Gardens are perpetual. This time of year I find myself thinking about what to do and not to do in my garden. I dig out the dusty note pad at the bottom of my garden bag and start making notes.
Cannas - out. They were supposed to be an exotic, elegant wall of foliage and bloom against the back drop of my garage wall. Results were, eh, OK. I will go through the effort to dig out the bulbs, but they will be placed behind my peonies in a different part of the yard.
Roses - In. I know they're a hassle -- spraying, pruning, tipping. But when I saw the Honey Perfume rose at the MN Landscape Arboretum, I had to have it. As a beekeeper I truly enjoyed that three honeybees were digging their way into the nectar of this lovely rose.
Tomatoes – diversify. I planted Brandywine tomatoes from seed and with the exception of one cherry tomato plant, that's all I planted. Although they were listed as indeterminate (not all coming ripe at the same time), due to our super-hot summer and my planting time, they all started turning red at the same time. I had to take a day off work to make sure all of the fruit from the 12 plants didn't go to waste. Then, there was blight. I planted 8 plants up at my cabin garden. When they were exceeding 5 feet, I thought I better bring the cages from home. Well, I didn't clean my cages with bleach like they recommend and in one week, the poor plants were wilting, brown and yucky. Add another note to the book. Blight – Bad, sterilize cages, use disease resistant plants.
Pond – re-do! Two winters ago, we had a very dry Fall, and virtually no snowfall. So in Spring of this year, my pond
barely held any water. The water lilies died, the marsh marigolds died, I didn't plant Josephine's lotus flower right and the pond grew a green slime in the water instead of roots. Come spring. All will be tossed and replaced with new plants and new beginnings.
What's on your list? What worked for you and what did not?
