Expert Help and Muscle

There is so much to do!    
    That’s the fact that hits me on stepping out of my car at day’s end.
    I’ve just pecked at the landscape transformation plan I began, with professional advice, last spring — though I’ve been at it ever since.
    The Bay Gardener’s prescription for lawn renovation is tacked on my garden bulletin board from our 2013 Fall Home and Garden Guide — still waiting to be followed.
    In the vegetable beds, tomato plants are a shambles with late fruit still ripening. Soon, it will be time to follow Dr. Gouin’s advice in this year’s Guide and plant a cover crop of rye plus some beds of garlic and short-day onions. Among the fading perennials, pansies need planting and sweet William seeding.
    Out in back, those azaleas need digging up, soil replenishing and on their return sparkleberry holly and blueberries for company. Up the hill, another holly — a big one — needs moving.
    Oh and all that brickwork I’m imagining …
    That entire inventory announces itself before I get to the front door, which wants replacing. Just as my wood siding needs painting … my windows washing … and, worst of all, my basement waterproofing from the inside out.
    Inside, I’ll see more walls in need of fresh paint. My kitchen I must enter in sunglasses, lest I see counters that need replacing, which opens the door of desire to new cupboards …
    As night falls, autumn’s chill reminds me of more serious issues than these cosmetics: Chimney sweeping, weather stripping, insulating, heating-system checking.
    So much to do!
    Fall, like spring, is time for taking stock. Once I’ve taken stock, I’m so overwhelmed that my only thought is to head out to Second Wind Consignments for the fainting couch I’ve been admiring.
    What I need even more is expert help — and lots of muscle.
    I know where to get both. In the early copy of this year’s Fall Home & Garden Guide, I’ve met the experts. Now you will, too.
    This year’s annual Guide, like its spring partner, showcases the products and services of the advertisers who bring you Bay Weekly. Most weeks you get to know them through their ads. This week, they also speak to you directly, explaining how their work meshes with your inventory of must-dos.
    If you’re like me, you need their help. To get it, all you have to do is call. And, please, say you found them in Bay Weekly.

Sandra Olivetti Martin
Editor and publisher; [email protected]