With how rainy the weather’s been this year, we’ve really gotten behind on the chores that need to get done before snow flies. We figure the only way we are going to get through them is to work outside after work if at all possible. Today, it was clear and cold, and we didn’t get out there almost six, but that gave us a full two hours before it got dark, and we put it to good use.
I think we probably planted about 200 bulbs or so. Frank had picked up yet another bulb planter from Agway, and this one was a sturdy black iron thing that looked indestructible, and worked like a charm. He dug holes, I put in the bulb food, the bulbs, the pepper flakes and covered it all up. When the pepper flakes ran out, we quit doing that for the night. Princess had a lot of fun up on those big boulders in that bed.
Then we planted some huge phlox plants that our friend Betty Ann Sather had given us. I put them back by the old rose behind the gazebo, in the bed I rescued from burdock and other weeds earlier this year. Most of the cardboard was completely composted and the soil looked great.
I also planted a couple of what I think are foxgloves that I mistakenly put into hanging plant bags. I’d started them from seed, and I wasn’t sure what they were, and they leafed out great in the potting soil. All of the impatiens are dead after the hard freezes we’ve had, but these looked okay, so I moved them into this same bed.
While we were out there, even though it was getting late, dark and cold, I walked past the pond and saw the poor water hyacinths, still alive after the freezes, but barely. So I pulled them all out, and we are going to try to store them in the basement in tubs of water, over the winter. If it’s not too much trouble and they live, that will be a good thing. If they die, we haven’t lost anything, because they sure won’t last outside.
in Bulbs/Corm/Rhizomes/Tubers, Foxglove, Phlox, Planting, Pond, Reviews, Soil, water plants
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