Transitioning from fall to winter

Posted on October 30, 2022 by Mominthegarden

Hi there! Welcome to my blog. The garden is showing signs that the season is indeed changing to winter. The beech hedge is turning from green to yellow and brown. The burning bush is a fabulous fiery red. And the sunflowers are finally finished blooming. It truly was a magnificent year in the garden. Another sure sign that the end of fall is near: bulbs have been planted! Planting bulbs is one way to sow the seed of hope for what will come in the future – and I am full of hope! 🙂

We’ve had quite a lot of rain the past couple of weeks. Everything is water logged, to the point where the grass goes ‘squish’ when you walk on it. This makes weeding (my most pressing task) nearly impossible. So, not a lot has been done in the garden, although we did get some tulip and daffodil bulbs planted. I also harvested all of our squash: two Red Kuri squash, four Marina di Chioggia squash, and nine Jack-o-Lantern pumpkins – not a bad season in the end! I’ve never eaten the Marina di Chioggia before, so I am looking forward to that.

As my husband is a huge fan of our strawberries, he very kindly thinned out the plants this past week. It’s a task that ideally is done in the fall, and is not my favorite thing to do. I’m so thankful he did it!

I thought I was going to dig up the dahlia plants this week, but I decided to wait a bit longer. From what I’ve read, it is best to dig them up after the first frost. The good news is that I’m still getting dahlia blooms, and the bees are enjoying the ones that I don’t bring inside.

It is nearly time for us, like our gardens, to start to slow down for the winter months. What do you think, are you ready for a little ‘slow-down’ break? 🙂

In Peace,
Dana

Jack-o-Lantern pumpkins, Marina di Chioggia and Red Kuri squash surround the burning bush (Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’ – dwarf burning bush).

Dana with pumpkin infront of squash from this season

Sure what’s not to smile about? 🙂

Cafe au lait and coffee at midnight dahlias with a couple Maxi dahlias.

Dahlias! Maxi, Cafe au Lait, Tam-Tam and Coffee at Midnight. This year I’ve learned the importance of staking dahlias properly. These have mostly been blown over in the wind, yet continue to flower!

Doing what I love to do: create a bouquet of flowers from the garden! The alstroemeria has flecks of burgundy inside the flower, which I think goes really well with the burgundy colored dahlias, as does the pink of the alstroemeria, too. I was able to gather a lovely bunch of flowers that now sit on my kitchen table.

The coloring of our beech hedge is a mottled brown-yellow-green at this stage. It will eventually turn completely brown, and the leaves will stay on for the entire winter.

Thank you for stopping by! I do appreciate you visiting. What’s a sure sign that fall is over in your garden?

Finding beauty in the every day

Posted on October 9, 2022 by Mominthegarden

Hello! Life is funny, isn’t it? We go about our days, and the days turn into weeks, and the weeks fold into months. My garden is starting to wrap things up for the season, at least parts of it are, yet it seems like just yesterday when it all began. I am so appreciative and thankful for all of the beauty it has provided me for so much of the year. It certainly deserves a break!

In my morning walkabout yesterday (which is when I took the feature image above, with the pink-hued sky), I marveled at how many plants are still producing flowers. The sunflowers are producing tiny flowers along branches that are barely attached to their main stems. The sweet pea are still flowering, although they are no longer fragrant. The little lime hydrangea are producing lots of new blooms, while the incrediball hydrangea have slowed down (but not stopped).

Looking for color? The alstromeria and dahlias have show stopping colors, and are still going strong. The asters have been blooming since September and are just starting to slow down now.

On the squash side, the Marina Di Chioggia squash seem to be finished growing. They are large! I have two Red Kuri squash that have turned orange from yellow, but have not made their final transition to red just yet. The pumpkins are nearly all orange. Nearly.

We mustn’t forget the roses. They are still producing new buds, and have lots of color from flowers that are currently blooming. There is a distinctively different feel to the garden now from the summer months, but the beauty continues.

Life is full. I try and do little gardening jobs along the way. When I stop doing that, those little jobs become big jobs and doing them, even in my head, becomes a lot harder. I also make a point of going in the garden every day, even if it is just my walkabout. Between my chickens, the birds, flowers, trees, and sky, there is *always* something to admire and be thankful for.

I hope you, too, find beauty in the every day.

In Peace,
Dana

little lime hydrangeas (dwarf lime light hydrangea)

I’m so happy with how the little lime border looks – as well as the lavender border! That was a fun project this year.

Marina Di Chioggia squash on half of the arch and sweet pea on the other

This is the ‘backside’ of the flower arch, which has three Marina Di Chioggia squash (two visible here) on one side and sweet pea on the other. There’s just a short opportunity in the morning to capture pictures on the front now, as the seasons change.

flower arrangement with dahlia: tam tam, cafe au lait and maxi, asters, delphinium and alstromeria

I couldn’t resist making another arrangement! The alstromeria were new to work with here, and I’m so glad I added them! This also has dahlias: Maxi, Cafe au Lait, and Tam-Tam, with some bright pink asters and one very curvy and long stem of delphinium.

Teasing Georgia David Austin roses in a bud vase

I have a lot of flowers inside at the moment! These ‘Teasing Georgia’ David Austin roses were hanging very low to the ground where no one could enjoy their beauty. So I saved them and brought them inside 🙂

Garden with Asters Pumpkins and Pumpkin wreath on playhouse

I’ll admit that it is *much* easier to find beauty when the sky is so blue and the sun is shining! May we all have more days like these!

Thanks so much for visiting. I hope you enjoyed the tour. How do you look for beauty in your day?

Is pink the new color of fall?

Posted on October 1, 2022 by Mominthegarden

Hi there! Welcome to my blog. Well, what do you think? Is it safe to say that pink can be considered a fall color? When I look around my garden, I still see so much pink: roses, dahlia, asters, and alstroemeria, there is a lot! The traditional fall colors of burgundy, red, and orange are still there as can be seen with the dahlias, helenium, persicaria, rudbeckia, pumpkins and Rowan berries. But they are joined by a lot of pink, which I would consider to be more traditionally a summer color.

Never the less, all of the colors are beautiful, no matter the time of year. We’ve had some pretty blue skies with lots of sunshine this week, helping to slowly turn the pumpkins orange. This gardener is also happy that we had some rain this week, too.

I’ve had a lot of fun creating flower arrangements recently. The dahlia are blooming ‘like mad’ and it would be silly not to do something with them. They are so easy to work with, too. One day I used berries from the yard with them, and another day I used asters. The point is to have fun while creating something pretty. For me, I find the process of making an arrangement to be quite therapeutic. I simply enjoy the process from start to finish. All other thoughts are banished while I play with flowers!

I’ll be playing more with my feature image, too, as the pumpkins turn color and the squash continue to ripen. Stay tuned!

I’m joining The Propagator’s Six on Saturday meme. Feel free to join in!

Enjoy the tour 🙂

1 – Asters. These guys sure like to show off. I have them planted around the ornamental grass. This year I dug up two large sections that had grass intertwined in them. I was quite happy with how that went until a few weeks later the plants seemed to be covered in a powdery mildew. I still don’t know what happened. Unfortunately, a few of my plants were affected (two delphinium on the deck and some of these asters). I am hoping that it was a once off occurrence.

2 – Alstroemeria Summer Paradise series ‘Summer Break’. I am so pleased with these lovelies! I planted them this year and they have happily been blooming ever since. There are still lots of buds to bloom on the three plants, providing a lovely splash of (pink!) color. They are great as cut flowers, too.

sungold sunflower with marigolds, asters and sunflowers in the background

3 – Sungold sunflowers with marigolds and asters. I could not resist using these sunflowers again this week. They are just fantastic for providing a substantial amount of color! My ‘caged’ sunflowers in with the blueberries are super pretty, too. I didn’t plant them, but I’m sure glad for them!

dahlia, ivy, black berries and elder flower berries arrangement

dahlias: cafe au lait, coffee at midnight, tam-tam, and maxi

4 & 5 – Dahlia arrangement with blackberries, elder flower berries and ivy. This was so fun to go around the yard and find different things to fill the arrangement with. I just had a thing for berries on this day, and it worked out so well. I’m still getting used to dahlias. If you wait to use them until they are fully open, then they won’t have long to live in an arrangement. It is best to use them before they fully open. I used chicken wire to keep the flowers in place. This works really well, and is something I can use over and over again. The dahlias are: Cafe au Lait, Coffee at midnight, Tam Tam, and Maxi.

6 – Dahlia and aster arrangement. More pink! This is a much smaller arrangement that I made with a focus on pink. I thought the tiny pink asters worked really well with the dahlias (Cafe au Lait and Maxi). Super easy, and I used the chicken wire again.

One more picture: My birthday is at the end of September. What a wonderful time to celebrate life! My daughter made this chocolate cake with meringue buttercream icing for me. It was so delicious!

I hope you enjoyed the rather pink tour! Have a great week!

In Peace,
Dana

A garden transformation with a ‘before’ and ‘after’

Posted on September 3, 2022 by Mominthegarden

Hi there! Welcome to my blog where I like to talk about all things gardening. 🙂 I was scrolling back through photos the other day when I came across two pictures that you’ll see today. One is of my seed packet for Marina di Chioggia squash. This is definitely the mystery squash from last week – despite the fact that my online search of this squash doesn’t fully align with the seed packet image.

The other picture that caught my attention is of our garden from this past May. It was completely bare! So of course I had to seek out a current picture. (My feature image at the top of the page is one.) The garden looks so full now! The hosta filled out, and the sunflowers of course, along with the plants growing on the arch (sweet pea and squash), the pumpkin bed, not to mention the pear tree, blueberries and strawberries. But in addition to those, there are the perennial plants that we added this year: dwarf Little Lime hydrangeas, Lavender and Rosemary, all along the borders. The perennials have come along really well in one season, and I like the way that they frame the garden. It truly is amazing, though, how quickly everything changes!

Speaking of changes, there is definitely a fall feel to the garden, now. The helenium are on their second flush of flowers (worth deadheading the old ones!) and look very pretty with the Incrediball hydrangea as a backdrop.

The Rudbeckia (black-eyed-Susan) and Persicaria blooming under the birch trees also signals the shift to fall.

The dahlias are finally picking up the pace of flowering. You may remember that the ones that were planted in the ground this spring were eaten by something. I’m talking decimated! So it has taken this long for them to recover, grow and now produce blooms. But it is worth the wait, given the beautiful flowers I’m getting now. The dahlias in containers are a lot more work, mostly ensuring that they have enough water. But they did start flowering much faster, having not been attacked by the mystery bug. I do plan to plant them out in the ground next spring, though.

I’m joining The Propagator and his ‘Six on Saturday’ meme again this week.

Enjoy the tour!

A before and after picture of the garden looking at the sunflower bed

A before and after picture of the garden looking at the Pumpkin bed

1 – The ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures! The clouds are the only things that seem to have stayed the same. The bottom pictures aren’t completely equal because the raspberries have grown so tall that if I stood in front of them, none of the rest of the garden would be visible. Also, in the same bottom pictures, we started with garlic in the left raised bed, and ended with sunflowers. It is fun tracking the growth of everything. 🙂

Rudbeckia and Persicaria under birch trees

2 – The birch tree bed. I’m delighted with how the rudbeckia and persicaria have filled out, especially since I haven’t really given them a lot of room. I might remove some of the bearded iris to give them more space – I’m still deciding on that.

3 – Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’. You might remember that I moved these three plants from two different locations in the yard this year. They are so much happier here and have provided a lovely splash of color for a nice length of time. I also used supports for them, which kept them upright and looking lovely. I deadheaded these plants a couple of weeks ago and they are now blooming again. The red is very pretty with the white Incrediball hydrangeas. It would be even nicer with the purple agapanthus that is planted in the middle of this bed, but they decided they weren’t interested in blooming this year. Better luck next year!

4 – Marina Di Chioggia seed packet. The picture on this seed packet isn’t like the images I get when I Google it. This is most likely the mystery squash from last week’s post. Glad I was able to figure that out (eventually).

arrangement with dahlias and Japanese anemone

5 & 6 – Dahlias! We have dinner plate dahlia Cafe au Lait (a creamy white), cactus dahlia Coffee at midnight (a deep red), and pompon or ball dahlia Tam Tam (also a deep red). In the top picture there is a pink dahlia that I only have as ‘Maxi’. All of them are just so pretty! I am already thinking about what colors and varieties to add for next year!

I hope you’ve transitioned nicely into the next season! I’m really liking these fall flowers, so I’m not too upset about the passing of summer. What about you? Do you prefer summer or fall flowers? 🙂

Take care!

In Peace,
Dana

Mom in the Garden

Enjoying life. In Ireland. With my family.

Tag Archives: dahlia Maxi

Transitioning from fall to winter

Finding beauty in the every day

Is pink the new color of fall?

A garden transformation with a ‘before’ and ‘after’