Garden Diary - September 7

I've had success with just about everything I transplanted in the front garden two weeks ago, even though they initially looked dangerously wilted. I had to trim off lots of limp and browning leaves from the sorrel, but the remaining leaves look strong and healthy. The lamb's ears still look pretty ragged, but I'm pretty confident that they'll come back too. Most of the patches of thyme are still green, which is a good sign. Meighan's blue fescue looks perfectly at home. And the purple clover are doing just fine. It's hard to tell if the creeping golden sedum is growing, but it doesn't seem to have died off. The only iffy plant is the purple sage - the bit I cut off from the main stem only had a very small bit of root with it. If it doesn't take maybe I'll try taking a cutting and rooting it in water first.

I've bought a creeping blue juniper which I planted last weekend. The maidenhair grass is almost as tall as me now that it's blooming and is really the centrepiece of the garden. The 'runt of the litter' squash that I transplanted weeks ago from the backyard has finally taken off - it stretches around almost the entire front curve of the bed, and two small squash are growing - hopefully they'll have enough time to mature before we get frost. I think I'll plant more in the front next year - I like the way they can be positioned to follow the borders of the pathways. I also want to plant more kale (and more varieties next year) - it makes a great edible and decorative plant.

The front perennial bed is starting to look a bit ragged - I need to keep up with deadheading and trimming the foliage. I've enjoying the look of the coneflower heads after the dead petals are taken off - they're very spiky.

I'm finally getting some morning glories blooming along the side fence. I think next year I'll replace them with more scarlet runner beans - I'll get more flowers, bushier foliage, and edible beans as a bonus.

There's another small squash in the back (Mark's worried that it's not getting enough light to grow fast enough - it isn't much bigger now than when he discovered it last week), along with still-ripening tomatoes, purple pole beans (their leaves are dying off now and starting to look messy), scarlet runner beans (running low on flowers now, and the pods continue to enlarge to mammoth size), a small zucchini (this will be our second) and yesterday I just found 3 pods of peas for the first time.

I'm starting to look through and covet bulbs in Vesey's fall catalogue. Since I have created so many new beds this year, there are alot of spots that could use some colour added to come up in the spring. I'm hoping to not get too carried away...