Hello again from Vanha Talo Suomi!

September is in fact leaving/leafing soon – just hours left of a wonderful month. Many people adore the Autumn season and the changes that it brings to everything in nature. I don’t know if I am one of those people. I do enjoy the wonderful colors and changes it brings to the general aesthetic and the world around me; but autumn is also a mournful time in some respects and through the years I have always been somewhat saddened to witness the last leaf being blown from a tree branch.  Autumn stirs feelings of melancholy for me, and maybe for you?

Of course it isn’t all doom and gloom! There are apples to harvest, fairs and festivals to attend and gatherings of all kinds, as people are drawn back inside and to each other.  September has been a bit on the ‘crazy Finnish weather’ side this year. Not much rain, a little at the beginning and some right at the end, just in time to usher out the month. The lack of rain through the month got me a little nervous about how well all our landscape plants were faring, especially in light of entering autumn without some decent hydration.  Luckily the well hasn’t run dry! 🙂

As for the autumn color changes, the most predominant Finnish autumn color is from the birch trees which turn a sunny yellow later deepening into many golden tones and finally to brown.  Many trees had already starting dropping their leaves by the time I jumped on a big jet-liner recently to the USA.  I’m sure there will be a few on the branches when I return to Finland, but realize it will look vastly different upon my return.  Of course evergreens exist in nearly every view no matter where you are in Finland, plus there are numerous other deciduous trees and the occasional maple, even red ones with wonderful bright red colors. Those reds really stand out in a field of green and yellow! Don’t just take my word for it! Visit Finland! Can you imagine being in any place more lovely? I can’t. I love Finland!!

In anticipation to the end of our gardening season, Pekka and I doubled-down on tackling yard projects. It seems instead of winding down, our efforts went the other direction and we took on a few new projects despite the fact that most people have called it quits for the season. Pekka’s growing interest in tree specie is wonderful. He created a wonderful plant inventory with names and links for all our items. It will be added here soon or whenever we quit adding new stuff!
These luscious apples seen above on September 5th were just some of the hundreds of apples we harvested this year. Turns out this was a bumper crop for all the apple growers in our region – orchards were pulling double-time trying to keep up with picking, processing and juicing apples. We couldn’t compete with the commercial growers who get priority at the local mill – where we’d hoped we could have out extra apples juiced. No such luck. So, many apple pies latter, and batches of apple sauce, we handed off the remaining quantity to a colleague of Pekka’s. I quit counting but filled these containers many, many times besides the ones that were pitched altogether.

We have several old varieties of apple trees, but getting proper identification requires an expert – which I am not 🙂 Our nice friend Heli Virkkunen told us we can send the apples to a man who can identify them, and we will eventually do that in order to get the correct name/type of these several trees on the property. I can tell you that all taste wonderful and make excellent pies! 🙂 YUM

The weather through the month remained warm and mostly sunny with the evening temperatures only really dipping low until the last week or so – which made for some chilly mornings! But thankfully the daytime temps remained pleasant. Which made it really nice as we began tackling a few planting areas and took advantage of end-of-season discounts at the nurseries!! We’ve added so many new items I’ve lost track. Seriously, we went nuts!
One thing we both agreed on was to upgrade the front of the house with a couple stacks of retaining stones since we were doing the sidewalk anyway. It made a big difference. But before we could start, I needed to lift all the plants in that front garden out so we could raise the level and add a lot more new soil 😦  Pekka built the new trellis for me and I painted it.

Before

During

After

It was time-consuming and delicate work lifting all those plants! Yikes, I was really expecting it to be pretty tough to do, but it went pretty easy once I jumped in there and got started. Once out, I then dug around looking for all the tulips and other bulbs in there – which proved to be the most challenging aspect. After the stones were laid in place, we topped off a few loads of additional soil and then I repositioned everything in a better arrangement. Most of the plants didn’t even seem to mind all this upheaval.  A couple of the Mustila hydrangea looked pretty sad and wilty even two weeks later, but bounced back and looked to be settled in the last week of September. At least I hope so!

Another area we thought could benefit was our woodland garden area. It had mostly been intact with items that came with the house; Juhannus Roses, Rugosa and other assorted weeds and wildflowers with some items I put in there too. Overall, it was a sad-looking spot once the peak of flowering ended on the roses. Once-flowering roses are not my favorite especially with so many wonderful alternatives producing color and fragrance through the whole summer. Pekka and I agreed we could give this area more justice and enjoy it much more if it was revamped. So that became our next project!

Pekka dug out the Juhannus roses and the rugosa and we saved every one! Moving them to a new location in the back where all of our berry bushes are located. We prepared a new bed on the small incline along the road and fence line and will still be able to enjoy these items, but they will no longer be center-stage.

We opted to clear the whole area and re-do it completely. We kept but moved all the remaining items around which included the purple asters you can in the photo above, as well as phlox, coreospis and rhododendron. Then we added azaleas, rhododendrons, Echinacea, iris as well as some conifers for interest. I think it more closely resembles a true woodland garden now.

Once all the plants were fitted into place, we gathered more mulch from Rosk N Roll – think it was a couple more trips and each load we haul home is 1.5 cubic meters.  Theres a couple Japanese maples in the woodland garden as well as a Katsura (Cercidiphyllum Japonicum) I’m without the inventory list so proper names for many of the new additions will have to be added another time 😉

Just after the woodland garden upgrade Pekka trenched the sidewalk in preparation for the sand delivery. He need to get the wiring buried for our lighted walkway!

Supervisor in charge

heft rhododenron

all mulched in

Supervisor in charge