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.
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