#GardenChat is how I met Bren who coordinates the event and writes the blog BGGarden. She has contributed this week’s guest post. Everyone give her a big welcome to my blog!

If you are like many Americans, you will be watching A Charlie Brown Christmas during your Thanksgiving evening turkey sandwich snack.  What would the holidays be without a glimpse of the past when having a puny little tree reflected the true meaning behind Christmas?  This classic cartoon captures wonderful morals filled with the basic principle of making the most of what you have.  When I think simple, I can’t help but think of using items that make up my garden each year.

A wonderful tradition enjoyed by my family is to use treasures from the garden on our Christmas tree: Simple projects that include the children, like drying blooms from our favorite hydrangea shrub; Preserving memories while teaching the children that gardening is more then just enjoyment in the summer months but something that can be carried on into the next growing season. Drying hydrangeas for the Christmas tree is super easy if you remember that you will get the best results by cutting 12″ stems during the months of August through October.  Cutting fresh, recently opened blooms does not dry well in the open air.  Letting the blooms hang in a dry area for a few weeks teaches the children patience and that good things come to those who wait.   Basic craft projects like this will yield the benefits of expressing your creativity without spending a lot of money.

Think beyond what you’ve grown and preserved by using clean hand tools and miniature birdhouses in the decorating.   Pulling items you use in the garden make a wonderful natural garden theme on a low budget.  I can’t explain the visual sensation experienced when seeing my favorite vacant birdhouse with the Christmas lights sparkling around it.  You can also use burlap that is commonly used to wrap young shrubs in the garden as a tree skirt to complete the garden themed tree.

It seems that the true significance of the holidays has been lost in our society, having been cluttered by the average person’s busy schedule.   If time is budgeted, you can save money while attaching new memories to this time of year by making use of what you have – from the garden.

Making a floating Jack-o-lantern is easy. Here is a photo journal of the steps. Click here for complete instructions.

You can follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her Facebook friend’s page, Helen Yoest or Gardening With Confidence ™ Facebook Like Page and catch up with Helen via her blog at www.gardeningwithconfidence.com

In this guest blog post she shares the beauty of her North Carolina garden in fall and inspires us to take a look at what’s going on in our own autumn landscapes.

It seems everyone is a gardener in the spring, many of us continue into the summer, but only a few add flowers for the fall. Yet the fall is the perfect time to be in the garden

With the dog days of summer behind us, October opens with cooler air and less humidity creating a fresh scent and a sense of excitement. The source of this excitement may be for no reason other than it being bearable enough to be outside once again.

Indeed, October, and throughout the fall, is an ideal time to plan and plant new garden beds to ready oneself for the next year. The fall is also an ideal time to enjoy what the months have to offer.

The fall is also more than just flowers. There is color from foliage, there is scent, textures, and fruit and berries. With our area’s late frost date, we often find our gardens providing interest and intrigue well into November.

Flowers, Foliage, Fruit

Summer color can be extended into the fall with Asters, Anemones, Eupatoriums, Helianthus, Salvias, and Sedums. There’s also beautyberry, fothergilla, and golden rod.

Gingers are releasing scent to waft the thinner air, with flirty flowers causing reason to stare. Roses are regaling, hardy Begonia beguiling, Amsonia amazing. The ripened figs become a destination for one of nature’s most delicious delicacies.

Color, Scent, Texture

Reds dominate. Yellows generate. Purples empower. Grasses sway, with flags as flowers. Crepe Myrtle’s bark shed creating unique texture and mottling. The Maples mission is fulfilled as the last red leaf falls to the ground and yellow Gingko leaves make mass merriment.

The seed heads of Black-eyed Susans add texture and interest to the garden long after the birds finished them off.

Wildlife

The butterflies and hummingbirds are also busy in the fall garden as they ready themselves for a long journey south. The flowers of perennial Chrysanthemums such as ‘Sheffield Pink’ make the most perfect landing pad for a butterfly.

Hummingbirds pause mid-air to sip nectar from a Canna. Monarchs are grateful to find nectar still rich. Finches steady themselves as they feed on seeds. The box turtle moseys around the tomatoes eating what the birds or deer knocked to the ground.

Autumn was made for sitting on the patio to watch in wonder. Fall gardening does not need to be all about what needs to be done for the future. It can also be about what is available now. In the wise words of garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence, “Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.”

Enjoy your garden this fall and all the falls to come. As you plan and plant, include fall peaking selections in your choices.

Even though it might still be too hot for a fire, the arrival of a cord of wood means to me that cooler temperatures are soon to follow. Even more than smoke from a fireplace, the smell of split oak still green from the cutting puts me in an autumn state of mind.

Next on my list of signs of fall? Picking up a peck of apples from a roadside farm stand. Just in case you don’t know four pecks make up a bushel.

If you’re at the farm and I’m serving greens, you can bet it’s fall. Greens such as kale, collards and turnips are usually better when they mature in cool weather. A light frost will make them sweeter. Definitions of a “mess” vary with the cook, but to me it means just enough to feed everyone at the table.

All this to say that autumn has arrived at the farm. I’ve got a cord of firewood stacked up by the house, a peck of apples in the kitchen, and just this past weekend I cooked up a whole mess of greens.

What’s your favorite sign of fall?