Category: gardening

I was only trying to get a photo of all of the new flowers we chose for the patio containers, but the pictures turned out to also be a pretty good before/after comparison of the weeding of the rock wall. In this one, you can see the total chaos that is the rock wall plantings, plus copious forget-me-nots, pansies (with runners), vinca, dandelions, mint, and assorted weeds.

Meanwhile, in this view, you can see the lovely lack of weeds in the rock wall, plus the attractively pruned japanese maple. 🙂

The “after” photo constituted a good four hour’s worth of work, and unfortunately my back doesn’t tolerate a moment more than that these days. The hopeful news is that we are in the middle of June sunlight hours (well past 9 pm!), so I could conceivably divide the remaining wall into chunks and buzz through it after work.

I’m mostly happy with the way the containers turned out. I think they need a little bit more orange and pink – between the creeper (left over from last year, and I can’t find the tag) and the snapdragons, it’s a little bit too much of that lime yellow. Pretty from the top, though!

I have more of Kevin’s macro-lens photos of our yard – the first of the irises bloomed!!

A coworker gave me these when she was thinning hers out three years ago. We had one summer of blooms, and then they sulked all last year. I’d forgotten how beautiful they are.

I love the amazing closeups that are possible with the macro lens – the colors are great.

All of the seedlings on the kitchen counter have been merrily growing away. I’ve been debating what to do about transitioning them to outdoor weather, and when to replant them, but we’re heading out of town for a ten-day east coast trip and I procrastinated long enough that the answer ended up being throwing them into containers the day before we left and hoping they’d survive my absence. Benign neglect has worked surprisingly well in the past, so hopefully a similar strategy will work this time as well.

For the first time ever, I not only have everything in appropriately sized pots, but I actually amended potting soil with compost the way you’re supposed to.

I’m very pleased with myself, especially after such a half-hearted and late attempt last summer.

I have two containers of peas, two beans, one oregon star tomato, one brandywine tomato, a large bowl planter of leeks, and a strawberry pot. The tomato pots still contain multiple seedlings – I’ll thin them a final time once the plants are bigger. I divided up the lavender, but otherwise left the flowers in their seedling trays until I get back. I’ll wait for them to get larger and sturdier and then just transfer them into the ground directly. I bought supplies (aka a lidded bucket and some flexible tubing) to make a drip irrigation system for later in the summer so that I’m not tied to the daily watering, but I didn’t have enough time to get it up and running before we left. Instead, the containers are all in a huddle in the part of the patio that I guessed was most likely to get any rain and sunlight while we were gone.

Grow well, little plants!

We had unusual weather on Sunday – dark clouds to the east and west, and steady sunshine overhead. Kevin took advantage of the light to take some photos.

Our pink tree is still blooming, even though more leaves grow in by the day. I love the angle of this photo, since the yard looks so green (you can’t see the spots where the buttercups and moss are dying, which I need to reseed) and you somehow can’t see the thick layer of pollen coating the table. To the right, just above the rock line, you can see all of my irises. They look so much happier this year – I’m hoping this means they might bloom. One of my coworkers said that they’re petulant flowers, and usually sulk for a good year after being transplanted. I only got one lone flower from about 15 plants last year, so fingers crossed that they’ve worked whatever pique out of their systems and will be extravagant once again this summer.

In the side yard, outside our kitchen window, the azalea’s buds are getting fuller by the day.

We have a deep counter in our kitchen under a large garden window, and it’s a perfect place for growing seedlings. I have one tray of edibles (strawberries, tomatoes, peas, beans, leeks, and stretching the definition a tad, lavender) and one of flowers (dahlias, zinnias, black-eyed susans, foxglove, columbine, and delphinium). I set up a lamp on a timer (with a compact fluorescent bulb) to help supplement the natural light, since that spot doesn’t get constant light and our days are still more cloudy than not. It seems to be doing the trick, as the trays are full of seedlings growing away.

The winners by far are the beans and peas, which are growing exuberantly. Each day they seem to add another half inch or large set of leaves.

We’re still debating where they will get planted – I’m torn between two competing spots for a raised garden (not sure which will get the most sun), and still haven’t entirely ruled out just setting them up in containers again.

Our tree by the patio in the backyard is amazing this year.

Last year, we’d pruned it back hard (with Kevin’s parents’ help) in December. I’d been feeling guilty all winter this year for not getting out and re-pruning, but my guilt disappeared completely after the flowers started to appear. My new plan is to prune after it flowers, and then let it spend all year working toward the next crop of blooms – Spring is definitely its magnificent season.

For the last few weekends, I’ve been making a habit of going around the yard and poaching a few blooms from whatever’s going strong this week. This week, there were two more daffodils (perfect for the tall vase from our wedding day, placed by the sink). Also, the first of the camellias appeared! But they were on the lowest branches and the weight of the blooms bent the flowers face down into the lawn, so I decided we’d enjoy them more on our dining room table.

I’ve been kind of assuming that weed that’s been steadily marching across our yard was clover, even though it had a different leaf edge (frilly vs. smooth), root structure (dense with runners vs. fibrous) and flower (yellow petals vs white/pink/red balls). A very short search on the web turned up this website, which made it clear that we are dealing not with clover, but with buttercups. Hmmm.

A little bit more searching, and I’m increasingly impressed at the scale of the problem. Apparently buttercups, with their runners and thick roots that can grow up to 25 cm deep are a nearly unstoppable force. They thrive in damp and acidic soil. (Check and check.) They crowd out all other life forms. And, to top it off, they’re poisonous and you can get bad rashes if you come in contact with them or breathe the leaves’ oil. Super.

It sounds like we have two options:

The first is to give up on the grass and go for a buttercup yard. The advantages: at this rate of growth, the yard will be all buttercup by the end of the summer, the leaves are genuinely attractive and tolerate mowing well, and buttercups appear to be the only thing that can out-compete the moss. Disadvantages: we’d miss the grass, and some sort of containment is needed to keep the buttercups from marching straight into the garden beds (which they’re also taking over).

The second option is to just start spraying immediately with highly potent broadleaf killers, and to repeat frequently until the last of the stuff is dead. (And then to stay on guard because that root structure is dense, deep, and long-lived.) Advantages: cheap, relatively easy, not too time-intensive, more-or-less effective over time. Plus, Kevin gets to use the chemical sprayer, which makes him cheerful. Disadvantages: toxic chemicals.

The third option is to try to dig it out manually, but we’d have to dig a foot down and replace all of the topsoil to be guaranteed success, and the time investment, difficulty, and expense effectively renders this a non-option.

Sounds like we have weed poison in our future?

We were finishing breakfast yesterday when the sun came out! Brilliant warm light! We basked for about 30 seconds, and then wonderful Kevin hopped up and headed out into the 42-degree sunshine to clean all of our windows.

It makes such a huge difference. He followed it up with weedwhacking the suddenly 10″ tall mess on the top shelf of the yard, blowing all of the sodden, caked-on sawdust off of the patio, and redistributing all of the mulch from when we had the tree stumps ground into the beds along the side of the house.

It looks awesome. He’s a good person. 🙂 Then he headed out with the macro lens to get photos of the dew on the flowers. (As usual, click for big. The detail he gets with the macro lens is beautiful.)

We have lots of buds on the daffodils:

I keep expecting to wake up to find a riot of flowers, but they’ve been keeping tightly curled. We still have just a few partial blooms, and those are all toppled, like the weight of all the rain and the grey made them just want to lie down. Poor despairing flowers.

It appears that something has been snacking on our primroses.

I love the orange-yellow bleed of color on these white primroses.

And the minidaffodils are still looking dainty and bright. I definitely want to plant more of these for next spring.

I went out to admire his handiwork around noon, and discovered that the sun was actually warming things up! It got up to the mid-fifties, and was so pleasant outside in a sweatshirt. We did a quick hardware store run for gardening supplies (weed and moss killers for the lawn — post on this tomorrow — plus new grass seed. We got back and spent the entire rest of the afternoon (until twilight, so after 7) moving from one project to the next. Kevin mowed the lawn (the first time this season!) and then sprayed down the entire yard (front and back, including the top shelf and most of the beds) with broadleaf killer. I put primroses and pansies in the planter by the front walk, and then finally planted the entire 90-bulb bag of sprouting tulips. One of these years I’ll do that in October, when you’re supposed to. I used the handsnips to deadhead and even out a few of the bushes, including the hydrangea by the kitchen window, and then continued on to remove all of the dead plants, branches and runners from the rock wall. I picked up a full yardwaste bin’s worth of downed birch and evergreen branches. Whew. Kevin did a round of moss killing on the driveway, and I potted cilantro for the kitchen window. The yard looks amazing from every window. It’s going to be a treat to come home and see it all week!!

Our yard is still more wintery and ugly than not, but there are starting to be pockets of Spring. The crocuses are blooming in front of the house.

We have a bunch over on the side as well, where they managed to grow through about 6″ of wood chips from the stump grinding in October. I was so discouraged after they were mangled last year that I didn’t bother to plant more bulbs, but seeing them persevere this year I’m thinking I’ll have to get more in the ground. They’re such cheerful things. The hydrangeas are all budding with leaves – it’s a treat to see the green nubs on those woody, dead-looking branches. Quite Secret Garden. The daffodils are starting to bud as well – I’m guessing there will be flowers by next weekend?

I was mystified when I saw flashes of yellow at the top of the rock wall yesterday. When I went up to investigate, I found my mini daffodils!

I’d been wondering why so few had come up in my planters – usually I have about a dozen and this year there are only six sprouts. I assumed that the squirrels must have dug up the bulbs (when in doubt, always blame the squirrels). I must have replanted some of them when I was transplanting irises? I really don’t remember, but it was a lovely surprise. The mini rhododendron behind them has buds that look like they’re about to burst, and when I looked out this morning, the forsythia under the pine trees had bloomed!

Between daylight savings and the natural progression, it’s suddenly light past seven in the evenings. Now we just need the weather to break out of the forties and stop raining, and I can start cleaning things up in the yard after work. The big project for the next few weeks is going to be figuring out what to do with the lawn. The winter seems to have encouraged the clover, moss and weeds. We definitely need to reseed the grass. I’m all opposed to spraying the weeds, but haven’t yet figured out a better solution than nuking all of the undesirables with chemicals, since the clover (if that is in fact what it is) has a huge network of underground runners and is impossible to pull out. Any ideas?

Kevin’s war against the moss progressed a step this weekend – he spent quite a while with a wire brush scrubbing away at the patio, and areas that he cleaned are now spotless.

Unfortunately, the wire brush disintegrated as he worked, and was forced to quit after only a portion of the patio because the brush had been worn down to stubs. Hmm.

While I was out photographing the progress, a delightful sight caught my eyes!

Mini daffodils bulbs coming up in one of my planters!! Once I saw that, I had to go see what else was sprouting, and was completely amazed to find these:

Remember my poor daffodils that actually bloomed through the mesh bag last year? Well, I went and planted them and the tulips in May, but then the stupid squirrels dug all of them up. And then we had a huge tree removed and the stump I’d planted them around was ground up. Yet somehow, it looks like at least twenty made it and are sprouting through the woodchips. I’m so enamoured with their verve for life, especially in the face of such trying circumstances.

Of course, it’s not really Spring quite yet (just to prove it, it snowed again last night).

But what plucky little flowers. 🙂