To rain garden or not to rain garden

I've been waffling on big garden projects, excited to get going but unsure if I have the free weekends to put in the work. If I rush home from work I have about an hour and a half where I can work on things before the sun goes down. That will get cut down to 30 minutes once Daylight Savings hits. That's if it's not pouring rain. My big project contemplation right now is the rain garden. I want to put one in front and one in back. 

For anybody not familiar with rain gardens, this is how they work: instead of having your rain gutters empty into the storm drain you treat your storm water on your property. Water from your storm drain ultimately gets dumped into the river, where it's warmer than normal (which means it has less oxygen) and it's full of pollutants. All the critters in the river get stressed because they can't breathe and they're dealing with oil and chemicals that come off of our streets and roofs.

When you treat water on your property it gets slowly filtered into the ground water supply, the pollutants are reduced, and the rivers don't get inundated by water from all of our impervious surfaces (roofs, driveways, streets, patio slabs, etc).So you dig a pit where water can collect, plant it with native species, and mulch the hell out of it. Did you know that microbial activity in mulch helps break down some of the common pollutants in stormwater? TAKE THIS INFORMATION AND GO BE INSUFFERABLE AT DINNER PARTIES. Then you divert your gutters to drain into this instead of your storm drain.

Before you start planning your garden you need to do a percolation test, to see if your soil drains quickly enough to withstand one.

So you dig a hole. I thought I heard somewhere that it should be 12x12x12, so that's what I dug. It turns out I can't find any documentation saying that 12x12x12 is the way to go. So maybe I dug a larger hole than necessary? Ideally you're supposed to do your perc test in the spring when the ground is really water logged, but I can't be counted on to follow directions, obviously.

Then you fill your hole and let it drain completely. Then you fill it a second time and let it drain. Then you fill it a third time and set your timer for an hour. At that time you look at how inches of water drained and *that's* a pretty good indicator of your drainage. Anything over 2 inches per hour is good. 

Mine drained 8 inches in an hour. After two hours all but the smallest puddle was gone.

So now I'm worried that my property is *too* well draining and that I'm actually living atop a giant sandpit that will collapse once I install my rain garden. Worrying is what I do and, damn it, I'm good at it.

If your property won't accommodate a rain garden, don't worry, you can still be insufferable at dinner parties! You can plant a tree instead. They are super good at sucking up water on your property. True story.

Has anyone built one of these before? Should I wait until spring? Would you like to help me dig? (I'll bake bread and cookies!)

Or would you like to help me plant the 150 bulbs I ordered? I swear I don't remember ordering half of these which is why you should never, ever drink wine when there are plant catalogs in the house.

I love this

"The Zen master speaks of chopping wood, carrying water. The gardener will know what it is to really be in the moment when she does her most rote, insistent chores. Knowing that, I garden this way: I practice a blend of horticultural how-to and woo-woo, and the view both outside and inward and far better for the fact. I practiced increasing horticultural excess, yes, those back and forth weekender years, but I also practiced communion and some moments of peace. In short: My garden saved me."

--from And I shall Have Some Peace There by Margaret Roach

I love this woman even if she can tend a bit toward hyperbole. Heaven knows, I do too.

Where do you hide your trashcans?

We currently keep our trashcan and recycling bins next to the garage, where all the ferns and shade lovers live. It makes the most sense, since it's nearest to the kitchen. Oh, but it looks really bad.

There was already a random fence post at the entrance to the side yard, so I slapped on a trellis and planted an evergreen jasmine to climb it. LeAnn assured me that it will take over and cover the trellis in no time.

Though I don't know why I'd want to cover up such craftsmanship.

Why would I use a smaller piece of 2x4 when I could choose one that can be seen from space?

What's the latest and greatest way to conceal trashcans? Is anybody doing anything creative to accomplish this? Even if this manages to hide them from the street, this is the only entrance to the garden and we have to walk past them to get into the yard. Maybe I should just paint some ferns on them? There's no way that would look bad.

Garden Claus, I've been so good this year

I want these plants so badly. I would need a bigger yard but I still want them.

Flowering quince (Chaenomeles japonica 'Atsuya Hamada'). I ache for this one.

Photo by Sean Hogan, grabbed from Plant Lust

Witch hazel. Any of them. This Hamamelis x intermedia "Feurezauber' would do the trick.

Photo from Dancing Oaks Nursery

This 'Moonlight' hydrangea vine

Photo from Great Plant Picks

A dwarf Korean lilac (Syringa pubescens ssp patula 'Miss Kim')

Photo from: Great Plant Picks

A Korean fir. I saw this at Portland Nursery and I wanted to buy it. Sadly, it will take 20 or more years to get to size.

Abies koreana 'Hortsmann's Silberlocke'

Silk tassel bush (Garrya elliptica 'James Roof'). This is a Northwest native that I never hear about. It's evergreen and look at those flowers!

Photo from Dancing Oaks Nursery

This Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum 'Mikawa Yatsubusa')

Photo from Plant Lust

When does gardening Santa Claus come? December? He waits until the crocuses appear, right?

The freakshow bulb keeps giving

I loved this freakshow bulb in health.

Allium schubertii

And I love it in death, too.

Greg doesn't seem to care for it but I'm going to keep loving it until terrifying bugs hatch out of it.

What's the etiquette on this?

Is it ever okay to knock on the door of a house you found on a walk to
ask them if you can take pictures of their yard and pump them for
information on what plants they used?

This yard was lovely, with dense plantings separated by a large swath of lawn that made it look deceptively simple and uncluttered.

I think it's the perfect combination of mass platings that I love and the clean, uncluttered look that Greg prefers in a front yard. What are the chances they designed it themselves?

Garden oopses

Some of the garden bloggers out there talk about GOOPs. No, not the newsletters from a delusional celebrity suggesting you purchase a $2600 purse for "your summer leisure time." These are gardening oopses. I had a couple of noteworthy ones this summer.

First, I planted this cucumber in the corner of the bed, hoping it would, I don't know, grow obediently along the ground or something? Levitate in the air?

Instead the cucumber sprawled like an insolent drunk, belligerently growing wherever it wanted. Into the pathway . . .

. . . onto the tomato cages . . .

. . . through the herbs, trampling the chard . . .

. . . and clinging to the retaining wall.

 

And then it got powdery mildew and died but the tendrils stayed strong, making it almost impossible to remove them until the tomato cages came out this weekend. Also, we had to wire the tomato cages together because I planted them too closely together and the plants got too big and started to fall over. Cleaning that all up was super fun.

Remember when I planted fennel in a victory barrel so it would do something like this? 

Yeah, fennel likes sun, so when I planted it on the north side of my garage, which lies in shade all day, it grew sideways. 

That's just sad. Weeds took over this summer and the old lady annuals died and it looked awful. But I left it alone to feed the pollinators, not because I was lazy!

Also dead? A flowering currant that I moved 600 times, relegated to a pot, then forgot to water.

I'm going to give this bamboo a try instead. It should top out at eight feet and it doesn't mind shade.

And then I shall never make a gardening mistake again! [Cue the Internet to inform me that bamboo kills children and pollinators.]