Fall-isciousness

It's the peak of Fall here on the spread. We've been away many weekends in September and October and have just gotten around to prepping the garden for winter. Even though it's now November, the garden is finally starting to look Fall-iscious.

Patio furniture is put away. Houseplants are back in the house. Canna tubers are sleeping in the basement. Coleus are rooting in the basement. A few plants were moved to new sites. Hosta containers are ready to go in the shed. Garage is cleaned out so we can fit a car in there. The marble and granite scrap "carpet" is covered. Leaves are regularly being chopped up and being composted or spread on garden beds. Fountains are un-fountained.

I have 100 tulip bulbs to plant. But I think I can easily get that done this weekend.

The last thing I have left to do is purchase some canvas to cover the hanging framed succulent garden. Last year it was covered with landscape fabric, but I think that was too thin. I lost about a third of them over the winter.

And then for the winter? I have to come up with some garden projects I can make in the basement over the winter. I'm thinking a hand-made rain chain recirculating fountain for the shed, a collection of homemade bird houses made from all the scrap wood, paint, and pieces of odd bits from other projects, and planter boxes to go around the front porch railing. Oh, and I've had a kick-ass great idea to redo the lights on my front porch (they're currently colonial style and all but falling off teh house. I've hated them since we moved in). Stay tuned.

The front garden at its most colorful.

The framed hanging succulent garden has to be covered yet.

Emptied the window boxes. They looked pretty ratty early on. The containers of hostas are poised in front of the shed so they can go in there last minute.

The coleus were rooting on the kitchen window ledge...

...but now they're in the basement under a grow light for the balance of the winter.

The front hellstrip is looking bodacious. Looking forward to cutting the grasses down so we can see into the street better.

The coleus ended up overwhelming the shed's window boxes.

We started out with these ice cream cone-looking mums, but we went away for a weekend and they got pretty crispy. They're all but dead now.

That upper window box STILL looks great! First deep frost will take care of that though.

A photo for anyone that asked if I really used the potting shed for gardening. It was canna tuber processing and coleus potting time.