Hi Annie,
It's been raining for days here, too. Good. We really needed it. Cold here too past few days. Was 38 degrees this morning.

Haven't been doing anything heavy duty outside for awhile. Bought some daffodil bulbs at Wallyworld. Got some planted, still have more to get into the ground. Probably sometime next week. Trees are turning fast and look really pretty. Fall is my favorite time of the year.

I don't have luck with coreopsis either. I bought some on clearance at Lowe's about 2 months ago. I planted them as soon as I could.They looked great for awhile, then started to shrivel up, and finally died. Curious, I dug around around the roots and the roots looked pretty rotted. Maybe the plants had some kind of fungal disease. My neighborhood Lowe's NEVER has a decent clearance area.

Mums ... Now I just buy a few new plants every Fall and then toss them in the compost pile when the frost finally gets them. I don't plant them in the ground cause they never return the following year. I did overwinter one in my unheated garage a few years back. It did come back in the spring. So, I fed it and kept pruning it til about July to shape it. It looked good, but really wasn't worth the effort. You can buy nice, inexpensive garden mums almost anywhere in early September somtimes as cheap as 4 for $10.00.

Maybe next week I'll tackle cleaning up the garage. I have to put my garden chatchkies away and I overwinter my mini rose bushes in there. I need to make room.

For the past few months we have been very busy inside the house. We put in new windows in all 3 bedrooms. dining room, and living room. Our old windows were about as energy efficient as cellophane. Hubby, my stepson, and a good friend put the windows in and they came out super. It also helps when one of your friends is a very experienced carpenter.

We also painted the kitchen, hall, bathroom and the bedrooms. When we moved into our house 4 years ago, the inside of the whole house was orginally painted entirely one color - boring light beige. This time we chose varying shades of green (lights and darks) throughout the house. The colors really pop and look great with accenting white doors and trim. The existing carpet, furniture, and curtains are all tans, browns, golds. Now there is a nice mix of of earth tones, and the whole thing ties together really well.

That's about it. Hopefully, I will get to some tasks next week. From what I've seen on the weather, supposed to be gorgeous weather 60's-70's for most of next week. I'll take it!

Jane

Hi Jane! I'm glad to hear other people can't get those damned mums to grow either *HA*. It makes me sick...just down the road, there's several houses with these HUGE GORGEOUS clumps of mums that come back year after year.....

Your painting scheme sounds beautiful. I LOVE white painted woodwork/trim with darker colored walls. I want to do that here, but hubby won't hear of it. He likes the stained wood trim. I did white trim in my bedroom/bath/office and love it. Bedroom has two walls deep apple green, office has 2 walls deep mulberry.

That was one heck of a "dry spell" we had. Our weather's really nice lately, and the trees are just barely starting to show color. I agree, fall is my favorite season too!

Ok...don't hate me, but my mums need a major talking to about how much of the garden space is actually theirs and the coreopsis aren't much better behaved. What I can't get to grow around here are dianthus, and I would really like to figure out why. I live near Harrisburg which I think is zone 6. Have you had any luck with them?

What did I tell you all about bragging on your mums?

Dianthus (I learned the hard way) are like alpine plants...they thrive in gravelly soil with really good drainage, but at the same time, they need constant moisture. The only success I had with them was when they decided to sprout up in the gravel between my walkway stones. They must like lime soil too, since that was all crushed limestone.

Good to meet a gardener from my area! I'm only about 1.5 hours south of you on I 81! Yes, we're zone 6 here...but with the heat and humidity coming up from the chesapeake,, so Zone 6 B I guess.