October in our area means both frost and a beautiful future. As the weather gets cooler and the days are shorter, the flowers that have given such abundance in the summer are now coming to their end. We are nearing our first hard frost, which will surely be the true end. In the Genoa area October 4th is our first average frost date. If you are a gardener or grower, it is a date to live (and if you're the flowers, die) by. The cool weather brings some much needed relief and rest from the busy months of cutting, stripping, conditioning and arranging. However, there is more work to be done!
Now is the time to clean up the flower beds, amend the soil and prepare for spring and fall planting. This year gave me such confidence to grow more! However, I currently have limited space. I am primarily growing in my landscape border around the house. It not only is close but very convenient with my two toddler boys to be in our fenced yard and around the house. I have been busy here making more growing space, expanding flowerbeds and creating a plan for where everything will be planted. I'm still not sure I'll have enough room, but every inch will be planted!
Part of the plan for next years flowers involves spring bulbs! As you can guess from the title of this post I have bulbs and bare roots in abundance. Today I planted 24 Peony bare roots in Kansas, Sarah Bernhardt, and Gardenia varieties.
Unfortunately, it takes 2-3 years for these plants to be established enough to cut from them, but you have to start sometime! I figure the sooner they are in the ground, the sooner I can harvest those fabulous, fragrant blooms! For these, I chose to plant them on some property we own north of town since I simply do not have the space here at home. Also, their bloom time lasts only a couple weeks so I won't have to convince the boys to take a car ride to go pick flowers for a long period of time.
Then, once the Peonies were planted in their new home and the boys were thoroughly dirty, we took a detour to ride in the combine with dad. When we made our way home, lo to my surprise, one of my bulb shipments arrived! 500 tulip and 75 daffodil bulbs sitting on my front porch! What a beautiful sight. There is more work to be done yet! And it is all a promise of a beautiful spring.
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