Posted by mgervais
Today’s photo, our 3th runner-up in the Garden in Winter photo contest, is from finegardening.com member Wife_Mother_Gardener, who says, “When the first snows fall, I grab my camera and capture the…
Posted by mgervais
I took this photo at a children’s garden in Raleigh, North Carolina, last fall. This drooping, end-of-the-season suflower personified how I felt after a long, tough gardening season, and then a few…
Fall color is still around but you may have to look beyond the foliage. The berries presently on display are like a natural nod to the holiday season. Check out the berry good post below! (Sorry, I just had to make the pun!)
Chris over at Garden Sense has really enjoyed the fall color this year! This week’s fall color post is all about the berries. In many ways the berries are even better than the foliage. They last beyond the color change, they create food for the birds, and the brightly colored berries are extremely festive this time of year! Stop over to Chris’s blog and check out the hollies, the beatyberry, the chokeberries, and others!
Originally written by Dave @ The Home Garden
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Today is the Monday morning of what promises to be the coldest week of the Fall/Winter season 2010. The temperatures are predicted to be in the 30′s for highs and teens for lows with is about 15-20 degrees colder than the normal temperatures. I thought I would take a moment with this post and tomorrow’s post and think about those warmer days from the spring and summer that make us gardeners excited to be outdoors soaking up that vitamin D! (click on any of the pictures or links to see the original posts)
March 2010 – The first daffodils in began blooming. In contrast the daffodil foliage in some areas of the yard are beginning to peek out of the soil – hope of things to come!
April 2010 – The garden in April is always full of blooms. Tulips line our from walkway and the Yoshino cherry is covered in blossoms. In contrast today everything is bare although I did plant pansies where the tulips are for some cool season color.
May 2010 – May brings more awesome blossoms to the eye. Catmint and achillea are a great combination, and the Irises look pretty good too! May is also the time of the salvias in our garden! The beginning of May also brought us more water than we could handle in the form of flooding rains.
June 2010 – The beginning of summer! I miss those warm days already. Coneflowers and many others were nourishing the pollinators and the vegetable garden was producing tomatoes! I miss those fresh from the garden tomatoes too!
I’ll continue with more warmer days tomorrow! How’s the weather in your garden?
Originally written by Dave @ The Home Garden
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While I’m not officially wrapping up the Fall Color Project for this year the entries do seem to be slowing down! More and more leaves are finding their way to the ground, hopefully to become mulch or compost as nature intended!
Today’s entry comes from the blog Garden Sense and shares with us the gorgeous colors that fall foliage brings to shrubs. Brilliant barberries, itea, fothergilla, oak leaf hydrangea, chokeberry, and even azaleas fill this post with plenty of autumn wonder. Go pay a visit to Chris’s post if you haven’t already and enjoy what could be the last of fall’s wondrous foliage!
Thank you to everyone who has participated so far! I’ll be posting the wrap up post before Christmas so if you still have fall colors to share be sure to let me know!
Originally written by Dave @ The Home Garden
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Even though it’s been a short week we have lots of fall color to share for the Thanksgiving edition of the Fall Color Project! I won’t be posting for the Fall Color Project on Friday due to the Thanksgiving holiday so I thought I would highlight these posts a little early! What could be more perfect than fancy foliage, a feast, and most importantly family for the holidays?
Ginny starts us off with our fall foliage tour today. Bright red and yellows fill the branches of maples, oaks, and dogwood trees. The words of Abraham Lincoln open her post and set the tone for Thanksgiving week!
Atlanta is beginning to show some signs of fall color which you can see if you visit Pook and Bug! You will envy the beautiful Japanese maples glowing with fall color. Also take a look at the nicely window framed photo of the Japanese maple!
Matt at Passalong Plants put up a post on Friday with some awesome fall photos. The clarity and perspective of each shot are amazing. Although I think the subject in his last photo had better run – it’s not a good week for members of his species!
Twolipps posted some wonderful shots of maples, a bald cypress, a tea house and the ponds from Brookside Gardens in Maryland. The first photo of the cypress is probably my favorite but all of the pictures epitomize fall!
Amsonia, little bluestem grass, and of course maples are putting on a show up in Ohio! Kylee posted some of her fall favorites which also include heucherella, oak leaf hydrangea, and a blazing sumac (great plants for fall color!) Go check out what fall color is blazing through Our Little Acre.
Originally written by Dave @ The Home Garden
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While my garden is pretty much bare naked others are still draped in colorful fall foliage! From Tennessee to Alabama and Georgia fall color has peaked in the the 7 days since our last Fall Color Project Post. Let’s take a look!
Frances has a great fall color post filled with autumn associated colors. One of my favorite plants (that I don’t have but want) is featured in the first picture – Winterberry Holly! It has great fall and winter interest with all those masses of bright red berries. There’s lots to see at France’s blog but one of the things she is most known for is the Muhly grass! Just take a look at the last picture to see why!
Phillip’s post at Dirt Therapy is a tour of his home garden but may as well have been at a botanical garden. The colors are filling up every corner of his garden. Japanese maples, hydrangeas, dogwoods and all kinds of color can be found down in Alabama!
Skeeter popped back in at In The Garden to show us some of the colors around her Georgia home. One of the most wonderful things about fall is the opportunity to see that 3 dimensional painting that our gardens become and Skeeter’s surroundings definitely fit the bill! Stop over to see Skeeter’s Georgia colors!
The brilliance of autumn can definitely be seen over at Chris’s blog Garden Sense. Red, gold, and orange colors are highlighted among maple, ginkgo, weeping cherry, and ash trees. A stop to Chris’s post should be on your fall color tour!
Newsflash – Texas has fall color! Stop on down and visit Tufa girl and see the brightly color trees emerging for autumn in the Lone Star state. Red and gold trees are beginning the fall transformation. There’s plenty of green still around so maybe there is more color to come!
Racquel has put together a cool collection of fall color through a collage. One of my favorite trees (yes I have quite a few) is featured there – the sweet gum! It’s often maligned because of its seed balls but I think its color in the fall makes up for that. Go take a look at Racquel’s Fall Color Collage!
Originally written by Dave @ The Home Garden
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With three small children, my house looks like a disaster area most of the time, and it’s up to my wife and me to control the damage as best we can. Action figures find their way into every crack and crevice. Clothes are thrown about and placed in dog water.
While we are on a 24-hour patrol to keep things manageable, every so often it gets time to do a complete overhaul. You know, where you clean the tops of the ceiling fan blades, mop the floors and even rent a Rug Doctor. The problem, though, is how to go about doing it.
This spring or fall cleaning is a daunting and overwhelming task, and it’s easy to tell yourself that it can wait another week or two, but if you keep procrastinating, then your house will be a den of man-eating dust bunnies. So it’s time to break down the barrier of laziness and get down and dirty.
1. Make a plan. This is perhaps the most important step in the process. Divide your home into its individual rooms and then make a detailed list of all the things you need to do. Everything from vacuuming the floors to wiping down the walls. In fact, make it a checklist so that you can mark off your progress. One of the biggest discouragements is spending time cleaning and then feeling like you haven’t gotten anything done.
2. Buy the materials. With your list in hand, you should now have an idea of what all you need from the store. You’ll need a mop bucket, glass cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, etc. Go and get everything you need at one time so that you don’t have to disrupt your rhythm because you ran out of Windex. It’s also easy to get distracted at the store, especially when you aren’t looking forward to going home.
3. Eat plenty of protein snacks. A major cleaning is going to take a full day, if not two, and you will need to keep your energy up. Snacks high in protein and vitamins will give you a natural boost throughout the day. While it may be tempting to pile on the caffeine and sugary drinks, they will give you short bursts of energy before leaving you to crash.
4. Don’t forget the occasional break. You may be roaring to go, but if you don’t take a few 15- or 20-minute breaks, then you are going to burn out fast. The breaks let you distract yourself for a short while and give you the much-needed rest to recharge your battery.
5. Get everyone involved. If you are busting your hump trying to clean and your kids are on their sixth game of Wii bowling, then you’re going to be annoyed and you’ll want to give up. Instead, turn off the Wii and give each child (or spouse) a part of the list and have them go at it. Tell them no TV or video games until the list is completed to your satisfaction. You’ll not only avoid annoyance, but you’ll also get things done more quickly.
When you are finished and the house is spotless, you will be glad you spent all that time and effort. It may not last 24 hours, but for that precious moment, your house is how you always wanted it to be. Enjoy it.
Image Source: flickr.com/photos/abbamouse/3623584668/in/photostream
Related posts:
It is highly possible that post might not have happened. I’m glad it did since I’ve seen some great November colors in the blog posts listed below. Due to a computer bug and other issues this week it’s been very hard to get anything written. Whoever had the bright idea to create Trojan viruses on computers needs to be locked up and have the key thrown away! Fortunately I’ve found a way to bypass the virus to get this post done but it may be a few days before regular posting resumes.
This gorgeous carpet of red Japanese maple leaves awaits you over at Plantalicious! Her last hurrah features birches, blueberries, and deciduous magnolias. There is definitely some nice color still to be seen during this Autumn season!
Mark’s fall color post points to one of Nature’s ironies. I’ll let you find that one out for yourself when you visit his blog. Blueberries, cotinus, chestnut and other colorful leaves are featured. Go check out fall in Great Britain!
How about some California fall color? Over at Town Mouse and Country Mouse you’ll find some great autumn colors from the California countryside. An old walnut orchard, sycamores, oaks, and other fall colors await you on a cross country walk in California!
Originally written by Dave @ The Home Garden
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This morning we awoke to what is our first hard freeze of the season. Here are a few photos of the frost for your chilly enjoyment!
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| Frost on Grass |
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| Frost near the garden shed. |
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| Frost on the ‘Shasta’ Viburnum. |
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| While you can’t see the frost on the Sweet Autumn Clematis I thought the seed heads were worth a look! |
Originally written by Dave @ The Home Garden
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SECT Landscaping
Pressure Washing
Seasonal Clean Up
Junk Removal
Lawn Care 
Mulch Install 
Roof/Gutter Cleaning
