Gardens Are Shaping Up

I got a bunch more work done today toward the first garden phase.

I cleaned up the first half of what I've dubbed the 'dining room garden,' removing a bunch of dead leaves and tiny twigs and stuff. It now looks like this.


Doesn't look like much yet, but I see both the improvement and the potential. There are 3 azalea plants there, the one in the middle pretty tiny, the two on the sides slightly bigger. The one on the far left (and the one in the middle, for that matter) are doing really well. The one on the far right is having a few issues this spring, as during the big snows this winter, a giant chunk of snow and ice fell off the awning and buried it, then re-froze solid. The poor azalea was encased in a giant ice ball for quite awhile, and I wasn't even sure it was going to live. So I'm happy it's doing as well as it is. After it blooms (if it blooms), I'll trim it up somewhat, and it should fill out more next year, and not be so thin and sparse. (Assuming I can protect it from any more avalanches next winter).

Then I dived into the other half of the dining room garden, which I hadn't even started on last year. At first it looked like this.


And after cleaning it up, like this.




So that's a start. There were two tiny creeping evergreen shrubs of some type in the middle, which I had intended to pull out anyway, but they cooperated by apparently dying over the winter, and just easily pulled out of the ground today while I was cleaning up.

I still have a lot to do in this area (as in all of them, for that matter), but this is a good start. I plan to remove that evergreen shrub in the lower right-hand corner. I'm undecided about the one down at the other end, I may leave that one - it's out of the way and unlikely to annoy me. (I don't really care for these types of shrubs). In the center, I plan to put some kind of small water feature, then plan my plants around that - probably primarily ferns and hostas.

Where I've got the table and chairs is pretty much where they'll probably stay.

And for now, that's it for the dining room gardens.

I was very happy to see the rose survived it's first year of transplant.


I wasn't sure, because in late winter it looked pretty horrible, stems all black or brown. There is still a large black spot on one of the stems, but about mid-way down, so it's not like I can just cut it off. I'll let it go for now and see how it does - it may get a heavier pruning this fall, which it looks like it needs anyway, as it's getting kind of leggy. I also think I'll cover it this winter. I've had this rose for something over 10 years at least - my dad got it for me at the old house, and though I don't remember exactly when, I know I hadn't lived there long when he did. And I lived there 14 years. In all those years I never covered it in winter, and it has survived this long. But this year worried me, so I don't want to take a chance on another harsh winter damaging it.

The next area I'll be working on is this ...



... around the lamp post and the first tree. ('first' as in first I'll be planting around). This is the area I cleaned up yesterday, it was all cluttered with twigs and branches and winter debris.

My worst concern is how to plant around that tree. The soil there is just so compacted, hard like rock, yet everything I've read said you can't really cultivate around trees like this, you risk causing all kinds of problems - that if you want to plant there, you just have to dig up small holes for each individual plant, and deal with that. I guess I can do that, but I'm unsure how that's going to work, since I can't really work any amendments into the soil deeply.

I think putting in and maintaining any kind of planting under that tree is going to be seriously labor intensive, as I'll have to dig each little area individually, work in some compost, and then every year probably just work in little bits around the plants gently.

But, it's what I want, so I'll see how it goes.

Even though there's not much there yet, just having the beginnings of my little private 'front garden' is cool. I sat out there all afternoon reading.

I'm pretty psyched that I'm starting to get to put my plans into place, even with such tiny steps. It'll take awhile, and a lot of it will be done in fits and starts - I mean, I couldn't do anything all winter. Now for a couple months there will probably be a flurry of activity and changes, then nothing again for most of another year. But envisioning it all this time, then finally seeing it begin to take shape is awesome.