It’s honestly been a terrible gardening season for me, the last few months. For a host of reasons, I haven’t done much of anything in the garden since April, and you could really tell. It started to revert to wildness, with weeds popping up everything and getting tall.
Finally, this week, I got myself together enough to hire a college student to help. I didn’t want a regular service, because I have a lot of natives and other random unusual plants in my garden, and I was afraid they’d just tear through it all. So, this is slower, but safer — every time he comes, I walk through with him and give him a few specific tasks, telling him what to pull or cut out, what area is safe to clear, etc. It’s better.
As for me, I’ve starting doing little tasks too. A few weeks ago, I picked up some mums and asters for fall, hoping to get them in early enough that they’d have a chance to put down good roots and perennialize. But then I procrastinated planting them, and wasn’t good about watering either, and within a few days, they’d gotten sad and crispy.
I started watering regularly then, and most recovered, though I did lose one entirely. They still had lots of crispy brown dead flowerheads, though, so this morning, I’ve been sitting with my snips and just slowly going and snipping those dead heads off, with a gardening podcast for company.
There’s plenty of new buds that have emerged since I started watering regularly, so I have some faith that if I actually plant these today AND keep up with the watering, they’ll do just fine this fall, and give me some more flowers. And with a little luck, they might even come back next year…
