Here is a picture of the mulch. You can also see the sandy soil we need to deal with.
This one is a shot looking towards the back with my gardening playground.
Here is a picture of the mulch. You can also see the sandy soil we need to deal with.
This one is a shot looking towards the back with my gardening playground.
OK, I just got one of my maple seeds to sprout. it is still a very tiny tine plant with one leaf. What next? (Of 12, only one sprouted.)
I spent a couple hours yesterday after work on my ongoing back garden. I posted on a thread that disappeared that I was having trouble getting rid of a bad weed. I still can’t identify this weed but the tarp method did not kill it. I put a tarp over the weeds for a few weeks. I pulled it up yesterday and they were still sprouting!
It was a horrible job but I started digging and pulling the weeds up. With the weeds came the top layer of the soil. It was almost like pulling up grass. So I put this stuff into trash bags and they were too heavy to move! Today I am sore and feel glad I got some of it bagged and need to find a strong person to help with the bagged weeds and dirt.
I will try and post a pic of the site if I can figure out how. It will be neat to do a before and after. My neighbors came over and looked at me like I must be crazy. They are right but I have a plan for this small area that is full of weeds and could be so much more.
Get some RoundUp or equivalent, spray the bejesus outta your weeds, and THEN bung the weedmat down to prevent resprouting.
I bought a package of seeds and they recently sprouted in a pot. It is called,“Cat Grass” and cats really love it. I did it for my clients cats and it is so cool to watch how fast it grows.
Ok, I will get some Round Up. today! Thanks so much. Pesky weeds… :mad:
Whew, where to start. I had 4 yards of black mulch delivered Friday. It’s probably more than I need but with that minimum volume delivery is free. Holey crap but that’s a lot to spread. Some evenings my back really makes its displeasure known.
As mentioned before we moved recently to a bigger home. The grounds are really nicely done but very formal. I’m working to “soften” the look of the formal hedges, letting the severly trimmed shrubs grow out some, planting more color and adding a lot of elements to what was a more rigid structure. It’s a challenge but at the same time very rewarding.
Put in 6 flats of Ruellia this weekend to fill what was lost in a pretty rough freeze. While all in place was the blue, I added patches of pink as well. 2 flats of Giant Liriope went in and 4 of the regular. I added Begonia in a couple of intimate places where really we’re the only ones that can see them, behind hedges and by a door for instance.
There are two beds between the pool and patio where I pulled everything and started over fresh. Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Chinese Lanterns, Ardesia, Japanese Maples, Ioxora, Natal, Tacoma Stans (Yellow Bells) and Sword Ferns now fill them and are taking root. Combined with the Star Jasmine on the fence behind, the smell is heavenly.
There are 14 large Italian Cypress, 11 of which are vertical. I’m staking one leaner and will sadly have to remove and replace one other. It’s gonna take awhile to catch up to the rest. One though was intentionally planted at an angle coming out of a large leaning vase. It starts out at a 45 degree angle and then curves upward. I’ll post a pic later, really cool looking.
The Sago Palms needed frost burned fronds cut out. I have 3 monstorous ones and the cuttings about filled an entire oversized trash can. New growth is suddenly coming out on all of them. One plant in particular has 11 new groups of fronds coming out. I love the soft green new growth, so much nicer to work with than the needlish nature they take on later. They’re also putting out that huge yellowish protubance in the middle. I need to do a little research and gain a better understanding of their pollen and growth cycle. One thing that was kinda wild; a week ago I found a dead mouse inbetween the needlish fronds and the middle, kinda buried in that orangish gnarly middle. A day leter it was gone. It’s almost impossible to get right in there so I’m really curious what was able to stash and retrieve it from there.
My newly planted Birds of Paradise are sending out gorgeous flowers like crazy. We’ll have plenty to cut for and keep filled the entry room vase.
Lots to stay busy with this year but I’d not have it any other way.
Heh, that too, Cicero, looks to be in the neighborhood of around 3 1/2 to 4 yards.
Another Southern Hemisphere person here… To me May means I should have put the winter bulbs in last month already. And we have such lovely winter bulbs! But I have so much work right now, I’m just not in gardening mode. Maybe this thread will help get me out there and planting.
I have 4 tomato plants that have grown so well and tall that they have now reached the underside of my roof. I guess I need to cut off the top of the plants. They are covered with blooms and baby tomatoes. This is an unusual situation for me as my plants don’t usually do well.
There is a purple heirloom, a yellow pear, a cherry and a standard tomato plant. I am keeping the bird feeder on the other side of the house full to act as a bird decoy.
Envious My poor bird-of-paradise has been put through the ringer. It’s been attacked by a vine that likes to strangle its victims and then lubber grasshoppers and then the tree next to it got to big and shaded it too much. It keeps hanging in there, I trimmed the tree and try to fertilize the BoP and pick off the vines and lubbers as soon as I see them but the poor thing hasn’t flowered for years.
I paid someone to cut my lawn (aka weeds) today because they weeds were just getting too big and I either don’t have the time or energy or it’s just too frickin’ hot. I got a good price and this leaves me free to work on other yard things if I get the time or energy and it’s not too frickin hot.
Most tomatoes are indeterminate, and need to continue growing from the tips.
I won’t have much to contribute this year. The only thing I put real effort into is starting Green Zebra tomatoes from seed, and this year they all died.
You’re growing maples from seeds? I usually buy trees as saplings, as they take 20 years or so to grow up… So you’re not expecting to harvest some maple syrup this year, are you? I guess what’s next is just watch it grow. Keep it watered, but not too much. A little bit of plant food in the spring.
Come to think of it, I have a grapefruit tree I started from a seed I found in a grapefruit I was eating. It’s my pride and joy.
This is a really fun thread. Thanks for starting it, Cat Whisperer.
I have a redbud that I just transplanted into a permanent home that started as a sprout next to one of my gutter downspouts. It’s probably a few years away from actually blooming in the spring, but it’s a pretty shape and I figure I’ll be dead and gone before it’s really tree-sized and an annoyance for a future homeowner.
I imagine it’s cool to watch a maple grow from a baby. If I were you, Khadaji, I’d eventually pot it and then shelter the pot in the winter (maybe just dig a hole and place the pot in it) until you know where you want to put it permanently (and, of course, are sure that it’s going to make it). I’d be interested in hearing from anyone else who has grown trees as I’m by no means an expert.
I’m really impressed by everything you’re both doing, Cicero and lieu.
Not so much when you get a couple of hundred coming up in the garden every year…
I’m in northern Japan, and the season is late this year. We still have cherry blossom out, and my tulips and daffodils are in full bloom right now.
We have a small garden compared to you in the US, but ours is about four times bigger than the plots that people have in most of mainland Japan.
We have a tiny vegetable plot that I got up and running this week. I planted one packet each of snap peas, sweetcorn, red kabu (turnippy thing, not beetroot), daikon radish, spring onions and salad greens. That is all we have space for. When the corn comes up I’ll plant some runner beans to run up the corn. Round the back of the house I’m doing two raised beds and they will have strawberries (permanently) and tomatoes (this year). IF I can get them sorted out in the next couple of weeks…
Ooh - nice hardscaping.
At this point, I pretty much just use a spade to get rid of things I don’t want in my yard.
I’d like to have a Japanese Maple here, but they’re a little too expensive and not quite hardy enough. Maybe if I can figure out a perfect, warm, sheltered spot. As for staying busy, I worry that I won’t have anything to do once all my plans are done. Then I remembered that gardening is never done.
No problem - nothing like talking plants.
When we drove down to Kansas, I had to find out what those pretty pink trees were everywhere - they are lovely.
Yes, please!
This is the summer I can get back into it. When we bought this house in 2007, the back yard was a parking lot for its 5 apartments. The front had been ‘landscaped’ with about 6 inches of crushed brick with no plastic down under the brick, making it Hell to dig the thistles and dandelions out. We’ve had other priorities in our renovations (ripping out 5 apartments, rewiring, replumbing, moving the stairs, reframing, insulating…) so that last summer was when I scraped the asphalt and broke up the concrete off the back yard. This summer, we dig the front and back down about a foot, fill with top soil and triple mix, and I get to play in the dirt for the first time in 3 years.
We’re starting with the third floor deck, where I will have 28 feet x 6 inches of boxes at ground level and the same at the top of the railing. Ground level will be tall annuals like oat grass, climbing annuals like ivy and sweet peas and some shorter annuals at the front. On the railing will be shorter annuals.
Front yard may get a bunch of assorted annuals just to see how everybody does with light this year. I’m in no hurry - this place is the pine box special that I leave to the kids. Longer term, it’ll be perennials - one of the big things I love doing is having a balance of early spring, summer and late bloomers throughout so that there’s always something past, something happening and something about to happen. Couple of evergreen shrubs for over the winter and I’m happy.
Back yard I’m under tremendous pressure to have a lawn, so I’ll be restricted to beds about 8 inches wide all along the fence line. Again, probably annuals this year - see who does what and then do perennials next year.
I probably won’t get to it this summer, but we sistered all the joists under the roof so it’ll take the weight. I’d love to get some ‘whisky barrel’ sized pots up there on the flat roof to grow tomatoes, corn and basil. It’s a three storey house, so the roof gets 18+ hours of sunlight in June, July and August…
And it’s so great to have dug the Lois Hole books out of storage - she wrote some of my favourite gardening porn…
Oooooh, we definitely need pictures!
I am revelling in mulch, myself. Bark mulch, the fine stuff. (And boy, wear gloves, or else you get the niftiest tiny splinters in your hands.) I am covering up Ugly (old paved areas and weedy areas) with landscaping fabric, layers of newspaper, then bark mulch. I’m trying to simplify the yard so it’s “easy care”. But it’s hard work getting to “easy care”!
Our rhodos are all bursting out–glorious deep pinks and reds and purples, heavy with flowers. I do like the rhodos, though they are so common here, as they are nicely green all year round.
I can’t figure out if I have a volunteer clematis or a look-a-like climbing up one of my roses. I pinched off a leaf to compare it to the known clematis, and it looked identical, but we had a plant in the back that sure looked like a clematis, but wasn’t. (Or it wasn’t a blooming variety.)
The roses are in bud, annuals are in containers, bark mulch awaits more spreading tomorrow night. 'Tis the season of dirty hands and sore knees, and it feels so good.
I love sitting amid the results of my work, and I even enjoy the summer ritual of “weed n’ read”. A little reading, a little weeding; a little reading…