I gardened my butt off today
Dug a new bed around the mailbox and moved some mums that didn’t belong where I had them before. I moved the no-bog northern cranberry to the bottom right of this picture and a couple of new low perennials to bottom left.
This year it looks -eh- NEXT year it’s gonna be beautiful!
Taking Over The Front Yard
The grass wasn’t doing all that well anyway. 🙂
I’ve begun to dig beds for the many perennials and bulbs I’ve been collecting in the last couple of weeks. I’ve had a chance to dig some of the plants in where I imagine they will stay for some time.
- Moved the Mums, the cranberry and a couple of new low perennials to a new mailbox bed and moved the boxwoods I put by the mailbox (see the photo here) back to the foundation.
- Planted a new yucca plant in the cranberry’s old spot.
- Moved 3 purple coneflower from one foundation bed spot to another – making room for a dwarf mountain laurel I have my eye on.
- Also in the foundation bed, I moved some hostas from the sun to the shade on the other side of the yard and put a new dwarf willow in that sunny spot.
- Planted a new butterfly bush near the blueberries I put in last fall.
- Planted 3 palace purple heuchera on the north east corner of the house. I pray these cuties do well here because they get morning sun and will look really beautiful if they get nice and full in this spot, right at the top of the driveway.
- Moved an existing, low, spreading azalea up to the front of the north wall bed – who knows how long this shrub was in it’s old spot but it was in an area with hard packed clay and had a small ball of topsoil surrounding the roots. I think it will do MUCH better where I put it because I dug a lot of topsoil and compost into the bed and turned everything over deeply, giving the roots plenty of room to reach out.
- Planted a new Pieris Japonica Prelude my Mom got me for my birthday in the Azalea’s old spot after I amended the bed and dug it all up really well.
- I got some lambs ear from a generous free-cycler and put some near the boxwoods surrounding the flagpole.
- Dug a new corner bed next to Phil’s yard where I put some of the lambs ear, one of the boxwoods and put a bit of my HUGE foundation hosta that I divided off of it.
How I feel about weed block plastic
I’ve bought dozens of bulbs I need to give homes to, but in attempting to do so have discovered my newest hurdle. The Jamoke I hired to do some landscaping last year (what a nightmare) not only buried most of the landscaping stone that covered both sides of my front yard, but also buried the landscaping FABRIC that lay beneath it.
Now, when trying to dig new beds or install bulbs within the grass and weeds that comprise my lawn, I can’t just dig down 4 to 6 inches and toss them in and cover them up – as Organic Gardening would have me do.
I have to dig down, remove enough of the soil and rocks to allow me to rip out all that #@$%&! fabric and then loosen the VERY hard earth beneath it before I can put all of it back in the hole. AHHH! What. A. Pain.
The vegetable gardens look like they are winding down
My beans are either drying up or giving up and the tomato plants have more yellow shriveled leaves than green ones at this point.
NEXT YEAR I may put corn in the zucchini/basil spot and put tomatoes in a new bed I dig in front of the corn where the pool was. That’s the area that got the most sun for the longest time each day. The rest of the beds were fine for beans and greens. I’ll put peppers, potatoes and eggplant in the front yard next year. I’m also planning to start a hardscaping project next year and will try to contact a peach flagstone supply company for some flagstones, boulders, etc.
I pulled up the last of the spring planted broccoli raab yesterday 9/9/10, turned over a bin of new compost into the bed and planted some more raab, spinach and garlic there. I’d like to make some more room for garlic in one of the other veggie beds in the next week or so.