(1) - careful what you wish for; and
(2) - never trust weather forecasts
I woke up this morning to heavy snow…
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I have a wee sprout of lettuce poking through the dirt!
Alas, the carrots and peas have been dug through by my little grey furry tailed friends.
Offered to help my sister and BIL to clear their garden yesterday. They let it go fallow over winter. By the time I got there, he had already tilled everything out. Asked my sister if she had started anything. BIL interrupted, said starting is stupid, they’ll just toss seeds down in a few weeks and if things grow they grow.
I gave them 90% of the seeds they have for planting. Y’all aren’t wasting them. So we did get some stuff started - we’re about a month out from our “official” last frost day, so there is time.
It’s somewhat sad - my sister is the one who really wanted the garden. Last year she did all the planning, picked everything out. Then she pretty much left it up to him to tend. Some things did not grow at all, some things WAY overgrew. She would like to make changes, but is letting him take over due to him working it last year. There is absolutely no reason why she couldn’t do it, she chose not to. And now is paying for it.
We got our four raised beds built this weekend. Two 2’x10’ beds and two 4’ x 10’ beds. I’ll get them located this week before it snows 6" and then next weekend we’ll fill them with dirt, get the beds hooped, and the trellises built. Our first seedling should go into the ground next week we got them going last weekend and have a plant schedule for the seeds for the next six weeks or so.
Due to the availability of some seeds we’ve had to change some of our plans from earlier and some of the cabbage, and all of broccoli and cauliflower have been eliminated while the acorn squash is either eliminated or will be moved to some ground beds. Also my gojuchang peppers have a 120-140 day growing season so they got moved out of the raised beds and once their seedling sprout they’ll be potted so we can move them indoors in the fall.
In the “North Texas vs. Michigan learning curve” file, I have added the following new information:
Culinary sage (which barely survives a TX summer enough to be worthwhile around Thanksgiving) apparently sails through a mild-ish winter.
I had a potted sage from last year sitting outside - under a few inches of snow at some points - but it’s putting out new growth!
Shishito, Padron, and various tomato starts are in the cold frame waiting for warmer night temperatures.
Ew, sorry.
I got word that the sweet pea trellis I ordered has been shipped, which means it should come just in time to set it up and plant the sweet peas in the ground next to it. They’re just starting to put out tendrils now.
OK! I cleaned up and prepped my garden last weekend, but I didn’t have a chance to write until now.
I’ve had a flower garden in my front yard for … well, this’ll be the fourth year. I love it! It’s almost all perennials, with the occasional annual. Some herbs, which have never made it through the winter (Zone 6B) until this year, possibly because we had a very snowy, but fairly warm, winter.
This year I’ve got in the garden:
Denim 'n Lace Lavender
Coneflower
Millenium Garlic
Hidcote Lavender
First Love Veronica (my favorites!)
Mini Blue Lavender
Russian Sage
Winter Wonder Peach Polar Calendula
Fire Spinner Ice Plant Delosperma
Novation Salmon Dahlia
Only the last two are new; the Ice Plant is an annual.
And in a pot:
Swan Mix Columbine Aquilegia
And in the back, scattered in a big sunny spot along the edge of some woods:
California Poppy, seeds which were a gift from my Secret Santa Rhiannon8404!
It should be a very pretty summer!
In the summer of 2015 my face fell and I have not done any gardening AT All since then. This year I got myself one of those old folk garden seats and have dedicated myself to spending at least 20 minutes a day doing something out there.
First two things I’ve tried to tackle is the unknown plant that grows inside my rose bush. In previous years I’d beaten the thing into the ground and even CHAINSAWED the remains underneath the dirt in the spring of '15. It came back in the last 6 years. I have sat in my garden chair with snippers, clippers and a saw (just a hand one, not the chainsaw) and have cut it down to the best of my (comprimised) ability. It has been suggested to me to drill as deep as I can into the stub/stump and pour salt in it. However this thing grows right in the middle of my rose bush with smaller offshoots trying to take over the flanking hostas and I’m afraid salting this. . . thing will kill the plants I want.
The second thing I’m trying to do is get the plot right under the bay window to, well, not look like it belongs to an abandoned haunted house. This plot is planted with perennials which have gone wild. But the worst thing was done by me. On the other side of the stairs I planted morning glories. BIG MISTAKE!!! Those MFers jumped the steps the that very first year and have been a strangling nuisance ever since. I’ve spend a lot of time pulling those evil things up. The Endless Summer hydrangeas are not bushes any more but long limbed stalks and the irises seemed to have grown in the asphalt walkway (!) in front of the plot.
I am old and weak and have no stamina. Any advice on how to win back my garden would be appreciated. Especially advice on dealing with my rose bush nemesis and the irises.
Pitcher plant put out some nice blossoms this year:
One of my all time favorites
I am sorry Biggirl. I wish I had some decent advice for you on the rose bush. I have the same problem with an abelia that’s in my front garden - a river birch seed managed to get into the middle of it and grew rather large before I even noticed it was there. It’s now impossible to be rid of - the root of it is right next to the where the abelia’s is, and trying to really eradicate it is impossible. So every damn year, I cut the birch off as close to the ground as I can. Lather, rinse, repeat. The only other thing I could do is dig out the entire abelia and then remove the root of the birch. That isn’t going to happen. So I just do what I can.
You should be able to prune the hydrangeas back a lot and they’ll grow back better looking. Get yourself some loppers or pruning shears if you don’t have them and just go to it as your stamina allows. Get some Roundup for the morning glories and spray them the minute you see them come up. Ditto for any place where the irises are not welcome.
I was reminded of your post when I was redoing my Aerogarden today. The only plants in it that were still doing well were the parsley plants and so I decided I’d cut those all down and freeze the remaining parsley. And OMFG, when I took the garden apart to clean it - the parsley roots were both huge and EVERYWHERE. They’d dug their way through the pump housing filter and made their way into the pump housing itself. I had to take the whole thing apart and dig the roots out. I’m surprised the pump still worked, looking at how bad the infiltration of those roots was.
You could try a kettle full of boiling hot water. Pour carefully!
Since it’s asphalt, I assume there’s nothing growing there you’re trying to save?
I cut the irises down with big clippers and a small hand saw and it was very sad. I put two of the rhizomes in a pot just to see if it’ll grow. I would have liked to have given away the rest but couldn’t think of anyone who would want them.
I don’t use Roundup or anything like that because I do an Eat the Lawn day (or used to in the Before Time) when I make dandelion salad with wild onion ramps, mulberry jam and, if I feel like taking on the frustration, candied violet petals.
It sounds like Purple’s suggestion for the irises is more your speed then, if they come back again. There’s also a weed killer you can make with bleach. My husband’s used this on our gravel driveway to get the weeds out. That at least will degrade quickly.
Edged. I should have been more brutal but look at all the irises I killed already! Am now in the process of slowly removing dead branches of the hydrangeas. Not cutting them back because I am a terrible gardener who lets the plants bully me. There are A LOT of dead branches, though.
P.S., Nature is no joke! In 6 years the irises, morning glories, chickweed, some wheat looking weeds and other weed types you can see in the pic, extended a vegetation mat a half a foot onto the asphalt walkway.
I am blessed to have an effort free dandelion garden which comprises pretty much my entire yard. It’s flourishing again, with no intervention on my part. I’m lucky like that.
Huh, something I never knew about (but should have!) and glad I do now.
“Used to”, you say? As in - you no longer do? If that’s the case, you might as well blast this invasive rose bush intruder with that danged, dreaded, no-good Round Up stuff as long as you:
a.) Don’t do it on a windy day.
b.) Wear face and hand protection.
c.) Apply it on whatever green foliage there is on the offending plant, or it won’t work.
d.) No kids or pets in vicinity.
e.) Be ridiculously careful that not even its essence gets on the roses (making it especially important that it be on a completely windless day).
f.) If you’re smelling it while applying - NOT GOOD!!! Wash your face. blow your nose, and pay closer attention to staying upwind (or pick a less windy day).
g.) Try to use as absolutely little of it as possible.
I, myself, try to avoid using it as much as possible because of its obvious toxicity, and save it basically for just weeds in sidewalk cracks.
It sounds like you have limited mobility, so this method would be the best way to go, not to mention the fact that one, single, round-up application will most certainly not go destroying all your groundwater and killing surrounding plants.
If, however, that stuff was used - even on some semi-regular basis - no good, unacceptable, dangerous.
I’ve only not done it because I’ve not left my house since The Event and not because I don’t wanna do it ever again. I’m also a plant softie, if it isn’t yet apparent, and I am against poisoning my property. I am really, REALLY into replacing my grass with ground cover and if I had my way my front yards would be filled with creeping thyme and to hell with grass.
P.S. I got rid of a lot of dead Endless Summer and, low and behold, the hyacinth I planted along side it 14 or so years ago was underneath all that mess. Tiny and not so smelly, I was surprised to find them since I thought bulbs were spent after 4 or 5 years.
One judicous use will not poison your property.
The edging looks good!