I made you a cedar chip wasteland

I have officially spent two weekends putting out a lot of effort to make a pathway, a pretty simple one at that. Apologies for how many crappy phone pics there are here, I was chugging along and couldn't be bothered to do anything beyond grabbing my phone out of my back pocket.

After we removed the sod along the driveway I needed to dig down a bit so it could hold the cedar chips I wanted here. I was hoping to soften up the ground before I had to dig, so I thought about how to make it rain. A ha, I thought, I'll put out yard debris bags! You know the bags--the ones that get heavy so easily and turn to mush and break if it rains even a little? We put four of those, filled with sod removal scraps, out on the street and of course the heavens opened up. But it made digging easier.

I found buried stuff because I always find buried stuff.

The oil tank that we knew was here.

A pretty large cavity, probably from a critter long ago (I hope long ago).

I was like, how can I make sure I move this soil as many times as humanly possible? I know, I'll dig it up, transport it to a tarp under the dogwood, then transport it back to the driveway and into Greg's truck so it can go to the soil recycling place. My back was not amused.

I used thinner, taller pieces of the same rock I've used to edge the beds elsewhere in the garden. I just wanted a simple line to say "chips here, mulch there."

It looks goofy now because the chips are bright orange. I have a skosh more room (just like Levis) in the beds, so I need to rearrange things a bit. It helps that a few weeks back I removed six or seven of the rose bushes here. All the rain had really softened the ground and they popped out with almost no effort. I got a little carried away and started removing them left and right.

Before

Before

Now I just need something low-growing and drought-tolerant to weave through and unify everything.

Now

The best part is that cedar chips break down and feed the soil, so when a future owner inevitably plants lawn here, they'll find the soil to be rich and loamy. Circle of life and all that.

I finished up by vacuuming the driveway. If that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

Garden bloggers' bloom day June 2013

Oh my gosh, so much blooming! Let's hit it.

Trachelospermum jasminoides

Echinacea purpurea 'Kim's Knee High'

Penstemon mexicali 'Sunburst Ruby' 

Salvia nemerosa 'Sensation Rose'

Coreopsis 'Moonbeam'

Sedums oreganum and Angelina

Cotula hispida

Gaillardia x grandiflora 'Arizona Apricot'

Lewisia cotyledon 'White Splendor'

Drosanthemum micans

Carex dispacea

Agastache 'Blue Blazes'

Penstemon 'Dark Towers'

Aquilegia formosa

Knautia macedonica 'Mars Midget'

Penstemon serrulatus

Deschampsia cespitosa

Amaranthus caudatus

Amaranthus cruentus 'Hopi Red Dye'

Geranium 'Rozanne'

Thanks to our host Carol at May Dreams Gardens! Be sure to check out what everyone else has blooming.

Lightning didn't strike twice

The last time we rented a sod cutter was in April of last year and we successfully got rid of the sod we removed by listing it on craigslist. Sadly, I don't think June (an unseasonably warm and dry one at that) is the time to try and get rid of old lawn. No one picked up our discard pile so I had to take it to Wood Waste Management after my dentist appointment yesterday. You'd think a dental cleaning and dealing with a truck full of sod would be a terrible way to spend your afternoon but I had fun (my teeth were super clean and my clothes were so dirty!). It was only $25 to drop it off to be composted, so I can't really complain.

I stopped by Fred Meyer and saw that all of their pots were 25% off. And then I saw a pot with a chip on it and asked the manager if she could come down in price. She agreed to knock off an additional 20% but then we couldn't get the pot dislodged from the larger pot it was sitting in so she said, "Just pick out a different pot and I'll honor the extra 20% off."

So I got this persimmon baby (it's larger than it looks) for $35. I threw some of the enormous stash of High Country Gardens freebies in here (Stachys coccineus 'Mountain Red') along with an agave pup and a Color Guard yucca. I realized that I have a pot addiction, one that's certainly more expensive than the one that comes with illegal transactions at music festivals. I also realized that need more agaves. A lot more. They look good everywhere!

I made you a gravel wasteland

Sod removal happened this weekend, which is how our side yard went from this . . .

. . . to this.

We used YardRents again, who are great. The YardRents guys showed up promptly and showed us how to use the sod cutter. They knew it wasn't going to take us very long, so they didn't even bother to leave. One of the guys snapped photos of the garden (he was so fired up, which was wonderful) and chatted with me about the evils of Round Up while Greg zipped through removing the sod. It took 30 minutes to remove the area along the driveway and the side yard where we bumped out the fence.

Sod cutters are the best. 

The YardRents guys packed up and were on their way and we got work rolling up the sod and transferring it to a pile in the driveway.

Then Greg leveled and regraded the soil so water will hopefully move away from the house, instead of toward it. We also removed the plastic that had been layed down years ago. A previous owner must have tried to keep water away from the house by laying down plastic sheeting and planting sod on top of it. I don't know why this seemed like a good idea but I'm sure a future homeowner will wonder why I put all this gravel in. Ugh, gravel?! Why not some nice lawn?

I headed down to Oregon Decorative Rock and picked up some gravel. I love gravel pathways. I love the sound they make and their persistence. I love the way your wheelbarrow sinks into the gravel, making it impossible to move, pissing off your boyfriend. (I didn't believe Greg when he warned me that would happen.) I really wanted gravel in this part of the yard but I wasn't sure how to handle the transition from the cedar chip pathway that will run through the front yard, and the transition to lawn in the backyard.

Neither of us are happy with the state of the side yard right now because it's a wasteland of gravel. Grey house, grey A/C unit, an eight feet wide expanse of grey gravel. Ultimately we're going to set up the rain barrel and a stock tank for tomatoes against the house, so it should only feel like five feet of gravel instead of eight. I popped some colorful pots over here (and that stupid wheelbarrow) so we'll have some color. I'm hoping to train a vine along this fence and Greg has plans for a trellis of some sort atop our fence. I'm hoping to find something vigorous enough to cover the fence but restrained enough not to pull it down. Any suggestions?

Currently gravel gives way unceremoniously to lawn. My thought right now is to ease the transitions with rock. I was so tired and sunburned by the end of the day that I couldn't handle a third trip to Oregon Decorative Rock. So I plopped it down and called it good.

But I'm fuzzily thinking something like this. Behold, my amazing MS Paint skills!

Eh, I don't know. Next I need to dig down the soil here (it will go in the bottom of the new stock tank), edge the plants with rock, then put down cedar chips.

And then we still have a fair amount of sod to remove by hand, underneath the dogwood's drip line where I was too nervous to use the sod cutter. But I can see the finish line with sod removal!

So my site went down this weekend

My domain name registration automatically renews each year through Google but this year I neglected to read the part of the email where it told me I needed to confirm my payment information. 

If you visited my site this weekend you saw a picture of a pretty co-ed and a suggestion for sites about hammer toes. I'm not as fresh-faced as that girl and my toes, while ugly, suffer only from bunions. I'm sorry if this caused anyone confusion. I'm confused all the time and I can tell you that it's the worst. Please enjoy this picture of a bossy Western Tanager as atonement for my inability to read!

Limping toward the weekend

I acquired a Mukdenia rossi 'Crimson Fans' from Peter (The Outlaw Gardener) and I thought the name was funny. It's not very red! I thought.

But then it started doing this.

If every plant was this aptly named I might be able to remember some of them. Of course, I was trying to remember the word "styrofoam" this week (we were talking about insulation) and I kept saying "chloroform" and then when the person I was talking to looked at me like I was insane,  I said, "You know, the stuff they made coffee cups out of that was so bad for the environment?" They eventually figured out what I was talking about but there's probably no hope for me.

This felt like a very long hard week so I'm curious to see how much vocabulary I'll retain by Saturday. One last friendly reminder that Scott, Loree, Jane, Ann, and I will be talking about garden blogging at Joy Creek tomorrow at 1pm. It should last less than an hour and it's free with no registration required. Just stop by and join in the conversation!

This is how it starts

I've always told myself that I can't be bothered with plants that aren't hardy to my zone. We have such a forgiving climate and we can grow so much, there's no point adding plants that I'd have to schlep indoors during the winter. Not because that isn't a noble pursuit but because I am forgetful and lazy and that would be wasting money when they eventually die.

But.

I went to Rare Plant Research a few weekends ago. It was my second year attending and my resolve broke. "It wouldn't be so bad to bring in a couple of plants in the winter," I thought. "Just one or two is doable." I imagine this is how it starts for everyone. I didn't help that Patricia and Megan of Plant Lust were there with Loree and any time I'd wonder internally "Do I need this?" Patricia would magically appear at my side and say, "Oh, you need that." Loree would nod sagely and into my box it would go. (She got the most beautiful bromeliad I have ever seen. I'm still regretting not buying one.)

I gave in to an Agave attenuata, which we saw all over Maui. I think they are one of the most beautiful plants I've ever seen. The color, the shape . . . okay, some of it is probably the memory of Maui. And no pokey parts! (If anyone is wondering, that agave spike that I had embedded in my fingertip did eventually make its way out.) I also picked up an Aeonium 'Salad Bowl', seen below in the orange pot.

Aeonium 'Salad Bowl' and Agave attentuata

I also purchased two black aeoniums: 'Zwartkop' and 'Moonglow.'

'Moonglow'

'Zwartkop'

Aeonium tops the list of things I wish were hardy in Portland also: echeveria). I also bought some cheapo blue Senecio.

Lastly I picked out an Aloe Dorotheae. As if I didn't spend enough money already, now I need to buy nicer pots.

I guess I need to pay attention to frost dates now, huh?