End of the Garden Season

Over the weekend, it was time to put the perennial garden to bed for the winter. This house came with a large, mature garden filled with plants and shrubs. I don't even know what kind some of them are.

Here's what it looked at it's prime in August.

And here it is now that the season is over. 

It was unseasonably warm over the weekend and I didn't even need a jacket. It was perfect weather for outdoor chores. I got in the garden with some clippers, a rake and a wheelbarrow and went to work. A few hours and a bunch of wheelbarrow loads of dead stuff later....

Now that it's cleaned up, I got a better idea of the basic layout.  There is plenty of room in there to add more plants. I'd like to put in some herbs like echinacea, chamomile, and lavender.  I'm curious to see what all comes up in the spring. I know there are iris, lilies, columbines and hollyhocks. But we arrived too late to see if there are any spring plants like tulips and daffodil. 

There's a very simple drip irrigation system in place, but I haven't tested to see if it still works. Now's a good time for that. For sure it needs more drip lines and/or emitters.  I've installed drip systems before and have a nice supply of parts on hand. Drip systems are fairly easy to put in and manage. In the spring, I'll be doing a few "how-to" posts on this topic.

The first seed catalog of the season arrived a few days ago!  My long-awaited asparagus plants also finally got here. I ordered the asparagus in August for planting in the fall but the company kept putting them on back order....three months of back order!  It's now too late in the season to put them in the ground. I hope the bare roots are OK waiting in my garage until spring.