Your Home, Garden and Travel

Gardeners go back into the garden!

Touring around the gardening blog world, there are plenty of examples of the hard work underway as we go out In the Garden to prepare for the cold months to come.

I’ve always known that gardeners are hard-working individuals who are passionate about their gardens. As I check the Notes from a Cottage Garden I am reminded that many of these gardeners have been posting their “to do” lists and chores for the garden. Whether the garden is large or a Balcony Garden we can appreciate all of these Garden Endeavors.

Our UK friend at Veg Plotting says "Plot Views - Clearing Needed." The headline sounds like a "Help Wanted" sign and there are so many times I wish I could hire someone to help out with a few arduous tasks. Empathy to the rescue...the comments can be summarized to be very supportive…that’s okay, think of it as wildlife habitat. Now that’s the kind of attitude that I like! Natural areas provide food and cover for wildlife. So, I think I'm going to leave that brush pile of shovel-pruned plants alone for now.

Perennial Garden Lover is quite industrious, providing us with her Fall Checklist tasks. Racquel's list reminds me of my previous life (working for money) where I was a marketing process consultant in product management at a software company. I would take a list like that and put it in a timeline with checkpoints and milestones. Fortunately, we can just skip all of that record-keeping when we’re working for ourselves for free.

At Our Little Acre Kylee reminded me of another task that I don’t do. I delegate the task of birdhouse cleaning to my dear husband because opening up a box at the edge of the woods is just a bit too creepy for me. Call me a whimp, I don’t mind. In cleaning out the birdhouse, Kylee found a Monarch chrysalis, reminding us that wildlife does indeed take advantage of our gardens for shelter intended for other critters. Which reminded me that I want to add a Toadshed to my garden to house my little gardening buddies.

We learn the Secrets of a Seed Scatterer as Jean tells us all about seed scattering and which ones can be sown here in the Southeast. Jean makes this particular task sound like the art of gardening. Well seed …um, said. I’m new to seed scattering and I follow Jean’s guidance in this area.

If you Walk Down the Garden Path with Cindy while she undertakes her fall chores, she takes time to smell the flowers with the other Busy Bees. Cindy has the cutest helper who warmed my heart with memories of sharing the leaf raking chores with my son when he was a little fellow. Kids grow up too fast, don’t they? Cherish the moments.

Allan Armitage gives us some insight into Why We Garden. I believe we can all relate to one of the reasons that Allan brings to light. Dirt Therapy is good for us. Digging rewards us with the Colors of the Garden such as beautiful Lilacs and Roses.

As we pick up the Hoe and Shovel to tackle Clay and Limestone, let us all remember that our hard work now will provide us with a Fairegarden next spring.