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Our roses don’t know when to quit!

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Can you believe that I still haven’t finished putting my garden to bed for the winter? Ok it’s not that bad … we only have a little bit of gardening work to do, but still … it’s almost the end of November and we could have our first snow fall any time!

We still have to cut down the sunflowers in the front boulevard. They are starting to look raggy and they need to come down. We also have a few plants that have died down that I should cut down as well, like the balloon flowers that have died down and who’s stems are now falling over onto our front walkway. LOL

Thanks to the much warmer than normal temps we had about two weeks ago (hey it reached 20 C (68 F) two or three days in a row) we have roses blooming! The Breath of Life climbing rose, both of our Iceberg roses, Octavia, Lavender Dreams, Baron Prevost and Jacques Champlain are all blooming. Full true roses!

They are lovely, but it’s a shame that they are blooming because it’s getting colder and I don’t doubt that we’ll have snow within a week or so.

Here’s a photo of Lavender dreams that I took a while ago. I still can’t believe that the plant is putting out more blooms even though it’s reached zero a few times in the last week.

Lavender dreams rose blooms 2

Is anything still blooming in your garden as we approach winter?






Leaves, leaves and more leaves

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We only have two small tree’s on our property – a rose of Sharon, and a lovely Japanese maple that is vibrant red at the moment. Our neighbor, however, does have a large tree – it’s a huge maple. It must be 70 or more feet tall.

As a result of the neighbors tree we have quite a few leaves to gather in our front and back yards. I don’t mind though because I’ll put the leaves on my garden beds in a week or two. Prior to putting the leaves on my garden beds I will mound some peat or compost material around the base of my roses to help protect the root balls through the winter.

Last Autumn we gathered at least 45 bags of leaves from our many neighbors on the the street. They were only too happy to give away their bags of leaves. As a result our garden was well protected with layers of leaves during the cold blustery winter days.

My husband has already asked a few neighbors if we might have their leaves this year as well. Our closest neighbor even went so far as to rake his leaves and then put two bags on our front lawn today. Now that’s service.

In the spring we take the leaves off the garden beds and put them on the lawn to dry. Once they are dry enough we run a lawn mower over them to mulch them up and put them in our compost bins to help us make nice rich compost for the garden.

I was wondering if any of my readers gather leaves to put on their garden beds? Have you had good results protecting your garden in this way?

Did you plant any spring bulbs in your garden?

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I was wondering how many of my readers spent some time this fall planting spring bulbs in their garden?

If you haven’t planted any bulbs yet but you’d like to have some tulips, daffodils, iris, crocus, or hyacinths blooming in your garden beds come next spring you’d better get to the garden stores and purchase your selections now. Many of the stores that sell bulbs will be running out soon.

I purchased a number of new bulbs for my garden this fall. I made the purchase about two and a half weeks ago and I’ve yet to plant them. I haven’t been feeling all that well and it’s been cold and rainy here lately. Today it’s very nice out. I really should get out there and plant them. Maybe I will. I still have a bit of time though. LOL

So tell me – Did you plant any bulbs yet or are you thinking about it? If you did or if you are going to please tell me what kinds of flowers you ended up planting.

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