I know there are several specific threads about yards and gardening, but this one is for random pictures or stories you want to share about your outdoor space. I was just admiring the mums in the backyard and took a couple of pics. Rust color in a pot: Yellow, which has been blooming a couple of weeks and needs dead-heading: Purple, just now beginning to open: And more rust color, next to the shed:
Thanks, Pete. We have a lawn crew that does the mowing and trimming of the grass, but everything else is done by us. Not really such a chore because it's a standard residential lot.
I plowed and tilled an area that had obviously been a garden by the prior owner, then put up an electric fence: It ended up being double the square footage of my house. The 6' fence is not tall enough to keep out the deer...it looked like a Bambi ranch with all the critters that ended up in it. I need to install another fence around the perimeter, but gotta get a big load of mulch in to fill the in-between space. I've not done any landscaping...I'm not a big outdoor plant person. Perhaps I should, for the butterflies and the hummingbirds.
As pretty as they are I have never bought Mums before. So I did some reading to find out how to plant and care for them whether in a pot or a flower bed. It was interesting to find out that they can grow back. I always thought they just withered away and were tossed.
It depends on the mums. The new ones seem to be very finnicky and some do not come back. We had some old time mums in Ohio that came back every year for years and years. So I decided to dig up a long narrow bed in my back yard here, about 80 feet along the back and planted yellow mums. They all died before the second year. I either did something wrong or they weren't the right kind to begin with. I assumed all mums were the same.
From Gardening Know How: Perennial (broad, notched leaves) on left/Annual (thinner leaves) on right Another site said that even the perennial mums won't over-winter if planted in the fall, because their root systems won't have time to develop.
I may give mums another try one day. They sure are pretty blooming in the fall after everything else has turned brown. I never (intentionally) plant annuals.
I always liked hydrangea bushes. There was a huge well-established one at my last home when I moved in, and it was still there over 30 years later when I left. I also had old box woods. Those were the only outdoor plants I would take care of (since they were already there), pulling dead leaves out of the hydrangea so they would not rot, and brushing the snow off of the box woods so they would not get crushed under the weight. We had a hydrangea when I was a kid, and my British mother would dump used tea leaves on it to make it change colors (the acid of the tea leaves did it.)
@Beth Gallagher @John Brunner Our "yard" is more or less a rockpile. Sometimes it really does rain here, and the rocks are hidden for awhile:
About this time around here they start selling what they call "hardy" mums, but after a good frost they are found not to be so hardy after all.