Month: October 2020

Here we are at the last week of October. The flowers have been more or less done for a few weeks now. I manage to get a tiny bouquet for myself gathered to grace the kitchen, but even Mom is done with getting flowers. I have loved every minute of it and I hope you have as well. These are two of my late season bloomers. I have no idea why they took so long to bloom for me, but I am grateful that they bloomed before our hard freeze.

All of the plantings are now done. Fini, Complete. What a job that was. I had scored a bunch of peony divisions last week, thank you Carolyn. I went to get them into the garden and realized that where I wanted to plant them just wasn’t going to work. I had a back row of misfit or unknown peonies, then a row of narcissus. The only open bed was below the recently planted narcissus. I thought to myself. No problem. Those bulbs have only been in for about two weeks if that, I will simply dig them out, keeping the varieties correctly labeled, plant the peonies in that row and in the empty bed, replant the 100 narcissus. Well, it went like this. I got about five bulbs dug out and quickly replanted them. I was far easier to replant two lilacs that had only been in since spring than to replant 100 narcissus. So I moved more rocks so I could plant the lilacs, then re jiggered the already unknown peonies to make space for the new ones. Sheesh.

Now that every thing is safely tucked in the ground, we are tilling up the new garden beds that I had been dreaming about all year. As you can see, tilling hasn’t improved any. Here we have a lovely hedgerow of rocks, ready to be picked up by the tractor bucket and dumped.

The weekend was spent dismantling the flower beds, which entails cutting down the spent flowers so the netting can be removed, then cutting them stems to the ground. Then pulling the weed mat up, taking up the drip hose and getting that rolled up and put away. Lucky for me Steve had done about four of the beds. The dahlias are still in, I haven’t had a freeze hard enough to really kill them yet, but hopefully by the end of the week that will happen. The cleaned beds have had compost added, and will have mulch spread on top.

Here is a drone shot of the flower garden, I think it is pretty cool looking. I think that this is the final size. It has to be. I am running out of places to go!

I leave you with my last flower image of the year. I think. This stem of flowering cabbage is a bouquet in itself.

Until next week. Allie

We have had two, count them, two, hard frosts. Much of the garden is done, save a few stragglers such as a handful of cosmos and chrysanthemums, and bits and bobs. Still enough for a bouquet for mom and me, but the pickings are getting slim, but one learns to be artful.

Clean up is slowly starting. Slowly. Steve has gotten down the fencing for me which was a big help, and has started to chop the now brown flowers into bits so I can get them onto the compost pile and then I can get the netting put away. After that the the irrigation, the weed mat, then more compost and tilling getting the beds prepped for spring. It will all happen, in time. There is so much other things to do. Like planting bulbs!

This past week I have been busy planting bulbs. All the bulbs areas have been rototilled again. And, more rocks have been pulled out. So far, this week I have planted all the daffodills, about 300 of them. Then the long awaited peonies finally arrived and they were planted on Thursday or was it Friday before the rain came down down down. Heavens. I have extra space, so I have ordered more. Not much left to order. I was amazed about how many of the bulb selections were sold out. I did score four more peonies, 50 Dutch iris, and either six or twelve Eremurus. Then I am done ordering for spring. Promise.

Today, I spent this morning planting the 900 some, lets just call it 1000 tulips. They are safely planted in the vegetable garden and all I need to do left is spread compost on the top of the beds and hopefully they will be safely tucked in till spring.

So that is it for this past week. Next week is full, still have to clean out the little greenhouse so I can find last year’s ranunculus and anemones. They were totally sold out so if I want to have some for you in the spring I better get last year’s dug, cleaned and ready for planting in February. I am going to try it a little bit later this year and see what happens.

So until next week, let the rains continue because we still need about 9 inches to make up for the summer’s deficit, I will continue on in the gardens cleaning up and prepping for spring. Soon the catalogs will be rocking in and I will be drooling over this next springs offerings.

Allie

It has finally happened. We have had our killing frost. Bam. The end of the season. Clean up is now beginning.

But in the meantime, I have been very busy. The perennial and biannual beds have been roto-tilled, thank you to the tiller and Steve. Otherwise I would still be out there trying to dig one hole for something. Oh, we still had plenty of rocks to dig out believe you me, but the beds have gone from this

To this.

Looking good I think. The two unplanted beds are for the peonies that we are still waiting but ready for. The very back rows have been tilled a number of times, each pass excavating more rocks. Some needed the spud bar and the tractor to get them out and rolled down the hill. I certainly hope I don’t need to expand, which I won’t. I promise Courtney, because I have been dumping ALL the rocks beyond the big rock you see and that would just be an outrageous nightmare.

So this past week, besides digging up more rocks and oh, breaking the tiller tines because of rocks, then flooding the engine block with oil because silly us, we turned the tiller on it’s side to access the tines and filled the block with oil, soooo to make a long story short, we pulled the spark plug, shot oil all over the place and now we are running. So we can dig out more rocks. There is a reason why we are called Lottarock farm.

So what have I done this week you might ask. I have moved rocks, planted 25 allium, 150 fritillaria, 50 Ornithogalm, 100 Leucojum and 300 assorted narcissus. I still have to get 1000, choke, 1000 tulips planted but they are going into the vegetable garden in trenches so that should only take a day?

But wait! I have two rows of extra space! How did that happen? And nothing to put in them. Ohhh, what am I going to do? Wisely cover them with cardboard and wood chips and wait till next year? See what is on sale and fill the space? OHHHH this is not good. Allie with open garden space. Not good at all. I had wanted to get some Iris reticulata for spring….

Soon I will be perusing the seed catalogs. Oh dear.

Until next time. Allie

I know it has only been a week, and so much has happened. So you know that the peonies that I thought had arrived? Nope. We prepped the space, and then I opened the box. No peonies, silly me, read the paperwork, but they were bulbs. The good news is that we are ready for the peonies. The bad news, or the other news is that tomorrow I have 66 pounds of bulbs being delivered. Am I ready? NOPE. But through the generosity of gardening clients, I will be. Hopefully. I mean, 66 pounds of bulbs. Each bulb weighing approx .25 of a pound. No problem. We /Steve just has to till the said space and pixie and I will get planting. (Before the snow flies I hope).

But the garden waits for no one. Perennial beds have been tilled, composted and I have started to move all the plants that I have been holding in the vegetable garden into their real space, to make room for all the tulips that are starting to be delivered tomorrow. I believe it is called the gardening do-se-do.

Plants that are no longer doing much are being cut down and mulched, irrigation is being disconnected, I am spinning in circles…I can’t seem to get may fall clean up in focus. Goats can though.

So. Needless to say, there is a lot going on here. My goodness there is a lot going on here. The push and rush to get everything done is scary. Which brings me to the sad news….

This flower season for Flowers at Lottarock is over. Sad, but not. Sad not to see all my flower people, but glad that I can take a deep breath in anther month. I still have lots to do to get ready for next spring. If you still have credit, don’t sweat it, it is still good because spring and all of its beautiful narcissus, ranunculas and tulips will be ready for you. And don’t worry, you will still hear from me every Sunday to let you know what is happening at Flowers At Lottarock.

So this is the final 2020 bucket of flowers saying farewell, and until next year.

2021 I big plans for so tell your friends and bring your friends. We are a happy, merry, flower loving group. Until next week. Allie