Actual Gardening!

I did some actual gardening yesterday.  I really wanted to stay in bed, but my husband dragged me out so we could plant the butterfly bushes my Aunt gave to us.  I ended up really enjoying myself.  It was good to be outside, in the sun, and to become familiar with the garden again.

I wish I had some photos of the new bed.  I found the camera, but I'm still working on the cord...plus my memory card is full.  I'm a mess.

Another awful MS Paint garden plan...

In the "plan" above, the four large multi-colored circles are the newly planted butterfly bushes.  We had a fifth white bush, but we ended up using it in a different bed.  The three small olive green circles are clumps of Siberian iris we received from my parents as pass-along-plants (possibly Caesar's Brother).  We had stuck them along the fence back in May without delineating the bed, so they were hidden in ridiculously tall grass.  The dark green blob at the bottom and oval at the top are probably skimmia.  I'm still investigating, but they're a low growing evergreen shrub with red berries that does not appear to be a holly.  And finally, the small green circle at the top is a mountain laurel.


I actually have an old picture of the mountain laurel!

We used "mulch" from where our trees were removed and the stumps were ground out to cover the bed.  This isn't usually recommended since fresh wood chips can rob the soil of nitrogen when they decompose.  We let the wood chips age for over two months, so it shouldn't be too bad.  I'm also planning to apply a combination nitrogen/phosphate fertilizer when I plant bulbs in this bed later in the fall.

Did you do any gardening this weekend?

Garden Parts: Along the Fence

I'm still going through my old photos.  I'm not exactly sure where my camera is right now and I haven't had a chance to take any new photos.  This one shows the arbor leading into the woodland path, circa May.  The plant growing on it is a climbing hydrangea.  To the front/right of the arbor are about five sections of split rail fence between our yard and our neighbor's backyard.

Back in June, we had two trees removed from this general area and our neighbor had a couple of trees removed.  The end result is, this part of the yard is sunnier than any other part.  For a little while, I thought about maybe putting in raised vegetable beds.  My experiments with pots and planters on the deck have not been especially successful.  However, I've decided to put in a deep border along the fence as a butterfly garden.

Most of my plants/shrubs bloom in the spring, so the focus of this bed would be summer and fall interest.  Also, my wonderful Aunt got me five(!) butterfly bushes as a thank you for letting her stay with us for a couple of weeks.  Completely unnecessary, but it helped me figure out what I want to do with this bed.  Butterflies and summer interest, but also a sort of tribute to my Mom. 

My very English mother grew up in Plymouth just after World War II.  Her gardening style has always had a touch of southern England to it and her gardens have always had buddleia in them.  I remember reading about butterfly bushes as a symbol of rebirth after the war, when they were seen growing out of bombed houses.  When I visited England back around 2000, I was surprised at the number of buddleia I saw growing in public settings...it's just not a shrub you see much in the United States.  So - the five butterfly bushes my Aunt has given me will be the backbone to the garden.

In between will be some of my Mom's favorite plants.  Herbs, because she had a huge herb garden and volunteered as a docent for the herb garden at the National Arboretum.  Annuals that self-seed in her garden every year, like cleome, balsam, and four o'clocks.  Daffodils, because they were her favorite flower and bloomed in front of the courthouse on her wedding day.  And primroses, because I used to get her one every year on her birthday.  I'm sure other plants will fill in as well, as the years go by.

This weekend, I'll be busy cleaning up, finding my camera, and planting bushes.  I hope to have some new photos next week.

Garden Parts: The side-bed

There's not much I can say about the side bed.  It's got a mild slope.  It's on the west side of the house, so it's mostly shady.

Gotta love the ivy taking over the house!

There's a rhododendron!  Hey, that's cool.  It's doing alright, but didn't really bloom this year.

The only other stuff in the bed is ivy and something-I-think-might-be Virginia creeper.

So - what are my plans? 

1. Dig out the ivy and vines

2. ....

I'll figure out step two after I finish with step one.  I think I need to find some shade loving shrubs for that side of the house, but I'm not sure if I want to do more rhododendrons or something different, like Japanese Aucuba with hakoechloa underneath. 

Exotic plants two days in a row?   What's the world coming to?

In other news, my shipment from Bluestone arrived yesterday.  All of the plants are in good shape, so I'm looking forward to a nice gardening weekend. 

Do you have any plans (garding or otherwise) for the long weekend?

Garden Parts: The Deck

It's a rainy day, which really isn't fair.  I had a long week and was hoping for a few nice hours in the garden this morning.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better -- it will be my first official bloom day and I want to get some nice shots of the garden.

Since it's too muddy to tromp about in the yard today, I decided to focus on the deck.  It's part of the garden, after all, and ours has quite a bit going on.

And right here is where I realize I don't have much to say about the deck....the plan is pretty self-explanatory.  

Top row: Lime tree and strawberry pot, herbs and tomatoes, annuals in a deck planter
Middle row: hanging basket, peas and carrots from seed, radishes from seed
Bottom row: palm trees, kcups with seedlings, more annuals in another deck planter

And here are the pictures, which are terrible since it's so gray out today.  I tried to jazz them up a little by putting them in a fancy collage.  Did it help?

I'm not sure how all of this stuff is going to hold up over the summer.  In the past, I haven't had much luck with containers (mainly because I forgot to water them and the plants ended up dying).  However, this deck is right outside our family room and we use it more than we ever used our old patio.

I guess I'll see how this year goes.  If tomatoes get enough sun to grow well on our deck and if we keep up with watering, I'll see if hubby can somehow route a hose up there.  If the annuals in the deck planters do well, I'll get a couple more deck planters next year and try growing some herbs in them.

What do you have growing on your deck/patio?  Do your plants die in the middle of summer like mine usually do?

Garden Parts: The Driveway

This bed is on the opposite side of the driveway from the mailbox bed.  It's a quite a jumble of plants and weeds.

I would like to make this bed match the mailbox bed as much as possible.  One thing I like about it is that it has the bright red azalea, which is also in the mailbox bed and on the far corner of our front yard.  I think those three azaleas help show the boundaries of our front yard and unify three seperate areas.  Another great thing about this bed is it doesn't look quite so dead over the winter because of all the evergreen shrubs.

Right now, the bed features a mugo pine and a bird's nest spruce up front, which I plan on keeping and trimming.  There's another unidentified evergreen shrub which I'll keep, a clump of volunteer holly I will probably pull up, and a fairly stunted nandina .  As far as perennials go, there are some fall chrysanthemums practically underneath the Mugo Pine (I'll try to move these), there are some plants that look like they could be daylillies, and there's  a cluster of Sedum.  In addition to the large red azalea, I found a tiny pink azalea (basically one stick, three leaves, and one flower).  There are also a lot of weeds, saplings, and debris that need to be cleaned up.



A tree growing through an azalea.

Since the mailbox bed is not going to be designed until next year, I guess I'll focus on weeding in this bed for now.  Next year, I'll edge it with whatever perennials are used in the mailbox bed.  I'm especially leaning towards monarda, perovskia, bearded iris, shasta daisies, lavender, rosemary, creeping phlox and thyme.  If I end up using nandina behind the mailbox, I'll probably mirror that in this bed as well. 

Garden Parts: The Mailbox



This is another bed that needs some work.  It is out in front of the house and is one of the first things anyone who pulls into the driveway sees.  Although it looks good right now, it is mostly azalea and will be pretty boring once they're done blooming. 



The top photo is this week, the bottom is from a couple of weeks ago...the flowers make a big difference.

There are two other shrubs in this bed - one unidentified deciduous and one shrub rose (possibly a knockout).  As far as perennials go, there is a clump of bearded iris, a couple of salvias, and a possible astilbe.  Earlier in the spring, a couple of clumps of daffodils came up along with a scattering of grape hyacinth.

   

The current plan

I really need to find a better way to draw garden plans...this is totally not to scale.  The grey part is a concrete slab that extends behind the mailbox -- I'm not sure what that's for or whether we can get rid of it.  The green plants are labelled, everything else is an azalea.

What I'd like to do:

• Incorporate some evergreen shrubs into this bed.  Even with the "evergreen" azaleas, over the winter this bed looks like a bunch of dead bushes.  If we can remove part of the concrete slab, I'd like to move the two boxwoods from the island bed to either side of the mailbox.  Then, I'd put three tallish nandinas (Gulf Stream?  maybe even taller) behind the mailbox in a loose triangle formation.
• Incorporate some perennials that will flower in the summer and fall.  The salvias are a good start, but not enough.  Between the azaleas and the mailbox, I'd put some taller things: more bearded iris, monarda, perovskia, shasta daisies, and possibly some lillies.
• Round out the bed a little.  I'd like to make it a little bigger and less boxy.  At the same time, I'd like to fill in the outside of the azaleas so there's a transition between the shrubs and the lawn.  I'd prefer to use shorter evergreen-ish perennials to do this, things like arabis, aremeria, dianthis, iberis, lavender, phlox (xreeping), rosemary, sedum (creeping varieties), sempervivum, and thyme.
• Plant a couple of clematis vines (or something else) that can be trained over the mailbox.

This is one of the only spots in the garden with a lot of sun, so it is really the only area for me to enjoy my favorite sun perennials.  My biggest concern is whether I be able to keep up with weeding, deadheading, and dividing.  In my old yard, my perennial beds got quite shabby at times, but it didn't matter since they were hidden in the back.  In this yard, it will be out for everyone to see.

I have lots of time to think about it.  Unlike the island bed, I do not plan on doing much more in the mailbox bed this year than weeding, replacing the mulch, and planting some annuals.
Do you have a mailbox bed?  What works and what doesn't work for you?

Garden Parts: The Island

I've been in this house for close to ten months and I still haven't gotten a garden plan down on paper.  The yard is too big and there are too many plants for me to document everything all at once.  I decided I'll just do it piece by piece, starting with "the island".

The island sits in the middle of the front yard and hides our well.  It is made up of three Japanese holly (ilex crenata, variety undetermined) on the left and three azaleas (I think...variety also undetermined) on the right.  There are a few bulbs that are coming up around the bed and I think I found Virginia bluebells behind the holly bushes.  Pretty plain, but the shrubs are evergreen and it looks like the azalea is about to flower and...

Oh wait...


???

I forgot about those.  There are also two boxwoods (buxus, species undetermined) on the far right. 


We're watching you!

On one hand, the shrubs were spaced appropriately.  Often, you see shrubs this size placed fairly close together.  It looks better at first, but the bushes end up being crowded.  Also -- I like boxwood.  I think they have pleasing habit and can look really nice in the right setting.

This is not the right setting. 

There is a reason garden designers tell you to plant shrubs in odd numbers (the exception is formal foundation plantings, where you would an equal number of plants on each side of an entrance or window).  If you look carefully above, you can see there is a third shrub!  I thought it was some sort of crape myrtle, but I need to do more investigation.  Even though there are three shrubs, since only two are evergreen, this "design" still looks pretty strange.

While this doesn't look strange at all...

I need to find something better than mspaint, because the plan I came up with looks vaguely medical and a little disturbing.

Basically, I want to make the bed a little bigger.  I want to make it curvier: kidney shaped rather than oblong.  I want to remove the boxwoods and mystery bush.  I want to add one largish tree (the pink one, most likely a redbud of some sort) and two smaller trees (I'm leaning towards serviceberries).  Although the plan doesn't show it, I would then add some perennials in front of the japanese holly and azaleas.  Of the top of my head, I'm thinking heuchera, since the red or chartreuse varieties would really pop in front of the solid green of the bushes.  I'd also plant more bulbs and might try to put hostas* under the trees.

Right now, redesigning this bed is my number one priority.  It's in front of our house and I cringe every time I look at those two boxwoods.

What would you do to change this bed?  Do you have any suggestions for trees/perennials?

*I still don't have a great idea of how well hostas last in our deer infested neighborhood.  I love hostas, but I need to be realistic about whether I'd be able to stay on top of spraying them.