Author: 459856pwpadmin

Now that bed has always been problematic because it gets very little, if any, direct light and half of the bed is under an overhang  and surrounded by the house on three sides so it only gets rain if it comes in pretty much directly and horizontally from the east, which is rare.

In the past that bed has been mostly devoted to annuals, namely impatiens, and it has done quite well.  But a couple of years ago, before the health saga began, I had temporarily stuck a few shade perennials in the front of that bed to overwinter when I couldn't get to their permanent location.  And they did quite well.  So now I am hoping to have a mix of perrenials and impatiens there.  But I never really planned that bed, I just stuck a couple of things in willy nilly and they have done well,  so I wasn't really sure what to expect. 

This is precisely why I prefer to plan my beds, so I am not caught by surprise, so I don't forget and plant something where I have planted something else, and most of all so I know what I am looking for because I am still relatively a novice gardener and I don't recognize most things unless I know what I am looking for.  

In short, I thought there was more room in that front flower bed than there actually may be.

This is that poor, sad little bed, with the three plants I knew were there, front front to back, a bergenia, a brunnera, and a daylilly.  the far corner where the daylilly resides is the only corner that gets sun and it is also the driest part of the bed, with more rock and sand, somehow a place that the small daylilly has decided is just perfect.

But wait there is something else. First of all, although you can only barely see it here, there is a small pink plant stake in front of the brunnera indicating that a fern is planted in that space.  The ferns haven't stuck their heads up yet, so I don't yet know if that is going to actually materialize, but there will probably not be enough room for the hellebore there, especially considering there is another little plant poking its head ups as well.  

A small yellow and green leafed plant is coming up, just beyond the bergenia, a plant I can't identify.

I don't know if it is actually a desirable plant or just a weed, although I tend to doubt it is a weed because I just don't get weeds in this bed.  In fact the only cleaning out I had to do was pulling up a bit of vinca that had crept up, over, and through the rocks, and a little bit of moss and leaves.    That doesn't mean there can't be a weed, but I think I can count the number of weeds I have pulled out of this bed on one hand and I have been cleaning it out for over 20 years.  

But what is it?  If you know you can let me know.  I will ask at knitting on Thursday as well as there are some much better gardeners than I.

Anyway, it is looking like there is not much room for a hellebore here, and if I add any more perennials to this bed, I should probably duplicate something that is already here, I really hate having just one of something, unless it is a really big something that is.

So I plopped the hellebores in the planters by the front door, where they can happily reside for another month before they need to be relocated so I can put the summer flowers in.  In the meantime I have two ideas for places they could go, one planting bed that has been in the plans for a couple of years, and another, one of several actually, on the north side of the house in the areas that need work after the building of the new deck.

I was thinking about one of these areas today as I was staining more of the siding around the deck. There is a small area between the stairs up to the deck and the lattice covering the underside of the deck.  It is a small area and I could easily frame it in and I need to plant something there to keep it looking neat and to keep the weeds out but it is an area that will get very little direct sun, so I need plants that don't need a lot of maintenance as that bed will be fairly difficult to get into once it is planted, except for watering of course.  The area I am thinking about is kind of hidden in the middle of this picture, between the railing and the lattice work below the deck.  This picture was taken before today's staining.  The T1-11 wall at the top of the stairs is now stained, with a thick oil-based semi-solid stain and I am now working inside the deck walls.  When I get all the T1-11 siding stained I will come back with primer and paint and paint the risers, rails, and vertical pieces, all smooth cedar, which will hold up much better with paint rather stain, but paint doesn't adhere well to the rough-sided stuff, which also happens to match the house.

As you can see, there is a lot of opportunity for landscaping work here.

I have time to think about it a bit before I get started.  Right now it is pleasantly cool and dry so I must continue working on the staining and painting.  It is a time consuming project and a bit of an expensive lesson in terms of the contractor not doing it, although I think at the time the contractor just wanted out of the job because he had already probably spent more than the contract due to innumerable mistakes on the part of his various crews and various changes of subcontractors.  It is tru
e that the contract did not specify painting the cedar, siding, and lattice but it did say built according to the plans which did specify painting.  I agreed to accept the earlier plan though, which did not say the word paint on it, because the earlier plan showed the entire deck and included another 25 foot of deck which was on the original proposal and was not on the second plan, which was really only the detail of the more complicated portion of the deck.

I made the decision.  I accept the job.  I grumble to myself but I do enjoy sitting out in the nice spring air and painting.  I am sure I will have to replace some things sooner than I would have if I had stained and painted a year and a half ago, or even a year ago, but I made that choice as well.  

I was also noticing today that the section of siding at the top of the stairs is the thinner fir T1-11, not the thicker fir that I insisted on, and had to special order, that was used for the bulk of the job.  I think that by the time that was done we were on the third carpenter, and I was preoccupied with other things, so it just got by me.  It is already starting to warp, of course made worse by the fact that I hadn't stained it yet, but the other siding, the thicker T1-11, looks much better. Life is filled with learning experiences.

I still think wood is easier to come by than good husbands.

The vegetable garden is so overgrown with weeds, wild raspberries, and sumac trees that preparing any section of it for planting is tantamount to starting from scratch.  I might as well just rebuild the garden as I go which means no planting this year.

I did however get the Iris  bed completely cleaned out and am now working on another.  As you can see not much else is happening in the yard yet; it is still cold and early spring and my gardening efforts are still isolated bits as opposed to a real "garden".  I am just happy that this much has survived after all my neglect of the last few years.  After all the work I put into this bed I would have hated to have lost most of it.

I was particularly proud over the weekend that I managed to pull up several young sumac saplings with most of their root systems, which was quite a job.  I was pulling the roots out from under Irises, which luckily are shallow rooted, and the sedum (which are not so shallow rooted).  This meant I was carefully lifting the soil around the desirable plants, uprooting the tree roots, and replanting the perennials in their places.   There are a few plants I need to add to that bed; for example I know I lost several oriental poppies a few years ago and only about half of the originals remain.  I think I also need to replace an aster or two, but the asters aren't coming up yet so I might have to wait and see.  That's one of the beauties of the asters, they grow up and cover the leaves of the poppy just as the poppy is beginning to look unsightly.  I am also going to put in some sedum in a place that was supposed to be chrysanthemums.  I have never been able to keep the mums alive.  Something always eats them — I don't know if it is deer or rabbits or the blessed woodchucks but they were absent last year so I don't expect to see them this year either.  

This bed, next to the house is my next clean-out project.  There are a few hyacinths blooming and you can see that the iris are coming up lushly.  This worried me as they had sent up a late bloom in December when frost killed them.  I am glad that they survived well.

But I am not working on it now as I inadvertently stepped in a woodchuck hole and sprained my ankle while I was working in the garden on Sunday.  This really annoys me as I know perfectly well the hole is there.  I need to work on getting rid of those woodchucks, I really do.  I didn't notice the ankle at first, and after I stepped in the hole I pulled up the sumac trees, loosing my balance once and falling and probably twisting the same ankle again.  Now I have a bit of a sprain and need to stay off the ankle.  I suppose it is good that it is cold again this week and supposed to rain (or snow) every day.

I had also hoped to put in a front walk this year but the reality is that the money is just not going to be there to get it done this summer.  I didn't anticipate the reduction in income that came with the disruption of the financial markets; not that things are that tight, but saving up for bigger extras will take longer.  I half considered doing it myself, but there is that old problem of digging up clay and roots and laying a proper base, all things that weren't done with the first walk that was put in when the house was built.  Clay and slate and frost do not make for a level front walk.  But really I only thought of that because I need to dig and replant a good half of the front "yard" and it really would be better to do it after the walk goes in so the "men in boots" don't trample my plantings.  

But really, it can probably all wait another year.  I've had a brown, overgrown, and unsightly front yard flanking a goat path for a front walk for several years now, what's one more?

I think I need to start a journal with plans and aspirations for all the planting I hope to do someday in my dream life.  I read Fine Gardening and get ideas and I look at the plant catalogs and get more ideas, and then I forget what I planned and start lusting after something new.  The reality is that it will take me long enough to get the bed made that I will have forgotten what I planned to do by the time the reality of planting gets here.  So instead of a garden journal I need a garden dreams journal.

I am still going to plant sprouting broccoli.  I will get that bed finished this year since it is in the front yard (and not next to the walkway).  And who knows I might stick a little bit of rainbow chard in the flower beds too.  I like the flavor of the white chard better, but the rainbow chard looks prettier.  Maybe both?

Here is a lone scilla siberica that is hiding under a rock.  I had mentioned to materfamilias that I thought all my scilla had been trampled by workmen as there were once hundreds and now there seemed to be none. Then today I saw this lonely little flower and it brought a smile to my face.

I am slowly cleaning out the flower beds, happy to find bits of green poking up here and there, promises of future bloom and encouragement after a couple of years of neglect.

There are always those little unexpected surprises.  The crocuses, which were planted on one side of the front walk, beneath the cotoneaster which is in desperate need of prunning, trimming, and outright ripping out, have started a new colony on the other side of the front walk where they are nestled protectively among the pachysandra.  

Are these the remnants of some squirrels cache?

I knew crocus colonies would grow but I didn't know that they emigrated as well.  These are the kind of happy accidents that make gardening such a joy.

Speaking of joys, there have been scattered appearances of species crocus in the Iris bed as I have cleaned it out and I have been very careful to preserve their delicate leaves and blossoms.  

I planted these years ago, before I rebuilt this bed and they never really bloomed much.  I think the tiny bulbs got washed away with the tons of soil that washed from the neighbors yard across our yard and driveway and down the slope toward the neighbor on the other side.  Of course when I built the new Iris bed with the french drain behind it and down the center, I did save the old soil and added it back in to the amended flower bed soil.  So I am not surprised that a few bulbs survived.  

I see occasional scattered crocus flowers on the edges of the woods, probably were bulbs have been flung with weeds and grass from previous clearings etc.  G noted today that he always thought the narrow striped leaves were a form of grass.  So I think he has been sending out little starter crocus colonies all around the property and it is a thrill to seem them blooming here and there.  

I like to think that those little bulbs will someday form their own little colonies, like the little colony I found today down the slope below the drain pipe that funnels the water that runs across the driveway down the hill.

I was on that end of the house grilling some burgers for lunch and I looked out and saw masses of purple flowers glowing on the sunshine down the slope.  It gladdened my heart to see them there in an area that is really otherwise just a patch of woods.

When I looked down the slope beyond them I also saw some tulip leaves pushing their way up through the soil and piles of leaves and twigs.  I suppose the heavier tulip bulbs fell further down the slope.  

The tulips are not a total surprise.  I usually pull the bulbs up at the end of the season as my soil is not deep enough to produce strong perennial blooms, so there are always a few odd tulip bulbs around the edge of the woods, another example of nature soldiering on.  

You can't really tell these are on a slope.  I had to practically lie on the ground to get them and use a zoom as well, another things that alters the perception of distance, slope, and space.  In reality the tulips are about 10 feet below the crocuses you see in the lower right of the photo. Lots of leaves and junk.  This is a part of the yard that basically slopes down to the neighbors.  It is my property but it is primarily steep woodland and best left alone.  It makes me very happy this morning to see these little outcroppings.

I will look forward to seeing the resulting flowers, whatever variety they may be.

And last of all the early daffodils are finally showing the colors.   The daffodils on the hill, left by the previous owners are always the first to bloom, right around April 1.  They are right on time.

These are on one side of a large rock outcropping marking the base of the small ledge on which the house is built.  I have long meant to rip out most of that area, which was once planted with various flowers but is now mostly weeds except for these few daffodils.  I would save the daffodils of course, perhaps adding some more.  Some day I will get to this as well.  But this area is fine by itself right now, and I have lots of landscaping that needs to be done around the new deck which also requires lots of digging and leveling and terracing and amending of the soil before I can even begin planting.  But I like to look around while I am in the garden and think about what it might be "someday".  It is fun to dream and plan, and it is fun to work to turn dreams into reality.  I just have to remember not to become a slave to some dreams at the expense of others.