Last Labors of Summer

This morning we spent some time downtown for the Labor Day festival in Newburyport. We watched Jonas' karate demo team and ate some fried food for lunch. After a nice bike ride back home, there were some last tasks to complete before calling it a summer. I have to go back to work tomorrow, you see, and we'll be officially in fall mode with the garden because of that.

Overseeding
Last weekend we finally finished pulling out all the giant crabgrass from the back lawn. That gave us just a week to relax and enjoy some croquet on it before having to overseed it for the fall.


As you can see, this half has a lot of bare dirt left after removing the crabgrass. These patches got extra love with some raking, extra seeding, and sprinkling of more compost to cover the seed.


The rest of the lawn just got a regular old overseeding. This is a great example of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. This section is where we started pulling the crabgrass, so we got it out before it got too big and choked out the new grass. Hopefully in a few weeks the whole thing will look like this, and we'll have time to enjoy it before it gets too cold. And forever, because I don't plan to be doing so much lawn care in the future.

Flowers
Back in July when I ordered a bunch of plants for the perennial border, part of the shipment was accidentally sent to our old address. Because this all happened during the heat wave, those plants were in rough shape by the time they were returned to the grower, so he nursed them back to health. I just got them this week, and there were a bunch of freebies to make up for the massive delay.

What to do with extra plants? I decided to make a little mini-border along the workshop. I had already moved some pink peonies there back in June because they didn't go with my red and white color scheme for the perennial border. One didn't make it, so I dug it out and put my new plants in the that space.


The peony in the center is the good one, and to the right is another one that looks significantly less healthy. It isn't exactly dead, though, so I will keep it and see how it comes up next spring. To the left of center is the hole left by a definitely dead peony, and it now has the new freebie plants. In the back row are tall, red lobelias (cardinal flowers), and in front of those are some coneflowers (echinacea "Sundown"). There are some of these tucked around the ailing peony too, as I am hedging my bets. Underplanted around the good peony are some threadleaf coreopsis ("Moonbeam"). Some closer views of the few flowers so you can get an idea of color:


This is the red lobelia, and it's really, really red. Hummingbirds are supposed to like it. I'm thinking that with it being so bright, we should be able to see it from the back of the house even though it's at the far end of the property.


This is the coneflower. It is actually far more orange than it appears in this photo. As the name "Sundown" suggests, it's like the pinks and oranges of a sunset. In front of the red, it's a very warm combination. My other idea for the big perennial border was to use all sunset shades, so this little spot is my shot at that.


These little yellow coreopsis flowers kind of creep under things, so they should be subtle under the peonies and add a little color to that spot while the peonies are just green. These are another leftover from what was in the perennial border when we moved in.

Chances are good that this combination will never quite flourish together. This is because the lobelia likes it wet and in part shade, while the coneflower and coreopsis are more sun-loving and drought-tolerant. Whatever doesn't do well will get yanked, and I'll spread out the things that don't need life support. The best-case scenario would be that the lobelia in the back get all the moisture they like by the run-off from the eaves of the workshop, and the others will be drier and sunnier out front. This doesn't seem likely, but if it works, I will officially declare myself a micro-climate genius.

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