The September rains don’t seem to have materialized in my part of the world. 3/8" last week in the heaviest downpour of the summer and several shrubs on the berm at the back of the yard (see Hydrangea, pictured right,) are still in full wilt. Should I sit and write “Dallying” or should I go out and turn on the hose and try to rescue them. They will not make it through the winter unless they get a few good soakings between now and freeze up. That becomes an easy chore, as the rain barrels need to emptied before winter and the shrubs need to be watered, a winning combination. Enough about winter, there is still plenty of pleasant gardening time left this autumn.


Bulbs Bulbs Bulbs
This is one of the most exciting times of the year. The front porch is covered with boxes of flower bulbs and I get excited just unpacking and holding them in my hands. I have held back amazingly well this year. I have only 400 tulips of three different varieties to plant as well as 100 English Bluebells. Of course I will have a few (maybe 100 or so) of several other things that just find their way into my pile when sorting out all the bulbs on the porch. Of course there is the usual box of 100 Tete a Tete Narcissus which are wonderful for forcing into midwinter bloom.


I love Crocus but have reluctantly come to the conclusion that squirrels, (aka. bushy tailed tree rats,) love them more than I do. I sampled a product (Squirrel Repellent by Messina Wildlife, not available in Canada as yet,) that was supposed to keep ‘bttr’s” away from the bulbs. It did a very good job last fall but the wretched ‘bttr’s” came back in the spring when the crocus shoots were revealing themselves to those miserable beasts and they dug them up and ate the bulbs and the flowers. The Crocus that I planted in the grass fared much better, probably because they were more difficult to dig and those bushy black beasts appear to be rather lazy.