Do you ever just go in your garden and start chopping away at the plants?
Of course you do, most of you are gardeners. Naturally by chopping away I simply mean you see a dead branch on a rose bush or shrub, some dead leaves here and there on other plants, flowers that need to be dead headed and so on.
Sunday was on of those days for me.
I went into the garden in the early evening and it was 10 pm by the time I came back inside! It’s a good thing we have one of those big security lights at the back of the house to light up the yard!
Several of our roses were overgrown and needed pruning. That’s what got me started. As I made my way through the garden beds I found many flowers that had started to go to seed so I got some of the small jewelry bags that I keep on hand and collected the seeds.
I’m keep the little bags of seeds that I collected open slightly so all of the moisture can leave the bag. I’ve also got to remember to put a few grains of rice in the bag to absorb moisture as well. There’s nothing worse than collecting seeds, sealing them up and then having them go moldy because you didn’t store them properly or because they weren’t fully dry when stored.
When the seed baggies are totally dry I’ll take them and store them in a nice cool place. Usually that ends up being the coolest corner of my basement.
Have you been pruning any of your plants? Collecting seeds for next year?
Oh … I overworked myself. I’ve got an aching back. One of the woes of gardening!
On Satturday I started shredding vegetal wastes at 9 am and ended at 5:30 pm and called it a wonderful day! So I understand yours
It was just cleaning up.
I won’t prune roses right now, the temperature are still above 25°C in the day, and the roses are in bloom until Xmas, at least. It is always heartbreaking to prune them, because they are still buds on them. On the other hand, they need some rest… For the other shrubs, I will prune them as they lose their leaves.
That’s just what I need to do – go in there and start deadheading! I don’t have a lot of flowers that set seed but the jasmine is starting to reach a little too far. Rest that back!
I want to prune my tired heat surviving roses but I always wait until FEB. I was forced to tidy up my garden from a lot of plants being spent and leggy. The garden looks better. I’m asking all garden buddies to check out my book at Amazon.com “Diary of a Wannabe Gardener” to read during the times of not doing any gardening even though I know the true gardener is already planning next years to do list.