Ink & Penstemon

The pictures in the photoset say it all, don’t they?

October this year was officially the month of having a long list of things to do and me managing that list by ignoring it. Some years this works out, this year, obviously not. Snow in October isn’t rare here, but it never fails to catch you off guard. The skier in me is happy, the gardener, not so much.

Some people are great prognosticators of the weather; they don’t even need to look at the weather reports to know when a storm is on its way. I won’t pretend to be one, but maybe my sudden and strong urge to make a terrarium and to refresh my indoor gardens should have warned me this was coming. And, I was prompted to go get my neighbor yesterday and help her pick her apple tree that we bagged this spring. The apples would have been ruined if we had waited any longer. We got a respectable harvest of a couple of bushels, more than enough for one refrigerator drawerful for me as a neighborly “thank you.”

And, while I didn’t get all my bulbs planted, I only have 5 ‘Limelight’ daffodils to get in the ground and 10 or so Tulipa ‘Lady Jane’s, which is well within the range of being potted up for next spring if the weather doesn’t improve in time. It’s a good thing I didn’t order many this year. I did intend to move a clump of Allium ‘Ambassador’ in the corner and move them to another bed; maybe it will dry out enough to make this possible. Right now I feel foolhardy ordering a Sorbus scopulina yesterday to fill the hole left by the presciently timed transplant of the Acer palmatum ‘Hubb’s Red Willow.’ Still, the ground isn’t likely to be frozen just yet, so I may still get it in the ground.

I suppose I’m not all that bad off despite my procrasination. Of all the work that needed doing, I got most of the really important things done. I planted the rare (code for expensive) bulbs first, and in preparation for the Abies lasiocarpa transplant in December, the critical plants I wanted to save got moved. The grass got torn out north of the driveway, and I got all of the plants in the ground except for one Rhus tribolata ’Gro-low’ and an unnamed lavender I picked up off the marked-down table at the nursery. And, as a landscaper friend of mine brings over a big bucketful of pine needles each day, it’s almost all mulched over to protect against the real snows. All that remains to be done is to store the furniture away, tear out the Alberta Spruce, and remove the deck. There I go, leaving the most onerous chores for last—again. 

In the end, I suppose we’re doing well despite the early snow. It still doesn’t mean I’m ready for it. Still, waste not want not; I’ll go get my ski gear out of storage.