Hi everybody, sorry to leave you all hanging for so long, but I've been recuperating from all the cuts I received a week ago, while tying up my ornamental grasses!

Not really, but I did manage to get quite a few cuts, doing this and other weekend chores. You see, I remembered to wear protective gloves while tying up the grasses. However, I did not remember to wear long sleeves! So I must stress to the rest of you, if you're planning to tie up your grasses, rather than cutting them back for the winter, make sure you wear proper protection. The fine blades of the grass can wreak havoc on your skin. And while it doesn't sound that bad, imagine 20-30 little paper cuts all up and down your arms!
Anyway, I choose to tie up my grasses rather than cut them back. Either option will not harm the grasses in any way (it's pretty difficult to kill grass). I like the way they look throughout the fall and into the winter. And as I've stated before, in the spring when I do cut them back, I save the cuttings, tie them together, store them in the shed and viola, come fall I have unique decorations for the front of my house.

As pictured here, they are a economical/ecological way to decorate, instead of buying corn husks.

Over this past weekend, I managed to get a few things on my To Do list done. Like cleaning up the leaves on the patio - this has become a regular chore over the last month. It seems like the dynamics of my patio make for a perfect gathering place for leaves ... so every weekend I go out with my handy-dandy Black & Decker leaf machine and suck them up. With three dogs, I get plenty of leaves inside the house as well, and it all goes into the compost pile with grass clippings from the lawn. The combination of green matter and brown matter makes for a good base for next year's compost. (Of course, I'm still hoping for a good yield of compost, after failing miserably the last two seasons.)
And the leaves don't just end up on the patio ... the pond is full of them too. So Saturday it was time to get the net out! I hate getting the net out, it's my last admission of defeat (that the summer's really over), but it had to be done or the fish wouldn't have any room to swim! Anyway, in preparation for covering the pond, the summer pond plants had to be removed as well. So that means the canna and black taro got taken out to die back from the cold nights, and then placed in the basement to hibernate till next year. The net tends to confuse the frogs too.

Black Taro
And since my neighbors have left for their winter home in Florida and covered their pond already, I have more frogs to tend to. So I can't completely cover my pond, or the frogs wouldn't be able to get in or out. It usually takes a couple of days to figure out exactly where they are comfortable jumping in/out, so I can leave that end a little open. Every now and then over the years, I find a frog early in the morning sitting in the middle of the net, confused, cold and in need of rescue!
Still have to plant the dward rhododendrons my previous neighbors left me when they moved a couple months ago ... time's running out. And I still haven't planted my precious Allium bulbs yet. If you still have any perennials, bulbs or shrubs left to plant, get them in the ground ASAP. Especially since last night we actually had frost.
And most important (because I've been forgetting this one too) WATER! This month's lack of rain has not been kind to our plant life. Especially for any new plantings, get out and water! Just because summer flowering season is over, don't forget your plants still need water ... I can't stress this enough. Water early in the day, if possible, since the temperature has been dipping at night, it's not a good idea to wait until near dusk to water. You wouldn't want to be out there at night all wet ...

Two weeks vacation at the Delaware Shore, what could be better? Unbelievable how fast the time goes ... now I'm back, bringing a Tropical Storm with me!

Oh well, Hanna really wasn't that bad afterall, and we really needed the rain, but it did delay my assessment of the garden for another day. After a week's vacation, I always look forward to seeing what's new in the garden ... however two weeks can wreak havoc!



Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to my family for helping in my absence to take care of things. But as all you garden enthusiasts know, it's just not the same as when the primary caretaker does the job.

Afterall, we gardeners do things on a daily basis without giving it much thought like weeding, pruning, feeding, etc. When you're gone for any extended length of time, things always fall thru the cracks.

Since it was really dry while I was away, even with regularly watering, things have dried up. It is almost the end of the season, so I don't mind that my annuals look like death warmed over. The vegetables are slowly giving up as well. Even the grasses were starting to droop without any significant rain.

But the biggest difference is in the pond. My dad is the primary caretaker of the pond and fish while I'm away. And please don't get me wrong, he does a great job, and I couldn't go away for as long without his help. However, he just can't keep his hands off that darn waterfall!


I don't know what it is (because I haven't had the time to fully check it out yet), but the pump doesn't seem to be doing as great a job as it did when we first hooked everything up. The water began to backflow again, under the waterfall and out of the pond. So dad did his best and tilted the waterfall forward to give the pump a little help. Thus shifting the decorative stones around it and tearing a few of the elephant ears in the process.

The giant papyrus doesn't want to hold its own anymore. It just leans against the side of the pond. The Canna have once again become too top-heavy for their pots and are leaning against the sides as well. (This happens every year, I really should learn my lesson.) And due to the winds yesterday, the black Taro Elephant Ears have fallen over and can't get up. They're completely knocked off balance, so I'm hoping if I trim the biggest leaves I'll be able to right it again.



The pond needs vacuuming, my parrot boat sank yesterday (I was able to bale it out), the filter needs cleaning and the smaller water feature we have on the other side of the patio needs tending to as well.

But in the midst of it all, there's hope. While assessing the work ahead, I saw one of the frogs sunning himself among the Canna, see it you can spot him.

It'll take another week before I get things right again. Oh well, such is life!

Last Sunday was the day I was supposed to install the new waterfall. Well, you know how that goes ... life gets in the way when you're busy making plans ... and it didn't get done - again!
There were other pond maintenance tasks to be done first and by the time that was over, I was hot, bothered, semi-wet and didn't feel like getting into the whole waterfall thing. So until next weekend ...
First off, the bottom of the pond was covered with "muck" again. Muck is the term coined to describe the various dirt, plant and fish waste that accumulates on the bottom of a backyard pond. I had successfully vacuumed the bottom of the pond about 2 1/2 weeks ago, and it was definitely time to do it again. Nothing is every an easy fix ... and I guess I'll be vacuuming the pond for the rest of the summer.
The Muck-Vac (www.muckvacdirect.com), however, makes this task is tolerable as possible. It does a great job, I didn't get nearly as soaked this time and even the fish are starting to get used to the plastic stranger in their pondIn order to properly vacuum the bottom, it's best to remove the plants. The bottom of my pond is home to a few waterlillies that are having an excellent blooming season. So I thought I'd take a shot of how the waterlilly plant looks outside its natural habitat. Pretty big huh?
Anyway, it doesn't hurt the plant to remove it temporarily, just don't let it dry out. This is also a great opportunity to trim back the leaves, lest they overtake your pond. The waterlilly pads provide shade, which in turn, lowers the temp in your pond, and is also an excellent place for your fish to hide from any predators (like herrings, for instance). It also provides a place for them to hide from you, so that's why I periodically trim them back. I like to see the fish occasionally, no matter how much they don't like being watched.
Lillypads also help keep algae from overtaking your pond, because they don't let as much sunlight in. If you don't have any waterlillies, you might want to invest. I know I got some of mine at Lowe's for as little as $5. They can winter-over in your pond from year to year and don't require a lot of care.
Another good plant that I use in the pond is the water hyacinth, pictured here. They can be bought at a pond store for as little as 3 for $10. Believe me, ONE is all you'll need. This plant is very invasive, and is actually outlawed in natural ponds in many states. A floating plant that rests on top of the water, if left on its own, will continually reproduce and take over the entire surface of a pond, choking out all plant, as well, as fish life. It does have a beautiful bloom though. A large lavendar bloom composed of many smaller flowers, resembling the bloom of a hyacinth, hence the name. However, the bloom only lasts one day, so enjoy it while you can. Once it blooms, the hyacinth plant can be thrown away, as one bloom is all it gets. Yes, it makes me feel bad to just throw away any plant, but at least every two weeks, I have to toss a bunch of these plants, or the pond would be doomed.
Another great pond plant I love is the Canna. I'm sure you've seen Canna before, they are large tropical and subtropical perennial herbs with a rhizomatous rootstock. The broad, flat, alternate leaves, that are such a feature of this plant, grow out of a stem in a long narrow roll and then unfurl. The leaves are typically solid green but some cultivars have brownish, maroon, or even variegated leaves.
The flowers are typically red, orange, or yellow or any combination of those colours. Although gardeners enjoy these odd flowers, nature really intended them to attract bees and hummingbirds for pollination (Wikipedia also states that they can attract bats, thank goodness I haven't noticed that in my garden).
Canna grow from swollen underground stems, correctly known as rhizomes, which store starch, and this is the main attraction of the plant to agriculture, having the largest starch particles of all plant life. Canna are not zoned for our area, so if you want to keep them as a perennial, they can to be dug up (or in my case removed from the pond) and stored indoors in a cool, dry place (the basement is good) until the following spring.
But check out this bloom ... that makes all the trouble worth it.