Well, as it stands right now, I've given up on all of my flowerbeds. I just can't deal with the quack grass any more and it has taken over 90 percent of the beds. I've waved the white flag of surrender. The quack grass wins! It's the only thing I hate about living in the country surrounded by farm fields that never get mown. ~sigh~
I'll continue the war in the veg garden, though. We might have an ugly lawn, but we still gotta eat!
Yup, it seems I'm posting about the same things constantly, but I really need to start keeping track of what's going on in the yard like I'd promised myself way back in this post. But, after this, unless it's something exceptional, I'll start keeping the posts to every other week or so.
What with the horrible weather we've had all growing season in the New England states, it seems a little mean to be posting about everything doing so well now that the heat has turned itself up here and the rain has dwindled to every other day instead of daily. Sorry.
The flowerbeds aren't looking half bad now that the plants are getting some sun. I had to prune out a lot of the flopping gloriosa daisies, but it looks a little neater now.
The Hosta have exploded into bloom.
The area around the lower pond isn't as full and lush as last year, but considering the weather it doesn't look half bad.
I've never had cucumber plants this loaded with blooms. The cucumbers are delicious!
Even though we haven't had a ripe tom yet, I'm considering the 'hay bale' experiment a smashing success.
Finally, a couple shots of the veg garden (so I'll remember what was where).
Happy growing!
Wow, what a difference two whole days of heat, sun and no rain can make. The ground actually looks dry - I'd forgotten what dry soil looks like!
For those of you in the upper eastern states - hang in there, it's on its way. I'm outside blowing the good weather in your direction. Man, my lips are tired! :(
An update on how well the tomato bale experiment is doing: Fantastic!
Thank God I haven't seen hide nor hair of the blight. ~fingers crossed~ Pays a bit to start your own seed in this instance. I think I only have one close neighbor that gardens and he grows his own also.
:)
Bonnie Plants first said they accepted that they were to blame, now this:
Dennis Thomas, Bonnie Plants general manager, insists there never was any evidence of blight at any of the company's 61 growing stations nationwide and that his company did not ship out any infected plants. "None whatsoever," he said. "The last inspections we've had in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and in West Virginia today, showed negative."
One of those things that makes you go, hmmmm...
On to happier stuff.
I only got one plant from the strawberry petunia seed (stupid weather!) but what a bloom it is!
Things that are finally taking off:
Popcorn
Potato (don't mind the weeds. potato is a DH thing, not a me thing, so unless he weeds them...)
Peppers (looking better!)
Onions are looking good.
Carrots have gone bonkers!
Yellow and green bush beans are finally flowering. Interesting how you can easily tell which row are which.
We had the first cabbage salad of the year yesterday. Yum! Was fabulous. I honestly should have let it go a few more days, but well, you know...
The cauliflower is almost ready and huge.
Half a gallon of peas in the freezer so far.
I guess that's it for the veg, so on to what few flowers I have that the freaking slugs didn't eat.
The view from my living room last week.
The honey bees are swarming the borage now that the sun has returned.
The bee balm is finally open for the hummers. They've been cleaning out the feeders in a day!
I lurve gloriosa daisies.
The lavender is looking beautiful.
Lilies are so fab they almost glow.
and last but not least, the coolest visitors of all to my flower beds-
Hope everyone's gardens are growing like gangbusters!
Happy gardening.
:)
(wow, I actually titled the post as June instead of July - talk about a Freudian slip - I'm still subconsciously waiting on some nice june weather! lol)
Everyone has one of them.
You know - those flowerbeds that, for multiple reasons, just suck.
This is my major nightmare bed:
I actually took a picture a week ago of how bad it looked, but I must have accidentally deleted it. It was awful! Packed root to root with weeds. It took 4 full days of weeding to get this mess cleaned out and looking decent. Needless to say, I lost tons of plants from this bed this year. Yup, it's my nightmare bed.
This is what it looked like last summer:
It is so bare! It won't be for long, though.
Some random yard pics - because I can! lol. Ignore the weeds, please, there are only so many hours in a day.
Not a very clear picture, but the birds seem to be completely fascinated with the majesty palm. I've tried to catch a pic of them, but the only one that would stay still long enough was this red winged black bird.
The catbirds are back and following me around the yard again. They are so curious! I call them my nosy birdies. (yeah, my neighbors think I'm strange, too). But the catbirds answer me, so it's all good. lol. Of course, I haven't thought of snapping a pic of them.
The real randomness:
Iris and poppies looking better every day. I don't know what variety the iris are, but they smell just like lemons! Seriously! People stop and sniff the air trying to figure out why they smell lemons. :)
The peonie and weigela hedge.
Looking fab! (So, of course, a downpour is due.)
The front (mostly) perennial bed.
The shade bed.
My favorite right now - snow white columbine.
I think it's time to stop taking pics of the yard and get something done . . . like go weed out the beans.
:)
:)
People are chucking their spent mums . . . again.
Yay!
I picked up three big mums and a pumpkin large enough for about four loaves of pumpkin bread. I love it when people have money to throw away.
Clearance sales are still on at Lowe's - huge Boston fern and two 'Double Take' Spaths (left outside to get frosted - ugh!) for a buck.
Go me!
The weather looks like I'll be able to get the mums in the ground on Friday.
I got the Iris cut back for winter and did a lot of weed pulling. Most of the flowerbeds are cleaned up. I'm still doing that nit-picky thing I do, though. I can't help it!
Planted the garlic a month ago and they're growing very well. Transplanted the rhubarb into the garden at the same time - I don't know how they'll end up taking it. We'll see.
Collected some more seed - aster and Zebrina Malva. I'm hoping those don't become a thug.
The large pond pump and flow-through pumps have been turned off and the smaller winter pumps turned on. The koi are sulking, but it can't be helped. They'll be fine, as always.
Now comes the real limbo. Too much love for the houseplants while I twiddle my thumbs waiting to start the wintersowing. It won't be as much as previous years as I can't afford the potting soil. Oh, well. I'll just have to pick and choose a little more wisely about what I want most in the flowerbeds next year and use the peat I already have - whether appropriate or not. On a side note: I was a little miffed when someone mentioned that they bought eight bags of potting soil for 8 something a bag and thought that it was no big deal and pretty much petty change. Huh? When your figuring out which bill to pay and which to leave . . . ummmm, 60 something dollars is a lot of money! What the hell is wrong with people saying it's no big deal to just go blow 60 bucks on soil? I could almost see her shrugging her shoulders with the 'what's the big deal' attitude. Grrrr.
I need to sort through my seeds again and get them in order. Maybe I'll wait on that until after Christmas when I'll be ridiculously sick of having nothing gardenish to play in.
Still so far, so good on the rosemary.
I still need to tent my lavender with some burlap.
I found out that my Polka Dots are more of a pain in the ass than I thought they would be.
I can't get the stem rot stopped on those stupid begonias, so have about a thousand cuttings piled everywhere now. If I end up with not one begonia come spring, I'm gonna be hot!
The Majesty Palm is still puttering along and throwing up new spears.
Oh, and the weirdness for the month - a Foxglove and Lupine are flowering! What the frig is up with that? The snaps that are still in full bloom aren't a surprise, but the Lupine certainly is. Also had a Delph just get a very late bloom frozen off. Hmmm . . .
Plans are in the works to widen the garden next spring and plant potatoes again. Yay! We haven't had the room for them in years.
I may do some more roadside shopping this weekend. Hehehe.
The new (this year) front bed. There are tons of plants crammed in here - that's what happens with wintersowing - more plants than you know what to do with. Here's what is crammed in there, somewhere...
Shade bed. I'm in love with the balsam impatiens this year!
Blanket flower with a very happy bee.
Cinnamon Sun sunflower cross. (and another happy bee)
Center of the front bed - everything got blown flat :(
Asters and snaps. I adore the purple against the yellow snaps.
Black Watchman hollyhock (thanks Kim!) backed by the weeping pea tree. Between the bugs and the hail, the leaves don't look so hot, but the blooms are fantastic.
One of the Rhodos I started from seed. Or maybe it's an azalea. I didn't do so hot with the tag organization. I know - dumb, dumb, dumb!
The impatiens in the bench planters were wonderful this year. They looked so nice combined with the snaps until the storm showed up and made the snaps lean and blew their blooms off. The petunias popped up all over the place in the pathway, so I just left them to do their own thing. The Balsams stood up to the storm very well!
These Poinsettias are cuttings from the ones I got last year for 50 cents. (3 plants for 50 cents - can't beat that!) They aren't doing too well with the crappy summer we've had, but it will be a nice winter experiment to see how well I do getting them to bloom. I think I've absorbed every tidbit of info I can get on doing it!
Sweet Pea (white) and Spot (red) with a few Golden Orfe. Everyone else are usually the camera hogs, but were nowhere in sight. The water looked like crap all year with this awful weather, but I don't use chemicals to clear it - I'd rather have happy, healthy fish.
Gloriosa Daisies in the second front bed. I got quite a few doubles this year that I'll be saving seed from to see what shows up next year.
Zinnias in the front bed. Some got broken and blown flat, but most made it. For once, I'm glad I really packed them in there! Surprisingly, the Cosmos behind them made out well as the Zinnias worked as a grand wind break.
My daughter's favorite. The stem got a little bent from the storm, but it's still a gorgeous bloom.
The tree bed. The Lobelia was very happy here this year. The foxglove and columbine should bloom next year. The Polka Dot plants are some I got from a hanging basket (that had tons of stuff crammed in) on clearance at Lowe's for 50 cents. Go me!
My son's hot peppers. Damn storm! They looked so wonderful before they got blown sideways. At least he'll still get peppers! And yeah, they're hot. :)
I have more pics, but I'll save them for another day.
It's exactly 30 F outside. There is steam rising from the ponds this morning and I suppose there will be tomorrow morning also.
Not as much got done this weekend as I'd wished. Of course.
The hubs got some of the garden weeds rototilled in the veg garden.
They was gettin' big, Ma!
What the heck is it with plants you want and weeds. The one's you want have only grown to toddler stage and the weeds race ahead to teenage-dom. Hmmm, at the size of them, maybe even middle aged.
Most got cut down in their prime. Too bad for them!
Mother Nature needs a Prozac. We had a hot, dry April and now that it's May, were dipping into the 20's F at night and getting soaked. She really needs to level out her mood swings or something!
I got 2 flowerbeds weeded. Doesn't sound like a big whoop, but a true pain in the ass. The rock wall around the tree bed had to be completely torn apart and weed roots yanked from underneath.
I divided some Lamium clumps and threw them in the pockets of the rebuilt wall here and there. That's one plant I wouldn't mind spilling into the walkway. Lamium is a fab plant! It flowers from April until well after frost, has the cutest white and purple flowers, the bees love it, it will grow in deep shade and keep on trucking, the leaves are fabulous variations of frosted variegation and it's a peach to rip out if it decides to explore past it's boundaries. Choosing to use the white flowered type, or the variety with the brightest frosted leaves will brighten up a gloomy area with it's glow like nothing else.
Seriously, I think Lamium is one of the most underused plants ever!
That freaking creeping (insert whatever weed you can think of that creeps and makes you crazy) is a whole 'nother story. I've been ripping 'creepy' crap up by the handfuls.
~sigh~ sometimes living in the country has it's downside.
At the rate I'm having to go - I'll never get finished.
It got done. Well, almost.
:)
The Spireas have a new home in a brand new bed.
What should have taken only a few hours ended up being an all day event, what with having to come in at regular intervals to get out of the wind, warm up the hands, have a cuppa and pee breaks (what is it with the cold that makes me have to pee?). And it only got half done at that. Ahh, well.
The finished part looks so fab with all that beautiful, black compost spread out and waiting for more green. And the terra cotta tiles added some needed color on that side of the patio. Lordy, I get as excited as a five year old at Christmas when I look at that soil! Sad, I know. We have to mix more, but it will have to wait for a warm up as the compost pile is still 90% frozen solid.
I haven't checked yet today to see if the bushes are peeved with the move, but I'm sure they're fine. After all that, they best be happy!
I grabbed some cuttings during the move and also potted up a piece I'd layered. It took a year and a half, but there were some really nice looking roots. I usually don't have great luck with sticking, but we'll see. I did weigela with no prob (yeah, I know it's just about the easiest ever. Shh, don't remind me), so here's hoping.
Hopefully, we'll get the second half of the bed done next weekend. It's suppose to warm up and be nice, but this is CNY, so I'm NOT holding my breath. Besides, the weatherpersons are not so good at predictions around here. The weather is always messing with their heads.
I have to push the 'to do' schedule up a bit. The hubs might end up being bumped to a rotten shift at work which means he'll spend all day trying to sleep and won't be home until 1:30 am. He can't sleep during the day. He just can't do it. So, he'll spend all day in bed, tossing and turning, and then go to work dead tired but wide awake at home (when he should be passed out) because he's still wired up from work.
~sigh~
At least he isn't getting layed off. (fingers crossed).
I dodged raindrops and got quite a bit accomplished today.
Go me!
I repaired the cracks in the pond stream. I hope I got them good enough. This winter was a real pisser on the concrete. We've never had a problem before, but this year beat the crap out of it. The stream wasn't the only thing to heave - every freaking perennial I have is sitting a few inches higher than it was in the fall.
I started weeding the cracks between the stone path (who said the weeds and grass could grow there all winter?), got half done and had to postpone the carnage due to a rain delay.
Hey, I got half done before another task ... ummm ... caught my attention before the next bout of rain vs plant-slave-lady. The soil is so pliable right now, it was pretty hard to resist digging in it.
After much searching (why, oh why do I never pay attention to where I store tools?) I found my happy little half-moon edger and went to town on one of the front flowerbeds. The grass had actually creeped into the bed a good 6 inches through winter. Urg!
But, might as well make it even bigger while I'm at it, right? The hubs will never notice? Ahem ... yeah, right.
Now, that bed is a foot wider. Alrighty then, so all that removed sod is flopped onto the lawn and looks like hell. Shhh! It'll go away (eventually).
The oldest son brought me some tiles someone was going to use as fill (no, no, no!) and I got them all into the ground as an edger for the bed. It looks pretty nice! They're brick colored, but only about a quarter inch thick, 4 inches wide and maybe 6 inches long. They worked nicely. I'll still have to keep an eye out for grass roots creeping between where the edges are butted together, but it's sure better than letting the grass just go to town and taking over the whole freaking flowerbed. I got them as tight to each other as possible. (who knew a trowel worked just as good as a rubber mallet?)
Another rain delay. I tried to work through it, but do you know how wet your butt can get when you're bent over and it's facing the sky? Yeah - enough said.
I finally got all the edging done, thought about finishing the weeding in the walkway, but decided the dianthus ('fire witch' I WSed last year) might as well be moved. It sure as heck isn't happy where it is and those tiles looked so lonely a whole foot away from anything green! So, I moved almost all of them, at least 50, to the edge of the front bed.
Honestly, that wasn't all that much work to do in one day, but for the first real after-winter workout it was more than my body thought was necessary. My legs and ankles hurt, my back aches, and my arms are asking if they could please fall off and be left in a heap on the floor. I'm kind of shocked that I'm hurting already. It's usually the next morning that the bod starts the protests.
But, it's a good hurt, you know? The, "I got something accomplished today," kind of hurt.
It sort of feels nice! We won't talk about the stained hands and dirt under the nails. Hmmm...now where did I stash those gloves...
.
It's suppose to hit 40 today, so yay!
I took a walk around the yard and cleaned up the perennials. Not much showing yet. What do I expect - the ground is still frozen solid and I was walking through patches of ice and snow!
Anyway, there are a few small, and I'm talking tiny, signs that spring can't be too far away.
I was cutting back the mums and chopping up the dead stems (I chop everything into really tiny pieces and leave it to do its thing rather than shluff it to the compost) and low and behold - new green growth! Wahoo!
Both the regular and variegated thyme are looking fantastic. Here and there I can see the dafs, tulips and hyacinths peeking up. The 'fire witch' dianthus got heaved like crazy this winter! But it's looking very healthy. I even had a gloriosa daisy make it through the winter!
The sweet williams look half mush, half nice and healthy. The allysum by the pond has spread like nuts. (definitely not a problem). I cut back the sedum and they're showing signs of waking up.
The rose campion looked good all winter (of course) and this should be the year I'll see blooms.
Obviously, there's no action in my wintersown containers yet, but I don't expect to see any until next month at the earliest.
I got the buddleia cut back. I'm not sure what to do with the cuttings. I don't want to chop them onto the compost pile or I'll end up with a million sprouts, sure as anything. It's really pissing me off that the ground is frozen like a rock and I can't pull all those freaking weeds. They're everywhere!
I have a real mess of labels spread all over the beds to pick up, but I'm sure I'll be wandering back out there this afternoon to do some more cleaning. Who can resist when it finally hits 40? God, it's been a long winter!
OK, I'm sure everyone is done laughing at my Lavender faux pas by now.
I have about a dozen lavender sprouts on the plant stand (different type).
Now, I realize it's going to take them some time to even reach decent size, but I want to eventually plant them (yeah, if I don't kill them) at the end of the driveway, at the front edge of the patio - south facing (No, there isn't a flowerbed there as of right now, but come spring...) I want it to have an open-closed-in feel. As if it's a seperate space but still part of the complete picture. You gardeners will get what I mean.
I don't know what to plant with them. Anyone have any ideas? It's got to be flowers of some kind - no shrubs, Spirea (pink and white) will be on the west side, but come to think of it, I have no idea what to plant with those either! I do have some weirdo bushes that were given to me last summer. They look sort of like a mock orange and I looked them up, but don't remember what they are. Maybe I'll interplant those with the spirea. I'll figure it out eventually. Maybe portulaca.
On the third (back side) will be Pampas grass, giant sunflower, dahlia and whatever I can't fit in somewhere else.
Maybe this whole planting situation I've got going sounds completely wrong? Well, maybe it does. Ugh! If it does, quit slapping your foreheads, smack mine and help me!
The bed will be about 2 foot wide and 16 (I think?) feet long, but I have to leave an entrance somewhere. I've been keeping an eye on the foot traffic to decide where that opening will be and I can already tell that the oil delivery guy is gonna be a problem. :( You can't see anything under 3 foot of snow and I really hate fences, so I don't know what to do about that. Maybe containers on pedestals of some kind? He might be more likely to walk between them than around?
The bed will be well draining and mounded (per wishes of picky lavender).
But I have to figure out how not to over water (yeah, it's a habit) and I need something in there that I can pretty much ignore. I thought blue salvia (mainly because I can't kill it!) but I think not having any contrast would suck. I might put some variegated thyme in there and some basil (see a theme here?) but I want some color. I'm not adverse to pink, people! Suggest away. Something tall? (but skinny - I don't want to block off the front view) Really short? Lavish? Skimpy? Annual? Perennial? Ground cover? Something I can start from seed would be great!
Please suggest something. Anything.
It's making me nuts! I have never been this bothered about where to plant what. OK, I've never been a planner before, I've just let things 'happen', but this seems entirely different for some reason.
Oh, Caren! Kim! Yoohooo! Anyone?
Susan, over at Garden Rant, says she's "been known to give up on plants before they've had a chance to really show me their stuff."
I just can't do it! Even if I've decided I hate a certain plant, I'll still give it the benefit of the doubt - for years. I might move them around, but they always get a chance at making me go, "Ooohhh!"
Honestly, I don't think I've ripped out anything, nothing, nada until I've given it, at the very least, 3 years worth of growth to show me what its got.
Sometimes it takes that long for them to get that far. You know: sleep - creep - leap.
Seriously, I never thought about it before, but a lot of people will point at things in my yard and say, "Mine never looked like that." Well, yeah, because you ripped it out before it even had a chance to look that good!
Patience, oh gardening one, patience!
But, this then also results in problems. Lots of them. Why live with a plant you detest for 3 years? Wouldn't you rather stick in something that you adore? Something that makes you go 'oooooh' right now? Why take up prime garden bed real estate with crap when you can have a knee-jerker in that spot?
Well ... because.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!
Whew! Yay!
I can't say it's done because, well, it's never done. There are always those mundane tasks of watering, weeding and bug picking.
I was a bit sad that no one took the tomato and brussel sprouts that I put out for free, but a friend of D's had never tried growing them before, so figured he'd give it a try. He hadn't purchased his toms yet either, so he got a two-fer. :) There are some down sides to living in the middle of nowhere. The selling extra veg for WSing soil might be out after all.
All my WS sprouts are in, except for the few I'm still going to give more 'wait and see' time.
I ended up giving my SIL some buddleia and toms. She just found out she has cancer, so I'm not sure how much time she'll have to mess with them - or even if she'll feel up to it. God, I hope everything works out well. I don't know what I'd do without her. She's one of those people that's just really good - inside and out.
We got really small heads on the broccoli this year. Of course, the seedling were probably pretty stressed out with the house going from a nice comfy 65 down to freezing and then back up again. The humans weren't too fond of the temps bottoming out either.
My eldest son works at a construction supply place that gets 'less than perfect' merchandise and sells it really cheap. He brought me some leaf stepping stones that are broken, but I might be able to salvage a few for a walkway. Anyone have ideas on what I can do with broken and chipped stepping stones? Some are pretty bad. They feel kind of soft, like they're made from plaster of paris. I know they aren't, but that's how they feel. Strange.
We haven't made any progress on the foundation winter barrier/flowerbeds. We need to find some way to get the logs here. Ya know, I refuse to have a truck because of the gas guzzling, but it sure would be nice to have one! Especially since we found a beautiful glass door someone was throwing away after a remodel. Hey, we TRIED to force it into the little Neon! lol. D kept telling me it wasn't going to fit and I kept telling him we could make it fit. Ok, ok, so I was way wrong. Points to D for visual dimensional math. Pfft! At least I got another blind to make labels, so yay!
My WSed petunias took off like crazy. Once they had heat and water, look out! No blooms yet, but they're working on it.
I wish we'd get some rain. We're so deep in drought that it'll take all summer or more to get the water table back to anywhere near normal. Hope everyone is having a wonderful gardening season!
The vegetable planting is overtaking any kind of flower bed preperations.
D decided we needed the garden situated in a completely different place this year (actually more longated in another direction). Moving almost a whole garden bed is a lot of work.
It's turned into a 'plant as soil is prepared' marathon. I totally don't recommend this and I know it isn't quite the correct or proper way to do things, but I never really adhered to any of the garden rules. I'm such an obstinant gardener! It would be so much easier to do raised beds, but that's nowhere near being in the budget.
So far we've gotten everything in the cole crops in except for the brussel sprouts. Poor things! At least they're patiently hanging on until we can make a little more progress.
I finally had a tulip show its pretty face today. Yay!
My WSed jugs aren't really doing anything this year. I think most of the seeds rotted with the really crappy spring we had, but thanks to Don, (thanks again you wonderfully generous man!) I got to resow a lot of the seeds I think I lost. He sent me a lot of his leftover seeds and it was one heck of a welcome sight to see that envelope in the mail! I wonder if the neighbors think I'm nuts when I do the happy dance...
Thank God I was smart enough to leave back 2 or 3 of some of the seeds Kim and Sissy sent, but I certainly won't have what I would have of them.
I'm dying to start those yummy warm weather veg seeds Kim sent, but I'll be a patient gardener and hold back for the crappy weather that's sure to show up at a most inopportune time. Isn't that always the way in CNY? Low temp last night was 31, so, uh, yeah...I'm waiting.
A friend down the road is ripping down their log cabin and said we could take the logs if we wanted. Moving them is going to be nigh-on impossible, but I'm estatic! We're going to use them to see if we can build some flowerbeds around the base of the house and stop the wind from wipping in so bad in the winter. I can't imagine a cozy house during a blizzard and no snowdrifts under the wall edges! Another friend of D's gave us some oddball sheets of foam insulation to put against the wall first, and then we'll protect the insulation and walls with plastic before we fill. Now I just have to figure out where and how to get some dirt.
It's another massive project to monopolize our summer, but what's new. A warm house? Lovely new flower beds? Imagine! I can definitely handle that.
:)
