Deck the Halls

It’s the annual “Deck the Halls” event at my house this weekend. It will start with me driving to Southern MN to pick up my niece Kelsey who will come back up to Minneapolis with me to help decorate my house from top to bottom. Three trees - yes that is correct, three - two in the living room and one in the lower level.

When lighting your tree, start from the top and work down. It’s a lot easier to use up any extra lights around the bottom of the tree rather than at the top. Run a power strip up to the middle of the tree and plug the cords in to the power strip. If you mix colored lights and clear lights, which does look nice, keep the 60/40 rule in mind. Use 60% of one type and 40% of the other.
I’ll be showing you some pics of my house in the days and weeks to come.

Make your day a good one.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! There are 16 folks coming here. The tables are set with countless mini pumpkins and gourds running down the middle of each table. Good décor, good friends and good food – it does not get much better than this.

I hope your day is a good one.

Yard Cleaning

Here it is already, the last weekend of October. For me it will be the last big weekend of yard clean up which is much later then most years. The planters will be cleaned out, even though some have not froze yet. The last of the leaves will be raked up except for around the honey locust in the backyard which is always very late in dropping its leaves.

If you have not fertilized your lawn that can still be done, bulbs can still be planted, even trees and shrubs can still be planted. But, the clock is ticking - November and yes winter is lurking just around the corner.

Make your weekend a good one.

Oh yea, it is pumpkin carving weekend. I'll post some pictures here on Monday.

Time to plant spring bulbs

Tomorrow (Saturday looks like it will be the better of the two days this weekend. It is time to plant those spring blooming bulbs – tulips, daffodils, crocus, etc. You can guess what I’ll be doing. I’ll also be planting some of those bulbs that often get overlooked, like alium, scillia and muscari.

If you’re planting bulbs, don’t forget some of the more unusual bulbs. They are often the first to bloom in the spring. Because they are smaller, you can actually plant them in the same hole as some of the larger bulbs. I plan on digging the hole, planting the daffodils, putting some soil over those bulbs and then placing the smaller muscari on top of them. Twice as many flowers with out twice as much work – I like that.

Make your weekend a good one.

Record-breaking heat

Well Saturday afternoon turned out to be nice or at least not raining. Record breaking heat in October? It felt like July out there. I fertilized the lawn and turned off the bubbling rock water feature that I built this past spring. The leaves were starting to fall from the trees and rather then risking have them plug up the pump, it was time to shut it down for the winter.

Here is a useful tip I learned a few years ago, but have never had to use because I have not had a water feature in my yard until this year. When you take the pump from your water garden, fountain or any other water feature and bring indoors for the winter, put it in a bucket of water for the winter months. This keeps the gaskets and rubber fittings in the pump from drying out which will in turn extend the life of your pump.

Make your day a good one.

This weekend's forecast

Another wet weekend is in the forecast. If there is some sun or it stops raining, I will get the lawn fertilized and try to get a few things done in the yard. Even a few hours of sun would be really nice.

Make your day a good one.

Way too wet

It was way too wet to get anything done in the yard this weekend. I’m hoping for drier weather next weekend to get some things done. I realized over the weekend that last year, all the annuals were already dead from the killing frost. No frost in sight yet and with all the rain, things just keep growing and looking good.

Make your day a good one.