Gardens in October

It's fall -- my favorite time of year! The trees are beautiful but, unfortunately, my flowers are not. They are suffering from three things:

1) We are nearing the end of the growing season
2) Drought-like conditions
3) NEGLECT! My lack of time in recent weeks (months) has contributed to sad-looking garden spaces.

Of course, it's the time of year when potted plants naturally start looking a bit "leggy". I've already had to discard some, but the spike plants are still going strong, so I simply moved them to empty pots where they will live out the rest of their days. I've never tried to do that before and have been pleased with how well it worked.

I attempted to do something fancy with the mums on the front step which DIDN'T work so well, as you can see in the photo with the pumpkin. After removing the pink impatiens from the pots, I squeezed two small mum plants into the space, leaving the spike plants and the sweet potato vines in place. Well, this bright idea was a "FAIL", as my daughter would say. There simply wasn't enough space for all of these plants. The spikes tipped over and the mums split apart, resulting in a very odd-looking arrangement. Since the photo was taken, I have pulled out the spikes and the sweet potato vines which allowed the mums to move closer together all by themselves. While not what I originally envisioned, it certainly looks less weird.

It will soon be time to move my strange assortment of houseplants inside, including the tall Dr. Seuss plant which Spouse threatens to put in the dumpster. I'm also thinking about keeping my herbs over the winter, since they've had such a good run and I really don't feel like I've used them enough. We'll see how that goes. Both houseplants and herbs are pictured in the collage above.

Soon it will be time for a good garden clean-up, then planning will begin for next spring's gardens, when my cycle of optimism, hard work, and hopefully LESS NEGLECT will begin all over again!