And now both the front and back (and even the inside) of my house looks like Fall. I stopped at Michael’s yesterday and picked up some silk fall flowers. The hanging baskets and fence baskets in the backyard held nothing but dead plants at this point. They weren’t doing great, and the 100 degree heat for over a week in late August/early September did them in. No amount of watering would save them. Rather than replanting with new plants, I decided to make Fall flower arrangements with silk flowers and plants. It’s getting dark earlier, and it’s hard enough to keep what plants I still have watered at night when I get home. So, I’m going fake for the Fall and Winter.

I’m pretty good at putting together these arrangements, and they all look quite fabulous with a mix of all kinds of Fall flowers. I had quite a bit of stuff from previous years, and the new flowers allowed me to make up 10 different arrangements: Two hanging planters and three fence planters out back, three hanging planters in the front, and two arrangements inside the house.

I spent most of the day today making up all these arrangements plus I did a lot of trimming and cleaning of the flowerbed in front of the house. Dug out a bunch of spider plants that were beginning to take over. I potted a few of them and put them out next to the pool, but wound up throwing out most of them. They grow like weeds and I’m tired of half the front bed being filled with them. I cleaned off the front porch, as well, and put up some Autumn leaf garlands around the windows and above the door. It really looks nice.

Tomorrow I’m going to dead head roses, geraniums and dusty miller and do some poop scooping out back. Fortunately I don’t have to trim any bushes ’cause the new gardener has everything done and it looks great! I’ll put up a few Halloween decorations when that gets closer, but that’s really all that remains to be done until after Thanksgiving as far as the yard and decorating.

The inside of the house is in pretty good shape, too, so it’s really just routine maintenance that’s required. OMG, I can’t believe everything is finally coming together! However, that means I’ll have no excuse for not getting started in the garage…shit. It’s not that I don’t want to do it, it’s just such a monumental task at this point. I’ll have a fairly empty trash can by next weekend, so I can at least get started tossing out some stuff.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the great Fall weather that we’re having (mid-70’s) as well as the night-blooming jasmine that’s in full bloom right now. I think the extreme heat a month ago delayed the blooming ’cause it’s never been in full bloom at this time of year. I thought I’d miss most of it while in Seattle, but it seems to have waited for me to return. Plus the Cape Cod Honeysuckle with it’s bright orange blooms is also in full bloom, adding another bit of wonderful to the backyard. What a great time of year this is!