We know it’s fall – that it’s still only October – by the color of sky and the leaves on -and off- the trees. Temperatures tell a different story. The last few days have so been beautifully warm and sunny that planting the bulbs was a (day)dream-job and not a chore at all. But even though the weather was so mild and spring-like, it still felt a little strange to be thinking so much about that distant season right now. That said, it doesn’t feel half as strange to think about spring now as it did in August when we sent out our order.

Since then I had completely forgotten what we ordered and which gardens all of the bulbs were intended for. Thank goodness we wrote it down. (If only our gardens intern Lilah had pasted the pictures in our garden notebooks like she had done in years past… She wasn’t slacking. I blame myself for misplacing the extra catalog somewhere within the chaos of the potting shed.)

We’ve got some pretty pink and yellow tulips going into the Rose Garden – including many more Lady Janes because we loved them so much, along with chionodoxa and more snow drops for the dry shade bed. The North Garden has a new scheme too that includes ‘China Town’, which is a pink and green tulip with variegated foliage that we trialed in the Cutting Garden last year. And the Cutting Garden was planted with last year’s favorites from the Rose and North gardens along with a few new to try -  like ‘Antoinette’, ‘Perestroyka’, and ‘Lemon Snow Parrot’. We also tucked a few special treats like foxtail lily and fritillaria into the display beds. I’d say I can’t wait to see them all bloom, but the fact is, I can wait. I’m not ready for spring and because fall is so lovely I don’t want to even think ahead to spring quite yet. So I’m going to put the tulip lists and catalogs away, completely forget what we planted, and just look forward to being surprised come April.

Are you thinking ahead to spring? – I know you are if you’re planting bulbs. Are you also trying not to think ahead too much? (Are you thinking of Christmas yet? The mansion is already a whirlwind of decorating activity – I’m definitely not ready for that.)

As the summer went along, getting hotter and drier by the day I started to fret that fall color might be a bust this year. But I shouldn’t have worried. Although it might not be quite the same kind of fiery blaze as last year, it’s a veritable rainbow out there. I could start to worry a little now about driving off the road…

I was also convinced that we’d have a much earlier frost than usual. Wrong again. The temperatures have suddenly soared from merely chilly 40′s and 50′s (F) to sunny and hot with fog in between. Crickets are still singing; honeybees and bumbles are still on every bloomin’ flower and none of us is quite ready to let go yet after all.

Is fall living up to your expectations?

Usually when people enter the Rose Garden they take a deep breath in through the nose and heave a big blissed-out sigh of appreciation …

Not today. The roses are still blooming; they are still sweetly fragrant, but the smell of the compost we started to spread yesterday is a little overwhelming. We decided to use Bristol’s own compost made from yard waste and … biosolids. If you’re not already familiar with the term, biosolids are the byproduct of sewage treatment. It’s nutrient rich and once it’s been thoroughly composted, pathogen-free. And pretty stinky.

Earlier this week, Gail and I visited the Bristol compost facility – which helped to facilitate deciding between spending the moon on our favorite organic compost that has to be trucked from all the way across the state, and getting Blithewold’s truck filled with the free compost made less than 2 miles away from here. We have both used the rich, dark biosolids compost in our own gardens (because it’s free!) but had never gotten the full scoop, so to speak.

It’s Class A, top grade compost made in a 20 year old facility (soon to be solar powered!) and is free to home gardeners who are able to pick it up themselves and sold to landscapers and garden centers all over the state. Sludge is trucked in from the sewage treatment plant, mixed with finely chopped yard waste, cooked for a minimum of 28 days and aerated by the most enormous rototiller on the planet (says me.) It’s tested for pathogens (fecal coliform) periodically throughout the cycle and the content is fully analyzed for heavy metal levels. Each batch must be within allowable limits – and 100% pathogen-free – before being released from the process. The people who make it are very proud of their product and seem to have good reason to be – plants love it.

We have been talking about amending the soil in the Rose Garden for years now. The soil is probably better than average, evident by the size and health of some of the plants in the garden, but has become more and more compacted and cement-like as we’ve all trampled it over the years. Some roses have struggled to thrive and it’s getting harder and harder, especially in a dry season, to water the garden well. I love thinking that this fall’s rain will really soak in right now rather than run off. And the unpleasant odor, which should dissipate within a few days, to me is a harbinger of next season’s sublime fragrance of a garden full of healthy plants. (Healthy soil = healthy plants.) We’ve taken so much – pleasure, plants and soil – from that garden over the years, it feels really good to finally give something back.

Have you given anything back to your garden yet? (Fall is the perfect time…) Have you ever tried compost made with biosolids? What do you think of it?