It has been raining non-stop for the past two days and intermittently for the past week. This is typical weather for an autumn day in the south. It’s a blessed relief from the harsh humid weather that we have to contend with from April until November, so the raindrops may be inconvenient at times, it’s necessary not only for our parched bodies but most especially for our gardens. It has not been an easy year…the weather while it hasn’t been 100 plus degrees like the year before, has been brutal.
It was difficult to motivate myself to do simple maintenance chores in the yard because of the I’m not a big fan of burning myself into a frazzle. However, the past couple of weeks brought more mangeable temps and we were able to get quite a few things done. My parking pad where one of the potting benches is located, was looking faded, discolored and fairly beat up. Moreover, our deck and porch was looking slightly dingy and needed a bit of sprucing. I decided to hire the company that pressure washed my house to pressure wash those surfaces and they did a great job. What a difference it made! The entire house looked cleaner as a result.
I bought some fall annuals to place in the hanging baskets to replace the ones that had been decimated by the burning sun. I pulled out the blower and cleared out the cobwebs and debris from the gazebo, blew away the leftover azalea stems that I had pruned sometime ago and an assortment of fallen leaves. Our lack of attention to the yard resulted in a backlog of weeding chores, so we spent quite a bit of time playing catchup with that. My roses were looking a little long in the tooth, so I decided to get up early one morning and prune and re-shape all thirty of them. A few days later, I was rewarded with the freshness of dew-dropped newborn rosebuds. Lastly, we decided to plant two unique shrubs that has bleeding heart-like pink petals hanging from it in one of the newer beds and finished the bed of by mulching it with cedar chips.
It’s ironic that usually during this time of year, my yard is a little beaten up after Spring’s generous bounty and Summer’s penchant for taking as well as giving. However, with the late cleanup, my garden looks like an oasis where I can enjoy the beauty of the yard well until the end of the year. This will be something new for me as I rarely spend time outside in Autumn….perhaps it is because of an aversion to cooler temps, but I’m feeling a little adventurous this year, so I’m looking forward to this new experience.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Authors bio is coming up shortly.
