I realized this morning that there are gardeners, and lawn maintainers. I am a gardener. Honestly to a lawn guy, my lawn is something that would make them cry. There’s clover, dandelions in spring, and more. I’m not a fan of the Japanese stilt grass, and I do tend to pull as much of that as possible by hand so when we do mow it doesn’t stick around.

My neighbors are lawn guys, so I am like a foreign country. I was thinking about that this morning as I watched my one neighbor out weed whacking and leaf blowing in the morning. And it’s so dry that the weed whacker was kicking up mighty dust clouds.

There is still a lot to do and I am just trying to tackle the chores day by day. And in between that, other plant orders and bulb orders are starting to arrive.

There are also other things that I am looking into now. We have so many deer this year that I actually decided to look into those devices that emit sound waves. And then I decided against those because I don’t want to chase away other animals I do like in my garden and woods and unfortunately these sonic things don’t discriminate really. So I am just going to have to double down with Plant Skydd, Deer Scram, and Deer Out.

Today I did the garden thoroughly in Plant Skydd. I also yelled at some more deer who wanted to come in from two different sides of our property. And as part of my deer repellent research, I discovered that actually dear hate loud human voices so waving your arms and yelling at them does work even if your neighbors think you’re nuts. I have a lot invested in this garden so I really don’t care what people think when I yell at the deer.

I also planted my first bulbs and bare root daylilies. Now is the time that all gardeners have to start thinking about switching gears. You’re getting ready for fall cleanup and planning ahead to next spring. I also have spent time getting some of my tropicals ready to come indoors. It involves giving them a systematic insecticide and trimming, topping off the soil, and a feed.

I have brought in a Christmas cactus and a Clivia. Next step is over the next week to 10 days, I will bring in the lemon trees and banana trees. I am still trying to work out where everything is going to go this year. That is part of the process.

Even though we have had some rain, the ground is still brutally dry. And the ground is hard. That made adding bulbs and bare root daylilies today a little difficult. Soon I will have shrubs to put in and the ground is so hard digging is going to really suck.

The tree carving is progressing and animals are starting to emerge from Mama Oak’s trunk. That’s really cool!

Every day I am just doing bits here and there. It’s still so dry, and I am seeing plants give up the ghost. I am not sure if it’s permanent, or just this year. The herbaceous peonies are shriveling up and dying left and right. I am waiting until the leaves are completely brown and shriveling before cutting them off. I have some dogwood shrubs that are the red twig along one side of the house that are looking pretty sad right now. I have learned from past experience to just ignore them and they might surprise you. But the way everything has been this year even the beautyberry / Callicarpa isn’t shining like it usually does.

I have to say one thing that was extremely happy this year were some young native redbud trees. They have deposited a prolific amount of babies all around our property. I can’t keep all of them. I have dug out a bunch and just gotten rid of them, and a few I have potted on to see if they will grow and I’ll place them in other areas when they’re big enough.

I can’t believe we are halfway through September already!

That’s it for me for now. Happy gardening!