A Tease Of Spring

Yesterday it was 80 degrees here ... a welcome hint of spring. I spent several hours outside doing garden work.

Last year I felt like I hadn't gotten anything done, as the areas I worked on really didn't look like much throughout the summer. But yesterday, when I began cleaning those areas up and getting them ready to plant, I was able to see just how much I did get accomplished last year in prepping these areas for future use, because it's all starting to come together exactly as I hoped. This year I didn't have to do a ton of work to ready them - just rake out some dead leaves, and lay out some soaker hose. So when the plants are available, I'm ready to go get them and plant.

I did have to fix the one (store-bought) rain barrel but that was because it was bought late last year and never really fixed then. I bought the one decorative rain barrel because it was in a more visible location, and I wanted that one to look nice. But it's a bad design, where the hose running from the barrel to the downspout has to be exactly level to work. When I set it up last year I didn't get it exactly level, so what happened was that the water would run in to the barrel, but it wouldn't drain back into the downspout when it was full; so the first time it got full, it overflowed around the lid, flooding the flower bed. I unhooked it and never used it the rest of the year.

Yesterday I finally leveled it completely, so now it ought to work fine throughout the season. I also laid out the soaker hose in that bed, staking it down with little tent stake like things that actually came with our Christmas yard decorations to hold them in place.


The section in the back (behind the scraggly looking azaleas) is still not staked because I don't know exactly what I'm planting back there yet, so I needed to leave it until stuff's planted. Then I can loop the hose around the base of the plants and stake it down. I may mulch as well, which will help bury / cover up the soaker hose, though it doesn't really matter - once the plants get thick and lush they will mostly hide it.

I have to split that hose in two at one point and put an on/off valve in it. In this flower bed, the stuff from the azaleas forward will get rain when it does rain. But I plan to plant things behind the azaleas, and those things will be completely under the awning, and never get any rain. So they will need watered more often, even if we're getting good rain they will need watered. But I can't just turn on the soaker hose and water the whole bed if there's been plenty of rain or I'll wash out the front. So I'm going to divide the hose and put an on/off valve in at the awning line. Then I can shut off the bottom half of the hose and only water the back of the bed when necessary, or open the valve and water the whole bed if we haven't had enough rain.

My other project is a little more involved. I want two more rain barrels for the other area. I had one last year, and we used it, but it would get used up too fast - one good deep watering of that flower bed and it would be empty. Then if it didn't rain for awhile, it wasn't getting refilled. Of course, it was taking so much water because that planting bed is entirely under the awning, so got no rain at all, and needed more frequent deep watering. I'm thinking about doing away with that this year, but more on that in a minute.

But the rain barrel did work so well that during even one good rain it would fill up completely, long before it stopped raining, letting the rest of the precious rainwater go down the drain - so I knew that adding two more, they would also be easily filled during any good rains, giving me 3 times as much backup water before worrying about it raining again.

But I've been to the place where we got this one several times, and they are out of these barrels, and don't know when they'll get them in. I'd like two of these because they're only $15 a piece (whereas I paid about $100 for the 'fancy' one).

One big thing I accomplished yesterday was removing a shrub that was right in front of last year's rain barrel. It was really seriously in the way for adding any more rain barrels over there, but I had balked about taking it out last year because I thought I was going to have to kill it - that's how I had to get the others out that I removed, cutting off all their branches first to leave just the stump, then digging and dragging that out of the ground. I really hated to kill any more shrubs. In a brief burst of energy yesterday, I tackled that shrub, and managed to dig it out. So I moved it around to the side of the house. Greg had to help me replant it, as I couldn't get the hole dug out quite deep enough. But that's a huge relief, not having that shrub in the way. Later this spring I'll remove the other one, and that whole area will finally be ready to finish.


The plans for that corner are to add two more rain barrels, but there's some work that needs done there first. We get a lot of rain overrunning from the roof in that corner, and I want to grade that corner better, piling up dirt higher against the foundation and sloping it away from the house. Once I do that, I have to figure out a way to get three rain barrels into that corner, level ... some kind of little leveled platforms stuck into the grade mound, I'm thinking. Those 3 barrels are going to take up a huge portion of that corner, and with the difficulty keeping that area watered since it's under the awning, I'm thinking about not trying to turn this into such a flower bed after all, and use it as more of a utility area. I already have a few things planted there from last year (some of which are starting to come up) - a fern, a bleeding heart, and a couple hostas - which I may be moving them somewhere else.

Anyway - it was good to be out in the gardens yesterday. I'm extremely bummed that after today the temperature's supposed to drop again for some time. I'm really ready for it to get warm and stay warm.