very good. The branches are sparse with few leaves that appear to be munched on. I hope it is not black weevils which I read about today! Supposedly, they are very difficult to get rid of and they will also attack hostas. I planted the azalea and hostas in the bed together!

We spotted a unique looking chrysanthemum from Rutgers Nursery the week prior and decided to purchase it. I pulled out the Black Eyed Susans which had a wicked case of black leaves and planted the ajania pacifica chrysanthemum in its place. I looked a pictures of it in bloom on the web. I think I like it better without the flowers.

So much to do! The catmint needs dividing and I think I will put some by the mailbox and some in the strip by the side of the road.

First Time Cuttings

Today, for the first time, I tried to root cuttings. I mixed 50% perlite with 50% Sphagnam peat moss to root 3 Green Velvet boxwoods and 3 lavender plants. I put a seed heating mat under them and put them inside a produce bag, leaving one end open. I'll check in 2 weeks to see if they root.

Mr. Bentley

A gratuitous picture of Mr. Bentley. Here he is, this year, at 3 years old:

New Garden Bed by the Mailbox

C and I spent the last two days creating a garden bed near the mailbox in the back of the house. Since there were a bunch of fantastic deals at The Home Depot, we picked up:

2 Wintercreeper Emerald Gaiety (Euonymus x fortunei)
1 Azalea Pink (Rhododendron x hybrid)
1 Azalea Delaware Valley White (Rhododendron x hybrid)
3 Hosta Patriot (Hosta x fortunei)
3 Hosta ? [it's about the same size as Patriot, but with solid green leaves]

To this selection, I added two different hostas that I had planted a year or two earlier and was able to divide one of them to get another plant and some purple bearded irises from the iris bed that needed dividing. In the center of it all, we set up the birdbath that C's mom gave us and finished the bed with some black mulch left over from an earlier project. I wanted some brown mulch because it blends into the original soil better, but C wanted black so we picked up some more black mulch at The Home Depot to fill in the bare spots. After convincing him, he said that we can do leaf mulching the following year and I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out. Supposedly, plants love it!

Although it doesn't seem like a lot of plants, I think it should fill out nicely if the plant size information is correct. I mention this because there were two widely different size specifications on the back of the Wintercreeper tags (36" tall x 36" wide and 4-5' tall x 4-5' wide), although the scientific names were the same.

Originally, I was depressed that C cleared away more branches and trees from the site than I had expected (I wanted the site to have a closed private woodland look), but when everything was put together, it didn't look as bad as I thought it would. Once I download the pictures of the new bed from the camera, I'll post them here.

This is the bed we created last year. The artemesia is a new addition from this year. I don't like how it is splitting down the middle. Next year I will stake the Russian sage so that it won't flop all over the place. May add the catmint from the front of the house too.

The other side: