Most of the leaves are down, some stubborn oaks have not finished yet. I'm wearing two jackets and sitting out on the porch, 48 degree right now and sunny.
We are leaving the leaves on the grass this year as nature intended all along! So many of us rake or blow them away removing nutrients intended to help the soil. The blower people can really annoy people like us who just want to enjoy our gardens in peace, we have no blowers here but most of the neighbors do.
Just finished mowing the leaves for the third time, mulching them in. The leaves are mostly chopped up and mixing into the sparse grass in our lawn. We will have to rake up and compost the leaves in the gravel driveway, garden beds and walkways.
The soil here has a lot of clay and it opens up with big cracks during the dry spells of summer so we are hoping the leaves will help the soil if this is done every other year. Every other year (last year) the red oaks dump endless scores of acorns here. If we let the acorns stay then they sprout up everywhere. We are always fighting to keep the forest from taking our little green spot in the woods.
In a little while I'll be planting more daffodils, I think I've become a plant collecting addict. Meg thinks so at least. For weeks I've checked brent and Becky's Bulbs waiting for the bulb clearance sale. Thanksgiving night I discovered the 50% off sale and ordered another $50 worth, would have been a $100. Beside me is $50 worth of bulbs I purchased at @#$%mart, I believe I'll return some of them.
The bulbs to be planted today are:
24 Narcissus 'Replete' (donations to: Susan G Komen for the Cure)
24 Narcissus ' Pink Charms' (donations to: Susan G Komen for the Cure)
30 Crocus 'Jeanne D'Arc' (white)
40 Muscari 'Deft Blue Mix' M. armeniacum, M. album and M. latifolium
Not sure but given I've ordered these bulbs from Brent and Beckys, we will likely have at least 30 different daffodils growing in our garden!
Narcissus ordered 10 of each Actaea, Delibes, Falconet, Fruit Cup, Lieke, Odorus flore pleno, Sailboat, Silver Chimes, Sir Winston Churchhill and Sound.
Crocus ordered 10 of each chrysanthus 'Gipsy Girl', sieberi 'Firefly', tommasinianus 'Ruby Giant', vernus 'King of Striped' and versicolor 'Picturatus'
Speaking of crocus, the fall crocus last blooms were on Thanksgiving day. Fun things seen on Thanksgiving day my first Zonkey (cross between a donkey and a zebra) and 3 Brown Creepers on the oak tree next to our porch these tiny birds climb the tree trunks by circling them as they climb, hard to see if you are not looking.
8 comments:
I used to compost dry leaves. This year, we'll try to mow them and leave on the lawn. Great job, Randy, with ordering bulbs! I am behind, but we can plant them late here since our winters are mild. Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving!
I hope you had a lovely love-filled Thanksgiving Randy and Meg!
I get so envious of you all, when there are so many words about planting bulbs. I could plant more daffs but everything else including crocuses get eaten by rabbits or voles. Well not everything already established. I have such horrid rabbits who go for the little blooms of my crocus though. I have given up for now. Look forward to seeing yours. I love those little Brown Creepers.
Tatyana,
Already thinking I did not order enough crocuses. Mowing in the leaves here with a battery powered mower seemed pretty darn easy to me. Thanks for commenting!
Carol,
Our cat Valentine keeps the rabbits and voles away. One year I lost a fragrant butterfly bush to voles, the roots must have been yummy all the roots were eating underground. Wish you could enjoy the crocuses there, will have photos in the spring. Counted and I think we will have 34 different daffodils here in the spring!
The thought of planting all those bulbs makes my back hurt, but I LOVE daffodils and your property will be so beautiful in the spring!
Silver Chimes, I've read that's an especially good one! We let the leaves fall where they may too.
Larry usually blows or rakes the leaves, but this year, he decided to mow them a couple times and leave them on the yard. I took some leaves from a neighbor, and the next door neighbor put some on my compost pile, but I could use some more.
Oh, I just noticed today, that the leaves are off of the trees in our neighborhood, at least the trees I can see out the window. I was sad to see that, but nature doesn't wait for me to be ready for its changes. In a few weeks, the days will start getting longer again, and I will be happy about that.
We have been mowing the leaves into the lawn area as well. My gardens just have the whole leaves on them. Ours is also big time clay soil. What a change from Virginia! My husband does use the blower...can only change things so much. He blows the leaves off the deck and driveway into the gardens. Think most of the leaves are down now...except for the white oaks and the water oaks.
Hi, Randy-
We don't have a blower, thankfully, so we just rake and keep our leaves, primarily in the woodland garden areas.
But, I just heard a North Country Radio podcast reporting research from Cornell that leaves on lawns were fine as long as the (lawn) grasses were high enough (not always the case with our southern lawn grasses) , and the leaves were chopped up by a mower.
Leaves are always good compost!
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