Dayton "Dirt" - October 28, 2011

Needless to say, the freeze last night put an end to the 2011 growing season.

The gradual cooling in fall is beneficial as trees and shrubs are able to adequately harden off in order to survive the long winter that is ahead.

At the nursery, the only plants we like to protect from a heavy frost in fall are the evergreen azaleas as sometimes the flower buds that formed in summer are not quite ready for a freeze and will be killed inside the bud sheath so that the bloom in spring would be limited.

With all the constant rain, we had to move our German iris from outside to an area under cover as a too wet German iris begins to rot if drainage is not adequate.

This year has been so incredibly wet that it gives new meaning to the phrase “well-drained soil”.

In fact, a customer bemoaned the death of a Royal Red Norway Maple as he planted it in a too wet area that maybe in normal weather would have been just fine.

At the nursery, the sales yard is almost empty except for some trees athough we sill can retrieve trees and shrubs from our storage area.

Our selection of trees includes Sugar Maples, Red Sunset Maples, Cleveland Select Pears, Autumn Blaze Maples and some Dogwood varieties.

Soon we’ll be cutting branches for our grave blankets and then getting ready for Christmas trees.

The Owl Barn is already somewhat decorated for Christmas with a good selection of apples, pears, cider and fresh backed goods from a local baker all along side the artificial decorated trees.

Even the poinsettias in the greenhouse are echoing Christmas as they are now showing a significant red hue in the flower bracts.

A few sunny days would be nice or maybe an Indian summer before we rush into Thanksgiving and then Christmas but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Tom