Of Plans and Deadlines

It seems like life - at least my life - is just a series of plans and deadlines.  I have both for work, both for the garden and both for my personal life.  For the most part, there's no reason to share the first with you.  Work is work and nothing special.  Altho I do love my job, I am happy every afternoon to walk away from it. 

See the salvia on the left?  I thought it was an annual variety.

Plans for the garden are big for me, and I just assume that you are every bit as interested!  Plans for the personal life are a bit less definite most days.  Actually, I think Mitchell is in charge of those!

Ah, but deadlines.  It seems to me there are two types of people when it comes to deadlines.  There are those who look at a deadline and then file it away until 24 or 48 hours ahead.  These are the folks who pull all-nighters to write term papers or study for final exams or prepare a sales presentation for the big clients.  When I sold for Xerox all the most successful salesmen were in this group. 

The same salvia came up in the perennials this spring.

The other group looks at the deadline and then looks at the task and breaks it down into smaller tasks, assigns interim deadlines, starts today, and has the project done two or three days early so that they have time to let it sit and then take a final look at it.  All of the successful saleswomen at Xerox were in this group.  Actually, I have often wondered what it was about their hiring practice that caused that dichotomy.

I am definitely in the latter group.  I have already laid out my plans for the fall garden:  re-do and then seed the cutting garden, re-do the area where the crabtree came out, take out an overgrown section of daylilies and move some of them to the front yard, plant new perennials to replace the daylilies, and deadhead, deadhead, deadhead.  

Now, suddenly, I have a deadline.  It all has to be done by October 4th.  Wow!  What can be put off until later?  The deadheading definitely can.  Moving the overgrown daylilies can also wait, but I really do want it done now.   But, then I can wait on the re-planting until spring.  And, the cutting garden is a "must be done".  And, good news.  I finished re-planting around the crabapple today.

I moved five of them out of the pots on the deck and into the garden - where the crabapple used to be.

There it is, then.  Re-do and plant the cutting garden and clear out the over-grown daylilies now.  Wait until spring to replant in the cleared space and to deadhead.  I love a plan!

Oops!

Somehow I published two posts on my old blog site.  So sorry!

Here's today's.

And, here's yesterday's.

You may have already seen them.  How confusing.

The Last Weekend of Summer

... at least here in the States that's how we see it.

A last trip to the beach before the children go back to school.

A last weekend of super sales.

This is pretty much how I have seen it.  A half inch yesterday and one the day before.  Hope for another one today.  Only a gardener would prefer rain to sun for Labor Day weekend.

But, thanks, Mom.  The garden and I appreciate it.

Hope you've gotten what you wanted this weekend, too.

Wednesday Workdays

 There's a project - always, a project somewhere.  I have a couple in mind for the fall, but the one I have started on is renovating one of the big beds in the front of the house.  Since we live more in the back of the house overlooking the "real" garden, it's easy to let the front get out of hand - which I have done.

Seeing this picture made me realize how much shade we have lost and how much I really loved that oak tree.

Let's start with history.  We bought this house under construction and got the builder to leave the yard alone except for the lawn seeding that the county required.  They did nothing about shrubs or planting.  In a hurry to do it all at once - and having no clue how big a job that was - we launched into everything all at once.  Shrubs went in along the front porch and a Thuja occidentalis at the corner.  Sadly what was sold as an 'Emerald' arborvitae (10 - 12 feet) was actually a 'Green Giant' (40+ feet) and had to come out.

By the second summer we had put in a serpentine concrete edging that included the two existing trees and created two beds with vastly different needs.  We had started planting azaleas in the sunny, drier one on the left.

 

Then I discovered St. John's Wort and finally a small creeping version of the same.  It seems like the perfect answer to filling in a large space with a low-growing, yellow flowering expanse that turns the most gorgeous bronze in the fall.  A few flowering perennials and space solved.

Five years later and the oak tree has died, completely changing the conditions of the site.  Happily, a volunteer dogwood has chosen to establish itself there so we will eventually have another source of shade.  Altho smaller than the oak, I think it will eventually be a good size for the house.

A big planter has given me a bit of height and a place to put a few flowers over the past couple of summers, but everything had become overgrown and crowded.  Most of all, tho, the creeping St. John's Wort had starting taking on the azaleas!  Can't have that.

And, finally, the conditions out there.  We have two drains off the house that run under the sidewalk and provide some irrigation.  It's not the best, since it tends to be feast or famine, so i augment with weekly sprinkling most of the summer and into the fall.  So, here is where we start.

The St. John's Wort is overgrown.  There is plenty of vinca minor everywhere, as well as Bermuda grass that thinks it owns this bed.  The chrysanthemums in all three pots have already bloomed once this silly summer, but are in bud again, and the small chrysanthemums I put in the ground are starting to bloom, too.   Meanwhile, the azaleas are in very good shape for such a hot summer, but would really like to get rid of the grass and creeping euonymous that has invaded them.

It's time for a little Round-up!  More next week.