Getting that privacy back

I think in my version of hell I'd be running a daycare out of my house and those commercials for Video Only ("You'll be sooooooorry!") would be playing on a loop overhead. I don't dislike children as much as I can't handle disruption in my home, and a bunch of kids are more destructive than bears. 

The house next door is finally on the market, which means I can start worrying about what our new neighbors will be like instead of worrying about garden damage and lead exposure.

This is our new solution to the flippers next door clearing every shrub from their property, giving them a clear view into our backyard. I'm not totally in love with it right now because it's a gigantic galvanized tub, right as walk into the yard, but I think as the grasses grow in I'll like it better.

Before:

And now:

Right now the area in front of the tank looks ridiculous.

Eryngium planum 'Blue Hobbit' and Sedum rupestre 'Lemon Ball'

Little blibs and blobs that will someday fill in and not look so silly.

There was a whole incident with the flippers hiring one of the kids from down the street to power wash the house, which deposited paint chips all over . . . then the wind picked up and blew them all into my yard. They cleaned them up but informed me they never did a lead test. They were totally unconcerned about it and one of their subcontractors informed me, "It's naturally occurring in the human body and it's not that harmful." Both of those things are false, especially for kids. Did I mention they had the eight year old from down the street picking paint chips out of my mulch? So irresponsible.

It's been stressful and I will be happy to never see them again. And hopefully I won't see the new owners . . . from the backyard, at least. Keep your fingers crossed that they want to plant a hedgerow between our houses. And that they're bakers or cheesemongers and that they don't have a garage band.

How to fill a really large pot

Do you have pots of soil lying around? Every time I move a plant around (which is a lot) I end up with extra soil. I don't know how it happens. I mean, I know why it happens but it's seems like there's way too much leftover soil. So I have random pots of it stashed all over the yard.

I've wanted a second galvanized tank for the area to the right of the bamboo and to the left of the Pieris for a while now. The long term goal is to have a pathway running in front of them, so it works to keep everything narrow and contained. This area was a weedy mess, covered in popweed and uneven with holes from where we pulled the clump of bamboo out of the ground.

My friend Carrie told me that Bamboo Craftsman was getting a shipment of stock tanks in this weekend, and while they were more expensive than Burns Feed, they were five minutes away. Burns Feed is forty minutes each way. And they were borrowing Greg's truck, so they could pick one up for me and bring it to me, in the lazy princess fashion I deserve.

I got a six foot tank, which is huuuuuge. I weeded and dumped a whole bunch of gravel to level the area, then started to wonder how I was going to fill this.

I started by grabbing all the concrete chunks and broken bricks I've recently unearthed from the yard. My yard has a seemingly endless supply of rubble. This ensures that when I realize that the container is crooked or off-center, I'll be SOL because the thing weighs a million pounds.

Then I added gravel because I put gravel in, on, and over everything now.

Then I grabbed all that sod I had removed from the new bed on the back of the house and installed it grass-side down.

This means I don't have to try and sneak it into the yard debris bin, which means I can remove more sod from somewhere else in the yard and sneak that in the bin.

For now it got six inches of mulch on top, which should hopefully put the final nail in the coffin for the sod. In a few weeks I'll take all the random pots full of soil I have lying around and amend it with compost and plant up this container.

I have my heart set on a colocasia I read about in Fine Gardening last summer, Colocasia esculenta 'Coffee Cups'.

Image source

When it rains the leaves fill with water until they hit a certain point (presumably when they get all steamed up), then they tip over and pour it out. I don't even care if this plant doesn't fit in with my garden theme; it's kinetic and beautiful. Remind me of this when I complain next fall about how this tank "just doesn't go" with my yard.

The boy is earning his keep

I took off on Sunday to see an HPSO open garden (that Loree covered here) and couldn't convince Greg to go with me, which is crazy because he really would've liked it. When I got back he said, "I made a change in the backyard." Those words always make me nervous.

Before

After

After we put the bamboo in the stock tank it dramatically turned yellow (Laurrie says it was pulling its energy into root reformation), a few of the culms died, and then it greened up again. I hit it with fish emulsion last week and it responded by sending up new culms. We still had a bare section in the middle of the tank so Greg dug up the last of the in-ground bamboo and got it in the tank, after removing the dead stalks.

I've never known how two-gardener households landscape without killing each other. I *might* be able to do it if it involved more surprises like this. I think we need a second stock tank now, no?

Operation Move Everything Three Feet to the Left

So. That poorly behaved clump of bamboo. 

We cleared the giant dirt pile from in front of it and headed to Burns Feed Store in Gresham for a stock tank to contain it. A woman behind the counter asked if we needed help.

Yeah, I need one of those galvanized stock tanks.

(Sighs) Are you going to use it as a planter?

Yes.

(Barely controls rolling her eyes) Are you going to put bamboo in it?

I know this combo is popular but I didn't realize it had become so trite. I had spent the whole ride over talking about how awful the city of Gresham is, so it stung to feel so uncool (though she was nice, otherwise). Well played, people of Gresham.

I also felt stupid because I didn't think it would be that bad getting the bamboo out of the ground. I'd just dig around the base and then I'd pop it out, like I was opening a jar or something. Despite the fact that it just stopped raining in Portland, the ground was hard as a rock. It kind of makes me wonder if that giant dirt pile wasn't blocking all the water from reaching the bamboo, causing it to send out runners in search of moisture.

The root ball was a dense, tangled mess that was reinforced by metal bars that someone had driven into the ground, I guess at the time of planting. I worked at it for a couple of hours with a shovel and a hose until Greg stepped in and said, "This needs a pickax."

He spent about 15 minutes with the pickax and got a trench burrowed around the root ball. He went off to play soccer and I pulled out the wood saw and started hacking off chunks. Then I hung on for dear life, rocking the sawed portion back and forth, cascading SPIDERS, OF MY GOD SPIDERS all around me until the chunk broke off.

You know what would have helped when filling this planter? All that dirt we hauled away a few weekends back. I wish I thought these things out better.

I didn't pack the bamboo in there, so this will have a chance to fill in (assuming it survives) and I won't have to thin it for a few years. It now blocks my neighbor's kitchen widow, which will be important when we build the deck off the back of the house.

I'm toying with getting a second feed trough for the rest of the bamboo. This planting area needs to stay narrow, because this will be the pathway around the deck and through the side yard and into the front.

I'd love to put Tetrapanax in a second stock tank (I'm just copying everything that's in Loree's yard at this point) but I think it might get too wide, making it difficult to get through here. Or maybe I just don't want to deal with the derision at Burns Feed Store. I hate feeling unhip.