More November Retrospects

This is the Gardener’s Year in Review…probably the one thing in which we gardening enthusiasts are a step ahead of the rest of the world: review the year in November.

I spoke already of some of the successes and failures of 2009, but I have some other things to add. This blog has become a memory bank of sorts, like any proper journal ought to, and I often look back into my posts to see the names of plants I bought and when. I keep intending to make a hard copy journal, but from the time I was twelve, with all the little girl diary motivations, I have never been true to that commitment of writing in a journal. Until the online world emerged…but I am digressing…

This year saw two new additions to my garden: the greenhouse, and a rain barrel. Both of which I have wanted for years and years. Now that I have them I am trying to integrate them into my old dog gardener ways. The rain barrel caused a bit of disagreement between me and my husband.

[read on for “the rest of the story”]

I want to use the rain barrel for wintertime water in the greenhouse… he is grousing about not putting the rain barrel away for the winter: “If it freezes and cracks, I am not going to buy another one”.
the green house stays pretty warm over the winter… not warm enough for tropicals, but with my idea of insulating the bottom area with straw bales around the outside, it seems it could weather Ohio’s worst.

So we came to a compromise of sorts. I agree to drain it out if the thermometer registers a single digit threat, with the additional parting growl of “… but you are responsible for taking care of it, I’m not going to check your greenhouse for you”.

And so it is.

Now, I need to buy that straw.

I cleared out a weedy patch from part of the bed that I let go wild with Charles de Mills Gallica roses and volunteer asters. The asters showered me with their tiny feathery seeds, and Charles prickled right through my leather garden gloves to register his displeasure. I used some of the free mulch to give a cloak of civility to the wild bed for winter’s sake.

This same bed holds the contorted hazel, which once divested of the underbrush of asters and rose canes showed it once again needed some watersprouts pruned out. So I obliged. I saved the straight canes in a place beside the green house where my imagination has me weaving some twiggy supports during winter weekends sheltered in my cozy greenhouse. We’ll see. (I have come to use that phrase much when at the start of my mind’s eye of new ventures).

I sawed off a large branch from the fringe tree to give it more of a tree form than the wide spreading, half shrub shape it often takes. I cut larger branches with some trepidation that somehow I might be maiming it for posterity, but it looked better to my eye, so no harm done.

A few leftover daylilies were tucked in, while I saved the major pruning to the old lilac for another day.

Today the soft rains came.

And so it goes – my soul finally feeling rest that my most pressing work was done, a few extra improvements made, and a look forward to what is possibly one my favorite pastimes: garden planning for the next year.

I have a few pictures yet to share with you, my dear readers, and tucked into the back pocket of my mind are rural ruminations, although I need a good camera day for pictures to partner with the thoughts. Til then, friends- peace and contentment along with a grateful spirit.