Garden Siren Call

  This photo was taken at the height of summer: There is the hibiscus tree, center rear, orange lantana in front, marigolds and the like.      I love to garden and to nurture plants (hence, this blog). Today's effort includes a list of what was purchased  and planted in 2022.     We finish putting the 13 or so gardens to bed this week. It's a fall ritual but I do better when the annuals are very dead, and more easily removed from the ground.       This spell of warmish October weather has been a Godsend.     By the way, I continue to pull weeds as I see them, but I kind of doubt this practice makes fewer weeds in the springtime. Just saying! There seem to be plenty of weeds at all times of the growing season.     I also pull weeds with a purpose, and that means I'm on the third self-weeder of the season. Yep, weeders #1 and #2 cracked under pressure as I went after weed roots under the many cobblestones that surr...

      That's the daylily bed, which is also the weediest part of our yard. I do retain the annual grass in the middle.      Our gardens, spread over about an acre of land, include weeds much of the year.     But I've heard the old saying, "pull a weed in October and that's one less to pull in May."     Uh, really?     One spot is especially questionable. Like many gardeners, we spend inordinate time in the yard before it snows. Hostas are trimmed, as are various perennials. I haven't pulled out my beloved bright tropicals (Hibiscus, for example), but that will happen soon.     The garden that gives me fits is in the photos; There are about eight daylily plants in that location, and probably a hundred miles, or more, of grasses with long, long roots.     Last year, 2021, I weeded this daylily bed eight times. That's right!      The grass roots get  entwined with the daylily tubes, about si...