October proved to be a great month at LakeStone.  Rebecka and I would like to welcome the following new neighbors at LakeStone:

The Liu Family

The Neitzel Family

The Dahl Family

The Jones Family

The Wright Family

The Murrell Family

Georgia Apple Festival

It’s time to get outside and enjoy some of the beautiful fall weather! The leaves are beginning to change colors  and the Georgia hot weather is slowly moving out. There are definitely reasons to enjoy all the family activities  outdoors that you just can’t beat.

The 38th Annual Georgia Apple Festival continues through this weekend. It’s an hour drive north from our beautiful neighborhoods, Brandon Hall and Parkstone, both in Cumming. The Ellijay Lions Club, the Gilmer County Chamber of Commerce, the cities of Ellijay and East Ellijay, and Gilmer County have been doing this for as long as I have been here in Georgia and it is one of my fall traditions to put that on my calendar.There are over 300 vendors with handmade, hand-crafted items, as well as many on-site demonstrations of how selected types of crafts are made. There are many new crafts as well as favorites from past festivals. There is a parade on Saturday, October 17th  at 10 A.M. and an antique car show each year. The antique car show is held at the Civic Center. For your more information, visit georgiaapplefestival.org.

I look forward to this festival every year. The drive to the mountains is an adventure starting with a good old fashioned country breakfast, the spectacular array of colors from the leaves changing, ( I like to count how many shades of red there really is along the way), going through a corn maze, sampling and buying a bushel or two of delicious homegrown apples, and wandering in a pumpkin patch looking for a few pumpkins to take home to bake and also carve for Halloween.

On your way back from the festival, stop by Brandon Hall and enjoy the beautiful architecture and streestcape of our Sharp Residential homes. There is alot of activity here and you will definitely fall in love with one of our homes. There are a few that can close by the end of the year.  Our decorated model/sales office is open daily. For more information, please visit http://sharpresidential.com

I am a gardener year round. This is my favorite time of the year, especially since the summer heat is finally gone. Here are several tasks and tips that I have learned to do after the first day of Fall or beginning in October that I have incoporated as the “ritual” to welcome the winter in. These have been part of  my routine as a homeowner for years as a  Georgia homeowner.

In general, (1) clear away any dead foliage and add it to a compost pile. There is one place in my yard, usually at the far corner in the back yard where everything gets thrown –dead leaves and dead plants from containers , annual plants I have pulled from the ground or pots, cuttings from perennials that I trimmed back, and old vegetable plants from my garden. I call this my compost pile’s home. Pulling weeds throughout is necessary but I do not add this to my compost pile.

(2) Trim your perennial flowers  such as  daylilies, hydrangeas, peonies, azaleas, jasmine vines, rose bushes, black-eyed Susans,  perennial lantana, and phlox, to name a few.

(3) Mow your lawn. This is not my area because I am not allowed to operate the riding lawnmower we own, but cut the grass a bit longer than usual and rake the clippings. This keeps the roots from being smothered over the winter (so my husband says.) Also, now is also a good time to fertilize the yard.

(4) Pull out any dead annual plants. This includes annual lantana,  impatiens, begonias, portulaca, geraniums, creeping  potato ivy, coleus, plus any vegetable plants.  They will rot if you don’t pull them up. All of this is added to the compost pile. I usually add all of these plants and old potting/garden soil here and mix well. Since I have containers in several locations , I pull everything out of them and clean the dirt in the containers so I can add my winter flowers.

(5) Clean all pots and containters that you won’t using for the winter, such as the clay pots. Use hot soapy water and air dry before  storing. Also,  soak, clean and sharpen all gardening tools, clean bird feeders and bird baths too. 

(6) Don’t pull up herbs. I cut them back like I do my perennials. Thyme, oregano, dill, chives and rosemary return every year. I keep these in one container off my deck so I can use them all season long in the spring and summer. Sometimes, the first frost misses them so I can still use for cooking.

(7) Prune all branches of your perennials especially the rhododendrons, azaleas, hydrangeas, rose and camillia bushes.  I usually add the crepe myrtles, holly bushes, pompas grass, butterfly bushes, border grasses and magnolia trees too.

(8) Mulch all the perennial beds well. I use compost, garden soil, epsom salt mixed well with cypress mulch added on the top so all the roots will be insulated well for several months.

After this weekend task is done, I am ready to plant mums, pansies, snapdragons and ivy in some of the containers that will survive the comfortable winter weather here.

This may be a long list of gardening tasks and you may get discouraged because it isn’t short and sweet, but the list  has grown through the years as my passion for gardening has  too. I hope they are helpful and Happy fall gardening.

Georgians will once again have the opportunity to buy energy- and water-efficient products without sales taxes during the 2009 Energy Star and WaterSense sales tax holiday this weekend. The sales tax holiday begins at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 1, and runs through midnight on Sunday, Oct. 4. Georgians will not pay state or local sales taxes on the purchase of Energy Star-qualified and WaterSense-labeled products that cost $1,500 or less per item. Visit www.gefa.org/Index.aspx?page=1 for more information.