Good morning, and it's Sweater Weather! Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
Last week, Denver broke out of Summer Weather, and into Fall Weather.
The change was quite sudden.
On Tuesday, the high was 90° and the low was 60°.
On Wednesday, the high was 60° and the low was 48°.
Even better, we got a couple of inches of rain — a nice, slow soaking rain that our parched soil desperately needed.
Moisture in the chilled morning air? Autumn sedum buzzed by bees? Needing a sweater until the day warms up?
Yup. Fall is just around the corner. I think most people around here are pretty grateful that 90° are passed (cross fingers) until next May or June. It's been a long, hot summer.
Many thanks to ColoTim for hosting last Sunday's Colorado Kossack meet up. The food was marvelous. The view from his home is magnificent. The conversation was animated. And I finally know what elderberries look like.
Here at Casa de Frankenoid, I'm starting to get ready for cooler weather. Step one — and my timing was perfect — was mowing the grass patch Tuesday afternoon and spreading grass seed to fill in the bare spots. The rain watered the seed in well and gives it the moisture it needs to sprout, while the days are still warm enough to ensure quick germination. In a week or so I should start seeing fill-in of the areas that were ravaged by fungal disease last summer.
Step two is clearing out room in the cold storage space so I'll have room for plants and for forcing bulbs. I have my order for large-sized hyacinth bulbs in; they should be arriving the first week of October. They'll spend 6 or 8 weeks in the mini fridge for the first stage of chilling, before going into hyacinth vases for the final stage of forcing in the cold storage area.
I also have to have space for the brugmansia — I have 4 large-sized plants, and 3 smaller ones. Last year I had good results with putting a jasmine in cold storage, so I'm going to have some other tender plants join it and see how they do — a fuchsia, geranium, and tuberous begonias will all get the cold shoulder this winter. I know that in other areas of the country people are able to just shove plants such as geraniums in cold storage and forget about them — here it's too arid and the plants will become desiccated so I have to be able to water everything once a month or so. It makes it a little more difficult.
Our little office over the Hornet Restaurant has really nice northern windows, so I'm going to try one of the smaller brugs, some begonias and a fuchsia up there and see how they do over the winter. I think the brug won't get quite enough light, but it's worth a try, and the fuchsia and begonias should love it up there.
That's what's happening here. What's going on in your gardens?
I will note here that I was not asked to participate in the C&J/Bill in Portland Maine Blogathon.
That's cold, dude, even for someone from Maine.
Like kos, I own a piece of BiPM's sole — I've been a monthly contributor for a while now.
I gave my piece of Bill's sole to the cat — and because there are no hard feelings here in the garden, I encourage you all to click on the link to kos's diary, and follow the further links to throw a few pennies Bill's way.
Besides, there's not much of his sole left, and it's going fast.
The Remaining Tatters of BiPM's Sole