6 posts from March 2008

This whole blogging thing...

I am still a blogging newbie, but sometimes you find things you just have to add. Like this, for instance:


I am a
Snapdragon

What Flower
Are You?
 


It's a flower personality quiz. I have a well-known weakness for personality quizzes. And now I've learned there's a whole community of gardeners blogging. Here I thought I was doing a good job of cutting down my time at the computer. But it makes a great pastime on those days it's too nasty to work outside!

So now I'll just have to figure out how to use a feed reader so I can stay on top of my garden fixes.

8 comments

Unacceptable!

The first day of spring was Thursday, and yesterday was Easter. Easter always brings to mind for me sunshine, blue skies, soft green grass, and tiny buds on the trees under which little girls in pretty dresses and party shoes hunt for easter eggs and chocolate. Yes, maybe my imagination owes a lot to Technicolor movies, but that's my mental image. So what was this year's Easter like?


We had snow. Snow! It was a pretty snow, granted. Beautiful large Hollywood flakes that just dusted the ground. If this were early February, I might have found it charming. But according to the calendar, it is spring. I don't expect 60 degree temps and a loamy soil dried to the perfect consistency for planting (not anywhere in Indiana, anyway), but it's not too much to expect that Mother Nature refrain from coating everything in white.

Snow! Hmph.

Post a comment Tags: spring, snow

The Front Yard

I've been in my house for eight years and gardened for seven of them. Three years ago, I had a garden designer lay down the bones of the back garden for me. In the intervening three years, I've created the potager, planted roses, increased the blue and yellow border by the garage, acquired a hammock and a comfy little bistro set, planted a lot of lavender, and continuously tweaked the plantings. No garden is ever done, of course, but I'm happy with the current layout. The beds are bursting and the potager is surprisingly productive for such a tiny space. 


The problem is that I still have a ton of things to experiment with, and the available back garden space is nil. I can't cram a whole lot more in there without digging up more of the lawn (which is currently about one-third the size it used to be) and trashing the circular theme I've got going. So of course, my thoughts have turned to the front yard.

While I consider the space behind my house a garden, the front is really still more of a yard. After my sewer pipe ruptured four years ago, I took advantage of the destruction of the front yard. I pulled out the yews that had been in front of the house and asked a garden designer for a plan. 

P1010007
P1010007
At the time, I just wanted a pretty front yard that looked welcoming and left me some space for flowers. So a curving border along the front of the house has a serviceberry, three hollies, many purple daylilies, three lilacs, a vibrunum, two creeping junipers, and three Knock Out red roses. The other side of the door is home to three more hollies, an Anabelle hydrangea, a nest spruce, and more daylilies. That nest spruce replaced an earlier nest spruce that died, and this one is on its way to the same fate. The small island around the lamp post has three pink Fairy roses, a perennial sweet pea, catmint, and geranium.

I also allowed the designer to talk me into taking up the Zoysia grass that was there and replacing it with a seed mix. Big mistake. The lawn is now full of weeds. I don't mind them so much; I like the way the clover looks, although I could do without the dandelions. But the grass is really thin now, especially on the side where it butts up to the neighbor's giant pine tree.

So I have all this space in the front, including a couple of 8' x 16' "hell strips" between the street and the sidewalk. My tentative plan is to turn those into flower borders. I'll need to lay some stepping stones so there are paths for people getting out of their cars. I've ordered two Double Knock Outs that will match the flower colors of the single Knock Outs I already have. I'll use one to anchor the right-hand hell strip. I'm not planning to spend much money on this, so the rest of the flowers will likely be transplants from elsewhere in the yard. Geraniums, Siberian Iris, and Lady's Mantle should all do pretty well in this part-sun border. I'll fill in with catmint and more daylilies if any of the purple ones are ready for division. 

I haven't decided about the left-hand hell strip yet, mostly because there's a small maple tree there. So I will probably transplant divisions from hosta alley, and possibly more geranium.

That takes care of the very front of the yard. But I also want more space to grow food. Because of all the curves (in the border, in the path leading to the porch, and even in the front door) a formal potager would look out of place. I'm playing around with ideas for curving food beds, or even ones that run in a spiral. I'm pretty sure there will be tripods with beans, too.

Of course, this is all pretty ambitious, and I likely won't get it all done this year. I am aiming to complete one hell strip and perhaps one or two food beds. The challenge is to make the garden productive while still maintaining curb appeal. Updates as they occur.

Post a comment Tags: planning, new beds

First day of spring (plus one)

First Crocus
First Crocus

Yesterday was the first day of spring, and we had some glorious weather. Brisk, sure, but blue skies and sunshine. After so much rain, the sunshine nearly made me giddy.

Today skies were grayer, but the temperatures were in the low 60s. I took advantage of this short break in our regularly scheduled spring storms to do a walkabout in the garden. And I discovered the first crocus bud of spring! 

I was starting to think the bulbs were permanently confused. My tulips, daffodils, and crocus shoots all came up at the same time. Normally, I would have seen crocus before now, and the daffodils would be starting. Tulips are usually an April flower for me. But for whatever reason, the tulip shoots are growing like weeds. 

It is awfully nice to see green in that sea of brown and gray. I planted daffodils in a sort of an S-shape in my perennial shade border. Now that the blades are up, it looks like a little creek of green running through the brown landscape.

Spring Fling
Spring Fling

I cut the lavender back to shape it up. You're supposed to prune lavender after the "hard frost," which means after the last time the ground freezes. So I am choosing to believe that mud season is here to stay and the ground is not going to return to its previous tundra-like state. I cut the lavender back by a third, being careful not to cut into the woody part. As long as I prune only the recent growth, the plants shouldn't have any trouble greening up as the temperatures rise. 

At left: Big Lou enjoys himself in the remains of the lavender prunings.


Post a comment Tags: spring, bulbs

More about Al

I mentioned Al the possum in an earlier post. You know, the one who likes to hang out in the cat house? I present exhibit A:


Al the Possum in Big Lou's House
Al the Possum in Big Lou's House
I mean, he's kind of cute for what is essentially an overgrown rat, but that doesn't mean I want him hanging out on my porch. I'm taking the cat food in every night, but I'm not sure that's going to do it.

The BF offered to "take care" of Al for me, but his method is maybe a little extreme for me. Plus the powers that be frown on shooting animals inside the city limits. So we'll just see if food management helps convince Al to head elsewhere.



2 comments Tags: wildlife, cats

Garden Clean-up

Hallelujah! Today the sun shone, and the thermometer hovered at a balmy 55 degrees. CAS and I were supposed to hit the Flower and Patio Show, but a computer crash trashed several hours of her work AND our plans. We're going on Friday instead. 


So I took advantage of the weather to cut back the buddleia, caryopteris, and the Annabelle hydrangeas. The Endless Summer hydrangeas I left alone, as they flower on both old and new wood. I was excited to see buds on them! And on the magnolia, and the lilacs, and even the damn honeysuckle I have to whack back every year. Yay spring!

Anyone, I chopped the Anabelles back to the ground, and I shaped up the honeysuckle into an arch.  I find that the earlier I prune it, the less I have to chop up. I tried to cut the caryopteris back to just above the last viable bud, but the bottom is getting so gnarly that I mostly just whacked at it. Some of the branches have rooted themselves, so I cut those off the bush to see how they do. The buddleia I cut back to about six inches.

I turned the compost too; well, some of it, anyway. I have a Biostack composter that I love; that one was time consuming to turn, but not all that hard. Even after I bought the Biostack, I kept my old compost heap. I made it from scavenged pallets, and it's utterly homely, but it's in a corner and masked by a magnolia. Plus it's perfect for the big batches of waste generated by garden clean-up binges. The heap is not covered. As a result, it was frozen solid. On the upside, it made a nice study base on which to stand and toss chopped up branches into my mini-brush pile on the opposite side of the fence. 

The mini-brush pile lies in the U made by my house, my backyard/frontyard fence, and the neighbor's short length of fence. It is largely a result of laziness; I hate chopping up all those branches by hand so I can fit them in the garbage. Plus I loathe the thought of sending that stuff to a landfill. So I do a sort of semi-chopping, then chuck them over the fence. Eventually I'll have to figure out what to do with them, but in the meantime, they're out of sight and likely providing a nice place for Al the possum to stay when he's not hanging out in the cat house.

Post a comment Tags: compost, pruning