Lavenders Blue Landscaping

What should I be doing in my garden this month? Start by cleaning up the beds by cutting down perennials that have died back to the ground. This is a great time to be dividing those perennials or doing any transplanting. It is still safe to be planting spring-flowering bulbs before the ground freezes. Summer-flowering shrubs can be pruned now or in the early spring. Grasses that have turned brown can be cut down now or you can leave them and let the birds enjoy the seeds over... winter. For roses, deadhead the faded flowers or you can leave the rose hips for winter color and let the birds enjoy the seeds. Save the hard pruning for spring. Check that your climbing roses are securely tied. Do any last minute weeding so that the gardens look tidy through the winter and it won't be such a chore in the spring. This would be a good time to tie up your shrubs that are likely to bend or splay under heavy snow such as a 'pencil holly'. Remove any leaves on the lawn, especially if it's thick on the lawn as this will form a mat that eventually kills the grass. Happy Gardening! See more

Well now, isn't this a great idea?

How do I make my front door pot more interesting? Now that Fall has arrived and we've had our first frost, the annuals have taken a beating and are looking like they're melting! Remove them and try this inexpensive way to fill your pots and make a lasting impression for your guests to see. Find some cedar boughs and cut them to about 1.5 feet long. These will be put in the pot first and will be used to fill the pot leaving room for other things. Just cut the branches and sti...ck them in the soil. Cedar branches add a softness to the pot. I use these as a filler. Once the pot is nicely filled, add branches of interesting shape like curly willow or great color such as the red twig dogwood. Cotoneaster's red berries or rose hips also add interest. Adding a gourd, a small pumpkin, a few cobs of ornamental corn or branches of changing colored leaves makes the pot more festive and can be changed up easily to fit the season. Adding moss to the planter to hide the soil finishes the look. An occasional watering helps the branches from drying out too quickly. Be creative and have fun with it! See more

You know who you are.

"Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky." ~ Kahlil Gibran