Boulton

How can it be, so late in the year, that my back and front yards have become infested with thousands of whiteflies? How could I have not noticed? I feel itchy just writing about it.

Something I haven’t yet done, but must happen soon is to dig up all those tender bulbs that would surely perish if left all winter long.

I’ve made myself a promise. Next year, I’m going to go heavy with the grass. Ornamental, that is. I can’t get enough of its swaying and rustling. The varieties of colours and shades seem rather endless, considering it’s “grass” we’re talking about.

Sunday night of the harvest moon, with a fire cracking in the pit and a red cat lolling soporifically on the chair beside, I am waiting — waiting until that moon is high enough in the sky before I cut down my Russian sage and bundle it up to dry.

I have a tendency in the summer months to eat myself out of house and home. Hating to be wasteful, my partner John and I will make sure we eat everything we possibly can before turning to the markets for restocking.

I’m really going to try to resist the temptation to write about closing up the garden. It just feels so dang-nabbed cold. And here I am, wearing a burnt orange cardigan and floppy wool slippers, sitting snuggly under a quilt with a cup of tea.

I never thought I would be so interested in cultivating a lawn of grass (I specify “grass” to alert you to options of clover and ivy lawns).

There’s been many an occasion where I’ve had to cover up. But speaking in the horticultural sense, I’ve tried my luck with a few of the zoned climbers that are common enough in the greenhouses.

Of all the work we do to make our garden beautiful, nothing makes it moreso than a simple row of aged terra cotta pots, a snoozing cat and the gentle whirr whirr of the cicada.

Any gardener out there has her own reason for using mulch. Aesthetic or utilitarian, mulching is super easy and looks super awesome when it’s all done. Mulch is a catch-all word and can look like a variety of things.