Cait's Garden

This has been an extra long growing season. No hard frosts yet and it’s almost Halloween! Of course, most plants sort of gave up the ghost in the past few weeks. Looking out at the yard, the only thing still producing flowers like crazy is the Rozanne Cranesbill (buy these flowers…they are AMAZING) and my various Knockout roses. Many other plants have lovely golden foliage as they shut down production for the year. I must give props to my Limelight Hydrangeas. I took the photo shown a couple of weeks ago to capture how the flowers were starting to turn pink. They look much the same now, although the leaves are yellower. Eventually, the flowers will turn bronze for the winter. But just look at how fabulous this shrub is! Huge, blush-pink flowers…in October! I have these shrubs on either side of my front door. It makes for a reliably great entrance.

I don’t know how other gardeners are, but personally, I stop gardening by mid-October. Oh sure, I’ll do a little clean-up, some raking. But mostly, I let everything sit, undisturbed, until Spring. Then I am a cleaning maniac. I learned long ago that plants do best if you leave them their foliage over the winter. It helps protect the plants. The only exception is diseased or mildewed foliage. That I always remove. Otherwise, I just sit back and watch things slowly go to sleep. Even now, I am getting much enjoyment from looking at my yard. Things are winding down, but they are still gorgeous.