Another Very Good Gardening Day

It was a very good gardening weekend.

I made a lot of progress in the "spare room window / utility area" ...




I built up the berm around the foundation to help keep the water away from that area - we tend to have water over-run at this spot, the gutters seem insufficient to handle the convergence of water in the corner, and I don't want it puddling up against the foundation. Got the rain barrel painted and set up - I thought I'd gotten beige paint, but turns out I got dark brown. That's okay too, though. I didn't think about painting the PVC pipe until it was all set up, and I'm unsure whether I'm going to do that or not. If I do, it won't be that dark brown. I considered an antique brass or something, make it look all steampunky. I'll have to think on that.

But one of the real surprises this weekend is, I actually got to begin branching out into the rest of the yard - out of the 'dining room garden,' which is the only place I've been working for the past two years. The way things were going, I thought it might be another year or two before I got this far.

This is the next area of interest ... "the lamp post area," and around behind the tree.


Here's the area before ...




... and after. The grass was growing in this area only in sporadic clumps, not a solid lawn - so I had no compunction about getting in there with the trowel and just digging up the clumps, to clear out that space. And I cleaned up my little rose - in the picture above you can barely see it, it's to the left of the lamp post and clematis.


I'm pretty sure this rose is close to 15 years old. My dad got it for me not long after I'd bought the old house, which was in 1994 - so I probably got the rose in 1996 or so. It occasionally dies back almost completely, then rallies. That's what it did this winter - the whole top of it was dead, with just this little bit of new growth at the bottom. So when I was working in this area this weekend, I was able to clean it up, pruning off the dead bits, clearing away the grass that was growing up through the middle of it. Now it should do much better.

Since I can't do the whole yard, or even a very large chunk of it, all at once, I have to work in small sections. I'd decided to focus next on that area behind the tree and in front of the line of shrubs, and around the lamp post. Now that I've got a good start, the next steps are (a) make sure I have soaker hose throughout the area; (b) get the additional rain barrels (one won't be enough to keep this area well-watered later in the season when it doesn't rain much); and (c) choose the plants I want to put here. There's not much more grass growing in that area, anyway, so that's not much of an issue.

The soaker hose that runs along the fence line for the impatiens is long enough to wrap around into this area a bit, and I already have the second soaker hose ready to install. I'm just waiting for Star Supply to get those rain barrels in, or else find an alternate source for them. The area they're going (next to the existing one) is all set up and ready for them.

Finding a good variety of shade plants, and figuring out how to plant under that tree, had been primarily what held me back from doing more out here last year. But today, I found something that's going to help enormously:


I ran onto this book that seemed to be written just for me ... all about creating wonderful landscapes in shady areas, even under established trees, like what I have to deal with in the front yard. The author goes into good detail about what you have to do to plant gardens in and around tree roots without harming the tree, so finally - some good information on how this is done. This has finally encouraged me that I can actually do this, the way I envision it.

There are two problems planting underneath an established tree. One, the new plants tend to not do well, as they have to compete with the tree roots for moisture and nutrients, and a large established tree usually wins. And two, you have to be careful not to damage the tree itself. For example, digging even the smallest plant hole around a tree with shallow roots (like my maples) can be a real challenge, but you can't just haul in a foot of topsoil and dump all over the place, as tree roots - odd as this seems, being underground - have to breathe. If you dump too much on top of the ground, they will 'suffocate' and weaken the tree, if not kill it eventually.

So planting under a tree takes some planning and finesse. But this book explains several ways to solve those problems (which I'll post about when I do the actual work), so ... I'm encouraged. I think it will also help that I'll be doing this in stages, so that any changes I make that the tree has to adjust to will only be around part of its root system, not the whole thing at once.

The book also has hundreds of plants that will do well in this type of environment. That's a bonus, as other plants books I have or have looked at cover plants for all areas, which means that 75% of the plants in the book are for sunny areas, and no use to me, yet anyway. Having a book dedicated to nothing but shade plants is really helpful, and I shouldn't have any problem finding a nice variety to fill out my garden.

So, lots of progress for so early in the year. I think this will be a good year for the garden.

Ahhh ... The Magic Of Dirt

Today was good. I've been having a rather rough time lately, but today helped. The weather was decent, and I spent almost the entire day playing in the dirt. Though I'm now exhausted and in a lot of pain, it's a better pain than I'm used to ... and I realized I didn't think about anything disturbing all day. There's much to be said for the magic of dirt.

While I still haven't managed to branch out from my initial limited area of focus - the 'dining room garden' as I call it, as it's the area right outside the dining room door - at least I did make major progress in that area.

This section, known as the "spare room window garden" - because it's underneath the spare room window - is undergoing transformation.


I planned, last year, to plant it up and even have a little fountain of some type. But I've since scrapped that idea. First, I plan to add two more rain barrels over here (if Star Supply ever gets any more of these white barrels in, which they claim they will, some day ...) and that's going to take up a lot of room, and also detract from the gardeny prettiness of the area anyway (though I do plan to paint them beige and try to make it look somewhat decent). Also, with the addition of the garden hose thingy and a wish to expand the area available for the table and chairs by adding some patio blocks alongside the sidewalk, I just decided to turn this into more of a utility area.

Oh, yeah - the garden hose thingy - been wanting one of these forever.


Love it. The connector hose (the yellow one) is a little long, but it happened to be laying around with the proper ends already on it, so I didn't want to re-do it to change the length. I'm not 100% sure where this hose holder will ultimately be, after that shrub is relocated, so for now I'm just letting it hang out here till I sort it all out. Then I'll adjust the feeder hose.

Last year I had planted two hostas, a bleeding heart, and a fern over there. I moved the two hostas today, but haven't moved the bleeding heart yet as I'm not sure where it's going. I think I killed the fern ... it's under the awning and so got no natural rainwater at all, which means I'd have had to have been watering it this spring, but the rain barrel was disconnected for winter and not hooked back up, and I basically just forgot to water it with the hose. So ... no fern. :(

But, I'll give it a few more weeks, as I remember a fern I had once before, at the old house, never began to come up until like June. So just in case, I'll keep an eye on it.

Meanwhile, I still have work to do in this area, but didn't get to it today because I was busy with the rest of this.

This is the 'dining room window' area, which is coming along nicely. Though I can never get a decent picture of it, it looks much better in person ...


The azaleas always look scraggly, which may be because they kind of still are. They're only a year or two old, so still establishing themselves. After they bloom this year, I plan to prune them up a little bit, as I've read that doing so will make them fuller and bushier, instead of spindly and leggy like they are now.

I added the two hostas I moved from the 'spare room window garden' behind them, and also a new fern which I just got today (to replace the one I :( killed ... though if it does survive, I have other places to move it to). As I mentioned, in person, it looks really cool - even though it's all "just green," the different shades and textures make for a really awesome look.


Right now it looks a little odd because the hostas and fern, which are behind the azaleas, are smaller than the azaleas. But I'm going to wait and see how this plays out, because (a) I have no intention of moving those azaleas, and (b) hostas can get huge (I had a couple monstrous ones at the old house) and that fern - a Japanese Painted Fern - is supposed to also get quite large - though I find it hard to believe, the plant tag said, I think, something like 24" to 36". Wow. So if they do as I believe they will, and if I keep the azaleas pruned, then it should all work out okay, size-wise.

I also spent a lot of time fixing up the soaker hose today. I had it all laid out and staked down from the last (only) warm weekend we had this spring, but ended up completely taking it up and starting over. Then I went to put my splitter / valve in. As I mentioned before, the hostas and fern are totally under the awning and so will get no natural rain, and will need watered regularly using the rain barrel. However, everything from there forward will get rain. I couldn't just open up the rain barrel and water the whole bed when the rest of it had had plenty of rain, or I'd flood out the front. So I cut the soaker hose and intended to put in a connector valve, so I can close off the bottom half and, when I need to, only water the hostas and fern. But I had the wrong size connectors, so ... another trip to Home Despot tomorrow. Oh damn. ;o)

Then, the coup de grace.




I bought a flat of Impatiens today, and actually got them planted. Well, most of them. And yeah, this looks like nothing right now ... but I know that these will take off and fill this area entirely by mid-summer.

Tomorrow (or the next time I get to work out here) I'm going to be placing another soaker hose along here, which will eventually get connected to the other rain barrel (the white one). So these Impatiens will be getting supplemental water from the rain barrel, which means I know they'll do astoundingly well.

This has been the bane of my existence for many years, I'd buy flowers but be unprepared to plant them when I bought them, and often just leave them to end up dying in their flats (exactly what I did last year). I hate when I do that. This year, that's not happening, because I had all the planting beds ready (for a change) when I got them, and I didn't buy too many at once - just the ones I knew I could actually get to today (or soon).

Okay, I didn't actually get them all planted, only because I'm now crippled with pain from the day's work and had to stop. But if it doesn't rain all day tomorrow, I'll be back to it and finish up then. The ones that are left are going in front of the azaleas. I'd like to add a little more variety to the garden, instead of all impatiens for annuals, but I haven't consulted my gardening books yet this year, and am unsure what other annuals (or small-sized perennials) I can plant in front of the azaleas, where it is mostly shady all day long. Last year I tried some violas, but they did lousy ... in part because I think they need more sun, and in part because I didn't have the soaker hose hooked up and so didn't get them watered enough. So for now, at least I know Impatiens will work.

I'm learning, slowly - pay attention to the growing environment and work with it. You can't plant things that need 8 hours of sun in a spot that's deep shade all day. Duh. And while I have no issue with annuals - largely because they're wonderful in that they often bloom all season - eventually I'd like to have the garden be primarily perennials, and native perennials at that. Still working on that.

So that was my day ... and I'm very pleased, and looking forward to working out there more in the coming weeks.

Soon I hope to begin branching out to past the fence, behind the tree, and the area around the lamp post. I want to plant more native perennials out there, and add a bird bath. Baby steps ... but I'm on my way to that NWF Certified Wildlife Habitat which is half the goal of all this landscaping - the other half being just because I've always wanted to do this, have really nice gardens and landscaping - and finally have a place where it will actually look like something. (but inviting the local critters to hang out and be comfy in my yard is a huge, huge bonus!)