Indeed it does, schoolhouse. I intended to plant some dutch iris bulbs today, but wound up having to pull out aa lot of weeds from the lily/daisy/tulip bed. I then had to weed along the iris bed, but finally got that done and the Dutch iris planted.

The Dutch iris had to be planted since the John Scheeper tulips are on the way, and can the Colorblend tulips be far behind?

I also weeded the edge of the daylily bed in front. I like to have at lest a 10 inch border between the grass and the flower beds, and I had lost it in places. What with that and watering (no rain here, unfortunately) I spent about five hours outside today. And it does feel good.

You are a brave woman to be pulling ivy. I generally wind up with a backache that doesn't want to leave. You are very smart to think (and work) ahead like that for your spring beds.
kay

Well, it's been raining here since last night, so not much more I can do outside even if I wanted to. The neighbor boys brought my annual 7 bags of leaves over Tuesday night for me to shred. I pay them $3 a bag. This year was a difficult time because we had lots of leaves fall and then a week of rain; so they got a couple bags raked before that. Finally the weather cleared, more leaves fell. They boys are so cute, ages 11 and 9 I think, when their mom brought the truck over with the bags they told me "Two have leaves that are pretty wet, but the rest are nice and fluffy!" Unfortunately it was starting to drizzle when the bags arrived and they have sat out back ever since. As long as the bags are tightly shut there shouldn't be too much of a problem until I can get around to shredding the leaves.

kitten, my back aches too - from too many years of lifting, pulling, dragging, digging ugh. I can only work so long then I have a sit-down. After a few minutes I get back up and work some more. What a nuisance. I also should have edged the beds for a final time by now, but kept putting it off. It's so worth it in the Spring to see that nice edge and not have to worry about the job so soon. I have not bought one daffodil or tulip bulb, which is unheard of for me! This would actually be a good time to put them in, the ground is so soft. Just lift some soil and slide the bulbs in.

Today, I spread some mulch, school, but I have so much more to do. I have more posts and rebar to put up for rose supports, and so much more weeding to do, but I got an awful lot of weeding done yesterday.

And we know cold weather is coming. And I so know what you mean about neededing to edge the beds...maybe I will get a little of that done today...

kay

Today I cut down the hyacinth bean vines and the luffa vines. They were taking up the area that I want to plant the bearded iris I ordered in the spring. Then I transplanted a wedelia that was in way too much shade.
This is the best time of the year to plant here, as it gives things a long time to grow roots before the spring heat arrives.

When I transplant, I soak the plant to a soggy mess. Then soak the area for the hole. I dig the hole and fill it with water until soupy. Then I put the plant in under the "soup" and let the water drain. This settles the soil around the roots and keeps it moist for about 5 to 6 days.

And yes my clogs were caked with mud, also.

Kathy

Doesn't it, though! I spent time today digging up a rock garden around a stump that was rotting, and needed to be taken out. In the process, I dug up some thousand or so grape hyacinths that had to be replanted, and that meant working on another area of the garden. I started out planting all 4000 of them each nicely separated, and by the time I got done with the approximately 25,000 of the darn things, I was just chunking clumps of them into the ground, lol!

Sandy

Sandy, that is sooo funny!

I understand that numbers game completely, Sandy!
kay

Oh those grape hyacinths, they could care less how they are planted - they just laugh and next year you'll have 4,000 more. Sounds like it will be a pretty display next Spring.

I keep thinking I should be cutting down the Corkscrew Vine on the porch, but the thing is green as can be and still blooming it's heart out, even after temps in the lower 30's overnight. I gathered some dried seed heads from the Pincushion Flowers around the mail box, but again there are still pretty blooms on them here and there. Next week, I'll have to make sure and mulch around the new rose out front and if I don't cage the burning bush along the property line in the orchard before we have snow, rabbits will chew the bottom trunks to pieces. Last winter I nearly lost them and ended up having to cut them back to the ground, and they were tall. Now they are starting all over but the foliage looks very healthy and seemed to grow fast over the summer.

No rain in the forecast today, so I'm going to start shredding leaves here in a bit. The sooner I start, the sooner I'll be finished. ugh.

My corkscrew vine froze (in the ground) the winter of 2009/2010. And never came back.

Kathy

This is so bad...I still have pots on the porch to plant! LOL

I did get most of the bee balm planted yesterday, as I ran into a wonderful clearance sale at Lowe's. I think they were $1.99 each for beautiful, 2' tall purple bee balm. Purple...so I got all seven :)

Still have some 'great priced' shrubs to plant, but I hope to have them all done by this weekend. It's been dipping down into the teens at night, so I need to get these done quickly. It's so pretty in the garden right now...it's almost sad to see winter come. I just hope all the roses make it through this year!

Kathy- Sorry about your corkscrew vine.

Sandy- My mom has grape hyacinths and keeps wanting to give me some...I think I'll pass for now! LOL

Kay- Your rose supports turned out so nice! I meant to comment on your post...the roses are just beautiful :)

Schoolhouse- Your mom's right, it is almost November. Time just flew by this summer and still so much to do. It sounds like your new semi-circle bed is going to be much better. Any new pictures of your sunken garden?

I do love my grape hyacinths, tho. I've been creating a "river" of them down through the woods, and it looks great, but it takes LOT of them to do a couple hundred feet of them, so I've been working on lengthening and widening it over the last three years, adding more each spring and fall, dividing the ones I have.

So it doesn't cost me anything as there are many thousands of them already here (they came with the property) but time and effort. So worth the results!

Sandy

No, Lass, no new pics of the little sunken garden. It doesn't look very nice right now with all the digging and rocks out of place. The only thing I'm going to plant yet this Fall is some Indian Grass, which I saw in a prairie garden at the OARDC arboretum. The guy that designed the garden answered my inquiry about some starts and I plan to go to his place to buy some. He said they would be plugs and only cost a $1 or $2. He didn't have anything bigger available right now. He also said this variety of grass is a slow grower.

Kathy, corkscrew vine grows as an annual here. I was just inspecting the morning glory vines on the picket fence and there are still buds coming on, but I'm not sure they will get the chance to bloom. The trunk of one vine is as thick as one of my fingers if not more! Never saw them that aggressive and wonder if it might crush the wood, beings the picket fence is a vintage wire variety with thin pickets. It may take more of an effort to tear down those vines than I thought.

mosswitch, I'm trying to make a river of blue with chiondoxia but it's slow going. Hope you can post some pics next Spring.

Sandy- I didn't want to have to keep digging up the grape hyacinths in the regular garden...but I am thinking of putting some bulbs under the big plum tree. It's just too difficult to mow around it. Maybe some crocus and grape hyacinth? That might be kind of pretty.

The 'big' plum tree is actually about fifteen starts that came up, where the old plum tree came down. They've all woven together and look like one big tree, now :)

I have an old maple that was getting hard to mow under because of the big surface roots, so I dug out all the grass around it and planted violets and grape hyacinths. Much better.

Your old plum tree sounds very interesting, I love old trees with character.