NOVEMBER CHORES 2014

I seem to be behind in my autumnal chores this year.  When the weather has been fine, I haven't felt like doing it.  When it's been miserable, I have been raring to go, but won't.  For one thing, if anything will set my back off, it's cold weather.  Does that sound like a good excuse for being lazy?  I think so.  Today is mild though.  It's cool, but fine.  After dilly dallying for a few hours this morning, I started on the jobs.  The first job was to treat the marble table.  It's a must, and something that cannot be put off too long.  If the table is wet, and the temperature drops below freezing, the marble can crack.  First of all I hosed off the grit and leaves, then applied a specialist marble cleaner.  The cleaner, and the protective liquid is very expensive but both those bottles are enough to last for years for my marble table which is 43" dia.  While the table top is drying, which it has to before I can applied the protective coating, I removed the valance from the awning until next spring.  This is an easy and quick task. It just slides out after unscrewing two screws. 

Garden awning and valance, summer 2013

When the table  is dry, and I can apply one or two coats of protectant, then I will cover the table with carpet underlay, covered by a waterproof tarpaulin, so that water cannot get on it.  It will stay that way, ugly as it looks, until next spring when the risk of frost has past.  The marble is far too beautiful to let it spoil. 



Next job, I dragged the paraphernalia relating to the minigreenhouse out of the garden shed and garden storage box.  I hate this job at the best of times but this is a tricky one this year.  Over the years the ends of the metal rods of the frame have deteriorated slightly with rust.  Even so, I managed to re-assemble it and although it's a bit wonky, the strong cover will secure it all together just fine for another winter (I shall also tie the whole thing to the fence, and I put heavy things in the bottom) and it'll certainly help protect plants that are more vulnerable.  While I hope that we'll have another mild winter, hope isn't a certainty.  I cover the frame with a clear plastic cover and on top of that a heavy duty cover.  I used to have a fleece cover too but that just rotted apart and was binned at the end of last winter.

I'm considering trying to overwinter some pelargoniums in the mini-greenhouse.  That's a 'maybe' right now.  I usually bring them indoors but they take up a lot of space where I have none to spare, and it's a nuisance.  Perhaps I'll bring in one or two and put the rest in the green house.  I'm certainly hoping to overwinter some of the fuchsias, Swingtime and Southgate,  that I've had in the hanging baskets all summer.  I confess, I have fallen in love with them.  They're so pretty, even right now.  It won't be long though until they start to drop their leaves and die back.  Fuchsias die right back in winter and although some people seem to think they are annuals, they are in fact perennials.  Many years ago, when I had quite a big garden, I would grow lots of fuchsias and I would bring them indoors to overwinter them.  One spring they showed no sign of growth.  It turned out that not one of the plants had roots.  The vine weevil, a serious pest which attacks fuchsias, had eaten the roots of every single plant.  Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Southgate fuchsias with Swingtime at the bottom of the image. 

I am sure there are lots more jobs to do, but I do hope I don't think of any more urgent ones today.  Enough is enough.