In a Vase on Monday: Saying Goodbye

On Saturday morning, as I was loading the plant mobile to head to Portland for the Garden Bloggers' Plant Exchange, a nice man from the city was out spray painting parts of our sidewalk.  I asked him what he was marking for.  Turns out that, although the city had put ramps on the sidewalks a few years ago, they are now not ADA compliant and need to have those yellow rubber bubble things on them. (The ones that I always trip on.)  The gentleman was very nice about letting me know that the crew would cut things back as necessary but recommended that I might want to do it myself as the concrete crew was not always very gentle.  He also made recommendations about which plants he though might live through the assault and which should be moved if I wanted to be sure they survived.  Most of Sunday Afternoon was spent digging up plants in the New Zealand bed that was just starting to fill in.  Most of the plants here are now gone and piled up in pots and tubs waiting to be replanted once the job is done sometime in the next couple of months.  Hopefully they'll survive.



Several things in the two parking strips had to be cut back drastically or removed entirely including a nice old rosemary shrub that supplied the neighborhood for years.   Most of it is now in the yard waste bin but I saved a little to dry and use over the winter.  It's easy enough to replace but I'll miss it's winter blooming ways this year.  Rosemary  from the former shrub makes up the base of today's hastily thrown together vase.

Finally coming to the realization that I can't grow every plant in existence on my small urban lot makes saying goodbye to some of them a bit easier.

Saying goodbye to another summer is never easy and as this is the last Monday vase of September, it's becoming ever more difficult act like an annual blooming it's head off pretending that summer will never end.  There were two red-orange blooms still hanging on on Alstroemeria 'Rock 'n' Roll.' I love the variegated foliage of this one but the color of the blooms doesn't really go with the foliage all that well so off with their heads.  Joining them are some coleus cuttings that I'll root and try to keep alive during the winter for next year's fun.  Behind the arrangement is one of the bromeliads that vacationed outside this summer.  After it's cleaned up, the dead foliage removed, it will bid farewell to it's outside digs to spend the next seven months or so being enjoyed inside.  The migration has begun.

Goodbye summer,  September, and  rosemary,   It was fun while it lasted!  Rosemary has long been associated with remembrance and death.  As one season dies, another is born. As the fragrance of rosemary still greets my nose from my hands and clothes, I'll remember the season that was and look forward to the one to come.  Hello pumpkin spice, warm autumn colors, sweaters, bulb planting, and candles.  (I don't much burn them in the spring and summer.)

I'm grateful for so many things, including the wonderful Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts In a Vase on Monday.  Click here to join the fun.