Is it long winter’s naptime yet? I’m bushed tuckered pasted wasted fried asleep on my feet! The gardens are done. Pretty much. Mostly! And we can cross more off of Gail’s to-do list. Yesterday the Florabundas came in for a last go through of the Rose and North Gardens. We weeded and cut the dead out of the roses. The weather isn’t reliably cold enough yet for us to be sure the roses are totally done growing (and there are still bloomable buds) so we decided to wait to do the winter whipping-cane cut back. The North Garden is ready for bed – we gave the Nepeta a little haircut, the Geranium ‘Rozanne’ a trim, cut the wall ivy back out of the beds and took the dead out of the Rosa ‘Ballerina’s too. Gail and I went back to do a little futzing around with daylilies – why are they never in quite the right spot? – and then pronounced that garden “done”. (wahoo!) Today Gail and I relocated more Idea Bed plants to the newer Display Garden beds because it’s looking more and more likely that Fred and Dan will be able to get started on phase 2 of the redesign this winter (wahoo times two!). I’m sorry I don’t have illustrations of this week’s work – it was chilly and busy and aside from perhaps my last praying mantis portrait of the season (it was a frosty day slow mover on the most robust ‘Rozanne’ ever) I kept forgetting that I should be documenting all the activity!

Next week we’ll be inside decorating the front hall christmas tree (it’s an 18′-er – and yours truly will have tree top scaffold duty. I will remember to take pictures from up there!) and we’ll be attending the Garden Design Luncheon on Thursday. Have you signed up yet? I’m going to work on getting my fingernails clean as soon as I have a little lie-down first…