Another Gardening Season Ending...

...But hey, fall is a great time of the year! It may not be as exciting as spring, but the autumn is a great time to clean up the yard after a long (or not so long) season, maybe make some improvements to it, and buy some bulbs (which is actually pretty exciting). What's more, is if you are into orchids like I am, the fall marks the beginning of the season for many types. And for me personally, September is the month that my orchid society resumes its monthly meetings which I greatly miss over the summer. Bearing all this in mind and as I begin a new stage in my life with university, I have quite a positive mind about fall right now.

I am doing a great deal of work on my garden at the moment and rushing to have it finished before first snowfall, which in my region can happen any time now, believe it or not, although there is an equal chance that it will remain in the 20s Celsius for the next few weeks. I found it very difficult to get anything done outside over the summer as it was around 30 degrees Celsius (often quite a bit hotter than that) almost every day with very little rain - difficult weather to get hard work done in. Now that it is cooling off I am spending more time outside. I expect all of my projects will be finished by the end of the month weather-permitting. This will include new flowerbeds in both my front and back yards, with space for interesting new plants - some of which are already purchased - and some great new yard art and other geographical features. I am focussing now on xeroscaping as much as I can - this means that I am mainly planting low-maintenance plants (specifically drought-tolerant ones), many of which are native. However, of course I can never resist planting finicky exotic plants as well - that's what I'm all about! In the end most of the lawn on my property will be eliminated as I have found it difficult to maintain a healthy lawn in my neighborhood, where people allow weeds to grow in increasingly large ranks and tons of their offspring sprout on my lawn throughout the year. The money and time required to keep the lawn looking good is not worth the return, I think. Instead a thick and healthy planting of low-maintenance flowers will keep weeds out and look impressive.

Aside from projects outside I am looking to refine my orchid and carnivorous plant growing space indoors so that I can get better results and make more room. For years I had a light-mounted three-tier shelf in my bedroom; this has been moved to the kitchen and a smaller shelf put in its place which now holds my larger plants (which were too large to grow well on the tiered shelf). I am also planning to set up a growing area in my crawlspace basement.

I will be uploading some pictures soon, and hope to make a posting every week at least.