One of my favorite parts of gardening has always been working with landscape rock. I find such satisfaction putting together the puzzle of a plant border. I have these borders around most of my flower beds.

Every rock in our yard has a story, as we have recycled them all from old, razed barns. When Ange and I would drive around in the country and see a barn being torn down, we immediately found out who the owner was so we could get permission to remove rock. In many cases we got there just in the nick of time to remove rocks that were being bulldozed and buried. I can clearly remember the two of us running around the bulldozers frantically grabbing what we considered  just the perfect rocks. It felt so gratifying to rescue these beautiful limestone rocks to live a second life.

We always keep an extra stash of these rocks in a pile in our field. They come in handy when an occasional rock cracks and need replacing over the course of time.  

Dani (L) and Middie (R) were two unlucky cats that ultimately lived very lucky lives. Both cats were rescues from two different shelters in Illinois. They shared a similar history being female, three-legged, special needs kitties. From what their respective shelters knew, Dani lost her hind leg after being hit by a car, and Middie lost her hind leg after being attacked by a coyote. Upon adoption, the two of them lived 'the princess life,' spending their days on soft pillows and warm blankets. They got lots of good food and love from Jade and Blake, our grands, along with their Mom and Dad. Dani lived 12 years, and Middie lived 17 years.

After Middie's passing earlier this year, Jade and Blake were finally ready to bury both cats' ashes so they could be together. They decided our house would be a perfect place, so we had a kitty burial for them. We put them in a safe, protected place so the urns with their ashes would never be disturbed. The kiddos painted a special memorial rock and placed it on top of the dirt as a remembrance of their two pets. Now when they come to visit they can always take a moment to remember Dani and Middie.

With winter coming up on December 21st, gardening tasks are officially over, right? You can kick-back, relax, and forget about the flowers. Well...as gardener, I have to say that couldn't be further from the truth. I choose to look at winter as a gift; a time to do a variety of tasks and activities I was too busy for during the growing season.

Here's a list of some gardening 'stuff' I usually do in winter:

• I update my garden maps to reflect any additions, subtractions, and transplant re-locations. Should a plant tag go missing I'll know exactly where everything is planted.
• Last summer I took literally hundreds of photos. I go through each and every photo, delete what I don't want, and name and organize the keepers on my laptop.
• I have an actual photo album of my current daylilies, so I get prints made up of any new plants and update the album.
• All my outside garden daylily/plant name tags are checked for wear and updated as needed.
• My computer lists and spreadsheets are updated, in addition to my website content.
• The garden supply cabinet in the garage gets a good cleaning on a day when the temps are around 50 degrees.
• I go over my future daylily wish list with any changes. I love this task!
  
• I take some time to visit various daylily websites and do lots of online reading. This, too, is fun!

Does water collection interest you? Pictured is the system we used for many years. We have a well, so we felt good about saving the well water for our personal use. While our collection system was in place we rarely needed to use any well water for our flower gardens. My husband put this system together after watching all the YouTube videos he could possibly find on building water collection systems. He created this hybrid from the ideas he liked best. He did a great job, because these barrels certainly retained water!

We used eight-60 gallon water barrels. They were hidden from the eyes of any visitors. One set of five sat behind our garage and the other set of three were disguised underneath our sun porch and covered with lattice. Hoses were available to attach to the system, as well as the ability to simply place a watering can under the spigot. We had easy access to water wherever we needed it.

Our recycled barrels (of lemon-flavoring) were from a local brewery. It's important that the barrels come from a food-based source, since any chemical source would obviously be bad for the plants. Also remember that as rain water flows over a roof surface it can pick up pollutants such as bacteria from birds and other animals, and chemicals from roof materials. Consider these factors when using rain barrel water on edible plantings as opposed to flower gardens.  For more information go to: https://www.epa.gov/soakuptherain/soak-rain-rain-barrels

Note: After we remodeled our garage to make it larger we lost the space needed for the rain barrels to sit. I posted this information in case anyone was considering water collection.

Lucky me! I had some help getting my gardens in order this spring. Our nephew, Neil, had some time available during Wisconsin's shelter-at-home days. He took care of our mulching, weeding, and annual planting, for which we were very grateful. He's very detail-oriented and did a most awesome job. Plus it's always nice to see him!  :)

(When we regularly resume spraying deer deterrent, the protective tomato cages will be removed.)

Ange and I decided to plant some spruce trees on the small parcel of land we own across the road from our home for some visual interest during winter. After pricing trees ($$$) at various nurseries, Ange decided to go a different route and visit a Christmas tree farm instead. Awesome idea! We bought six four-foot trees at a very reasonable price. So, as of today, our new spruce trees have settled in and they have a forever home that every Christmas tree only dreams of.

Ange and I recently demolished our rock garden with the help of our neighbor. I will miss the garden, but the demo was necessary for a few reasons:

• Ever since we added an extra garage and widened our driveway, the rock garden was an obstacle to drive any vehicle in-or-out of the new garage.
• Snow plowing was difficult. Since the big boulders were right next to the new driveway, there was no place to push the excess snow.
• Black Walnut trees grow behind the garden and even though the plants tolerated the juglone toxicity, they never really thrived.
• And I can't lie, I'm okay with having one less garden to maintain.
  
  

We have fond memories of building this garden well over 20 years ago. All of the boulders came from a stone quarry in Minnesota. Since each boulder weighed a few hundred pounds we constructed a home-made rock harness and hauled the boulders with our John Deere lawn tractor, taking turns harnessing rocks or driving the John Deere. Once we got the chosen boulder close to the spot we wanted to put it, we used huge crowbars and 4x4" wood segments to leverage the boulders into place. And believe me, you have to be very mindful of your fingers when you do work like this. After working all day at our jobs, the garden came together very slowly, a few hours at a time when we were able.

Now the garden is gone; the dirt has been leveled and seeded with grass. The perennials were relocated or given away, and the boulders are by our neighbor's fish pond. We did keep a few of our favorite boulders to incorporate into our landscape at a later date. After pondering this demo for a couple of years, this was the year that it finally came to fruition. Happy face/Sad face.

Just for fun I follow some other blogs, and some of them are on vastly different topics than flowers and gardening. One of the blog entries I read not too long ago was about how to organize a yacht party. While this was a very entertaining post to read - and I enjoyed it - this is a lifestyle so completely foreign to my own. But I can truly say that now I know the in's and out's of creating that perfect yacht party, and as I've learned in life, ya' just never know!

Recently I went to a get-together that is much more fitting to my lifestyle. So I thought I'd chronicle my first ever 'She Shed' party. If you don't already know, she sheds are the latest rage. They are totally trending (#shesheds). She sheds are the female equivalent of the 'man cave;' a getaway, far away from those dreary daily tasks like cleaning, dishes and laundry.

My friend Mar's DIY project started innocently enough with the need for simply replacing some missing drywall. We've all done those projects that have snowballed into bigger things, yes? In Mar's case, once the drywall was fixed, the battle cry emerged, "We can do better than this!" So with lots of sweat equity, many trips to the home improvement store, plus a handy next door neighbor, Mar's drywall project morphed into a cute little she shed. It is all prettied up with decorations, photos, and comfortable furniture. Watching the progress over time has been fun, but the best thing ever was relaxing with a cool beverage in the finished product. No dishes or laundry here...well done Mar! Outstanding!

Is this the best idea ever? My friend, Donna, repurposed a non-working grill as her planting station. In addition to being a great decorating accessory, it's also handy for storage. She keeps it on her deck for convenience. When Donna finishes potting up her plants she just closes up the grill top, sweeps the dirt off the deck into her flower garden, and voila, all looks neat and tidy. I thought this was so clever that I just had to share Donna's photos with you.

Garden-wise Ange and I downsized yet again - even though it doesn't look like it in the photo!  We took out another 200 square feet from our front daylily garden. The 200 square feet is currently being used as a holding pen for my sale plants (towards the trees). When the spring sale is over and the plants are gone, that part of the garden will be turned back into grass.

There was a split rail fence in the front garden for many years, which we tore down with no regrets. This will make for easier weeding and more air-flow for the daylilies. I was able to move all of my plants further apart.  I ditched (literally) all the perennials that the Japanese beetles favored and skeletonized each year.  I also said goodbye to my phlox. Not sorry! That will hopefully reduce the number of snakes/snake babies that lurked in the weedy parts.

We divided quite a few of my large daylilies to invigorate them for future bloom. You can see that I tomato-caged all the transplants, because in the past deer have occasionally pulled plants out by the roots as they munched them. The cages curtail that behavior since we don't spray deer deterrent over the winter. The cages also discourage the deer from tromping through the flower bed making big holes with their hooves when the ground is wet. Gotta love garage sales for enabling me to have such a  substantial collection of tomato cages.

It was the best fall season ever as far as gardening weather -- one perfect day after another. The great  part was that many of those perfect days fell on the weekends! In fact, as of yesterday my iris 'Immortality' was still blooming which is highly unusual for November! I was able to complete everything on my 'do before winter list' except for one large transplant which can easily be done in spring. So now I'm done for the year; ready to take a well-deserved break from gardening and shift my focus to inside projects. Did I say really say that?

Our friends Tony and Christine grow the most incredible garden -- filled with a wide variety of vegetables and fruits! Their garden is organic and pesticide-free. It’s really a site to see, as it's hard to find a weed in residence throughout the entire garden (and it's BIG). Christine cans all of their produce to use throughout the year.

In an effort to get the season started earlier, Tony recently built an amazing greenhouse. In fact, they have radishes growing right now. Imagine that!

As you'll see from the photos, when Tony does a project, it is done impeccably, with much research and planning. Shown below is the first set of photos. The greenhouse is 10 feet x 12 feet in size.  It stands about 12 feet high at the peak. The floor is comprised of vapor barrier, then R-18 R-Board, then 2 inches of sand, then 18" x18" concrete blocks for thermal mass.

Christine will be periodically taking more photos as the seedlings grow this spring.

If you are interested in building your own greenhouse, Tony would be more than happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Anthony Reed <treed1304@yahoo.com> 

Taking a well-deserved break!