Fall Flowers + Garden Projects

It's been a while since we posted anything about the house, hasn't it?  We've been very busy with work and the return to grad school.  Any free moment we've had has been spent keeping up with our lives (dishes and laundry primarily).  What little extra time we've had beyond that we've spent outside trying to get the yard ready for the winter.  So here's a quick update.  We had some beautiful late-blooming flowers around our yard this September and October.  Here are just a few:

After we cleared this corner of the yard a in late August, a mystery flower popped up.  It seems to be some sort of lily:

It finally bloomed in late September:

Here are some more little surprises that popped up in September and October:

In October, Matt's parents came for a visit and lent us some of their gardening knowledge and skills.  The biggest accomplishment of the weekend were two brand new raised beds.  In one we planted spinach and two types of lettuce and in the other we replanted the Chinese ground orchids that were already growing in the back yard.  Many thanks to Matt's parents for the help!

In late October, with the threat of overnight frosts upon us, we went out and winterized the banana tree and the orchids.  We cut the banana tree (which had gotten quite out of control) down to the ground and covered in in mulch to protect the roots from the cold.  If we get a really cold spell we will additionally cover it with thick black plastic.  Supposedly when the weather warms up it will start to grow new shoots.  We'll see!  To protect the orchids, we simply layered as much mulch as we could fit into the raised bed.  We'll continue to add more mulch as it starts to break down and we'll cover the whole bed if we get much really cold weather.  Hopefully they'll do just fine!

When school ends for winter break, our top priority will be finishing up the kitchen cabinets so that we can put away our dishes!!  Lets hope there will be a post about that before Christmas!!