On this eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year, our thoughts turn to gardening as they always do.

I have eleven random thoughts about gardening to share.

1.  Writing a gardening post about elevens is a lot harder than writing a post about tens back on 10-10-10.

2.   I counted the deciduous trees in my yard and I think I have eleven trees. One scarlet oak, one Japanese tree lilac, two red maples,  one honey locust, four service berries, one ginkgo, and one red bud. I feel the need to plant more trees but I’m not sure where I’d plant them. I don’t want to compromise my garden design, too much, after all. (Oops, I forgot to count the crabapple tree. I have more than eleven trees.)

3. When the leaves fall from the trees in the fall, I see all the bird nests. I don’t know much about birds and only know the very basic types, like cardinals and robins and bluejays and oh, yes, goldfinches. This winter, while I’m sitting in my winter lair, I should try to learn about eleven new birds that might visit my bird feeders. Or maybe I should study books about butterflies? Or old gardening books of any kind?

4. If someone gave you eleven plants, all the same variety, how would you plant them? In three groups of three and then give two away? Or plant in two groups of four and one group of three? Or one group of three, one group of five and give three away? So many combinations.

5. What would my life be like if I had stopped acquiring hoes after I had eleven of them? I’m sure it would be quite different. I have almost five times eleven hoes now and I wouldn’t give any of them back.

6. Usually on the eleventh day of the month, I start thinking about Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day on the 15th day of the month. I’m sure it is no surprise to anyone that I have to plan ahead to make sure my post goes up shortly after midnight on the 15th.

7. The eleventh post on this blog appeared on Jan. 22, 2006 and was about DVD’s for gardeners. I’d write it a little differently if I were posting it today, but generally, I don’t go back and edit old posts. I still have those DVD’s and should watch them again.

8. Did I mention that eleven is a harder number than ten to create any kind of theme around? I searched for the number eleven on my blog and came up with the post I wrote about a bunny named Eleven who arrived at the stroke of midnight eleven months and eleven days ago. It reminded me that I need to think about the bunny Twelve who will be here sooner than any of us can imagine.

9. The eleventh gardening secret that I’ve revealed is try new plants. This reminds me that I put out a little teaser post the other day about the latest gardening secret. I still need to follow through and post about that secret. It will be gardening secret number 13. But, I just couldn’t pass up on this opportunity to talk about elevens, so this post came first.

10. Can you describe your garden in eleven words? My eleven words would be “A personal space for plants full of memories and garden fairies”.

11. If you could spend eleven hours in your garden this weekend, what would you do? We had snow flurries on the eve of the eleventh day, a reminder that winter is surely coming and only a fool would act like it isn’t. I guess I’ll be spending at least part of those eleven hours getting the garden finally ready for winter.

And that concludes my eleven random thoughts related to gardening.