Simon has been fitted with a bow for the Holidays

You may not know this but in my heart, I promised to try to blog at least once a week. I have failed, repeatedly and dismally. You see, for me, writing does not come easily nor does it come as elegantly as I would like.

Still fall days make the pond a reflective mirror

While I am working in the gardens I am filled with ideas and think of my phrasing, yet when I actually sit down to write it takes ages. Lately I have not had ages.

Simon does not mind the wet days at all

We went through a period this fall when it rained nearly every day. We got so much rain that even on the dry days Corinne and I could not venture into the gardens because it was too wet to work without risking compaction of the soil. All the outside staff had jobs that could be done inside during inclement weather.  I read about wintering over bees, I ordered next year’s perennial starter plants, I ordered the bulbs for fall planting, and I even researched how to blog better. Corinne and Ellie cleaned, inventoried the bulbs I ordered, remade Simon’s sleep pen, rearranged the chairs (don’t ask), and readied the lights for installation in the trees for Holiday. Doug organized his work bench, coordinated maintenance on mowers and snow equipment, and took a week vacation.

A few of the thousands of bulbs we plant each fall

The rain eventually stopped and the gardens dried up enough for us to work in them. We first got busy taking the old lights out of the deciduous trees in the Courtly Check Courtyard and in front of the archway so that we could replace them with new lights. Two years ago we had replaced the incandescent tree lights with energy efficient LED. The press on LED light strands touted their longevity and significantly lower energy usage. We found, to our considerable disappointment, that the kind of indoor/outdoor lights we bought would not remain viable if left outside all year. At any rate, the trees had grown enough so that the cords were beginning to be too tight and needed to be replaced. Corinne and Ellie have been restringing the trees with sealed LED strings that are supposed to last much better outside. This is a tedious job that has kept them up in the lift for two and a half weeks so far.

Ellie and Corinne putting lights in the tree

While Corinne and Ellie are having fun in the lift, I have been cutting down all the gardens. Usually I am able to callously disregard the last blooming perennials reasoning that the remaining blooms are proportionally few, that the gardens need clearing before we can plant bulbs, and well, it is just time. This year I am much more conflicted. Firstly, I have planted more late fall blooming plants  because the late blooming chrysanthemums are just gorgeous, I used late blooming, cold hardy salvias to mark narcissi location, and every bloom is more nectar and pollen to help my bees get through the winter.

Chrysanthemum 'Samba' doesn't start blooming until mid October

But cut I do; I feel vindicated when I find mouse nests and tunnels under the foliage as I trim back the perennials and remove the annuals. I know that if I did not clean up the gardens each fall, my vole problem would be greatly magnified the following year. We have an excellent mouser in our cat, Lucky. He likes to hang out near me as I clear away the gardens. Since I am ridiculously afraid of mice, I feel safer knowing he is there, ready to pounce.

Lucky has a eagle-eye view of possible marauding vermin

Monday I planted the first of the bulbs. I was able to get the entire Farmhouse Garden planted before we got 1 ½ inches of rain Monday night. Now my gardens are too wet again! Oh, well. I will use this time to start working on the Medallions we decorate the doors with for Holiday.

The Courtly Check Medallion on our Tour Center Door