Just a girl with a hammer

Tag: garden

  • Operation Move Everything Three Feet to the Left

    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.
  • For those of you on tenterhooks . . .

    For those of you on tenterhooks . . .

    . . . I updated the post on outdoor lighting with an action shot at night. With the tiki torches to define the beds and walkways, it was the perfect amount of light.

    Our yard isn’t filled with smoke, I just haven’t figured out how to take photos in low light.

  • Yes Virginia, there is a Planta Claus

    Yes Virginia, there is a Planta Claus

    Last week I went trolling for Little Bluestem seedlings (Schizachyrium scoparium) on Facebook, hoping that Scott would tell me that he had a bunch lying around. I have all the finesse and subtlety of a sledgehammer.

    Instead Jane told me that she had some Elijah Blue seedlings and would I like some? Then she delivered them to my house while I was working! Like some sort of magical Planta Claus!

    Festuca glauca ‘Elijah Blue’

    I have been continually overwhelmed by the generosity and community spirit of gardeners. They offer up advice, encouragement, and commiseration when plants die or design plans go awry. They provide tons of inspiration and they are mindful of the other creatures that inhabit our planet and how our actions affect them. They share.

    And they plug a LOT of money into our local economies while they feed their addictions.

    Thank you, Jane!

    Have you hugged your gardener friend today? Go do that now. And maybe make sure they are drinking enough water; it’s getting hot out there.

  • Get off my lawn.

    Get off my lawn.

    The other day I was working at the dining room table and I heard conversation from the yard. Four neighbor boys were walking through my yard, over the berm, through the rain garden, across the rocks, everywhere but the sidewalk. I politely asked them to get the hell out of my yard and they very politely scurried off.

    When you see one set of footprints it was then that I carried some trash that I dropped in your rain garden.

    And I know that you just have to let go when it comes to the front yard. Cats poop in your mulch. Dogs lift their legs on your favorite yucca. Other dogs then pee on your favorite yucca. People step on plants in the hell strip and throw cigarette butts amongst the ground covers.

    And dogs, enough with the peeing on my favorite yucca. Jesus.

    But now I’m pondering growing stinging nettle or prickly pear in the berm. Someone tell me to let it go.

  • Yard work makes me cry

    Yard work makes me cry

    A long time ago I ordered way too much soil for the first iteration of vegetable beds. Then I dug the rain garden and removed a ton of soil. Then Greg removed a lot of soil to resod the grass when we moved the vegetable beds. All of the soil from these projects ended up here.

    The grass grew up and over it, the bamboo invaded it, the neighboring cats used it as a toilet, and all the weeds that ever were took up residence here. There’s about two cubic yards there.

    A show of hands: is anyone having the worst allergies of their lives? I am. I have never been so miserable. I spent Saturday night unable to sleep because I couldn’t stop sneezing and I couldn’t breathe. So I was operating on about four hours of sleep and I felt crummy when I decided that we should get rid of the pile.

    I started digging and filling up the truck. I got really frustrated and tired and then I started crying! I swear I don’t normally do that. Greg was like, “Okay, wackadoo,” and took over. I am the worst.

    We took two loads over to Wood Waste Management, who has the most genius business model. We pay them to take our dirt, then they mix it with compost and sand and sell it back to people as “soil mixture.” But I’m happy they exist and our soil didn’t end up in a landfill. And now our area looks like this.

    Next up I want to dig up that bamboo and put it in a container, as it is very badly behaved. And sadly I think the Pieris is going to have to go. Greg and I were planning and drawing and plotting the future deck and pathways and we just don’t see how it fits in. I will probably shed some tears when we remove it because that’s apparently what I do now.

  • Planning other people’s gardens

    Planning other people’s gardens

    My sister recently texted me with a request for plant ideas on her back patio. The owner of their condo installed a new fence and took out the English ivy that was covering the old fence (my guess is that it will be back) and gave them an additional four inches of bare dirt. She misses the greenness of the ivy but doesn’t want to do edibles this year. She wants tough, drought tolerant ornamentals that can take part shade and won’t require daily watering once they are established. She has young kids that play out there, so the plants can’t be poisonous, pokey, or irritating.
    The area is 17′ long and 22″ deep. This is a split view of the area at 8am:

    And 1pm:

    And 6pm:

    So half the the space is getting dappled shade and half is getting full sun at the hottest part of the day. She lives in Campbell, CA. Her zone is 9b, which gets pretty hot in the summer, with about 19″ of rain annually. It’s not unreasonable for her to take a trip to Richmond to visit Annie’s Annuals. Her kids are out of school for the summer and they’d have a blast there, right? As a result, I picked out plants solely from Annie’s. She should be able to dig up and move everything she plants if they move to another house.
    Here’s what I have picked out so far. If she had full sun at her disposal this would have been a LOT easier. Salvias! Agastaches! So! Many! Grasses! This was a fun challenge. For whatever reason the color blue has always reminded me of my sister, but she’s also a brash, sassy shit-talker, so I included some hot orange with lots of chartreuse to brighten up the shade. Presented in no particular order (all images are from the Annie’s Annuals website) . . .
    Aeonium escobarii, a blue-hued succulent:
    Agastache foeniculum ‘Golden Jubilee’, a compact, chartreuse perennial that smells nice. This is only plant that might need regular water.

     Anchusa azurea ‘Alkanet’, a pretty 3-4′ bush covered in blue flowers. I just purchased one of these for my yard. 

    Asclepias curassavica, a grey-leafed evergreen milkweed with hot orange flowers. It attracts butterflies and is 3-4′ tall and wide.

    Muhlenbergia rigens, a tough low-water grass that might self-seed but she’s in a rental so who cares! This one really might be too big for the space.

    Crassula lycopidiodes, a chartreuse succulent that I want to grow in my yard so badly.

    Senecio mandraliscae, a blue succulent that will work as a groundcover. Bonus: it grows in our brother’s yard, so she can dig some up and not spend any money on it.
    Here’s the mock-up of what I had envisioned. I used the iPad app Paper, which I’m deeply in love with right now.

    And with chicken scratch writing on it. Can you tell I don’t own a stylus?
    Option 1, nothing is to scale.

    The grass anchors the L-curve with the Aeonium on the left and the Crassula and Senecio to the right. That leads to the orange milkweed, the Anchusa, three bunches of the Agastache, then another milkweed, and finishing with another combo of Crassula and Senecio.  Here’s how the plants would look, going left to right.

    The total should clock in at about $73, if she goes with this list. 

    I’ve also thought about this placement: 

    Option 2, nothing is to scale.
    Or this one:
    Option 3, nothing is to scale.

    Seasoned gardeners: do you have any opinions on plant placement, plant choices, or anything else? Any glaring errors? As I’m writing this I’m noticing that her cement is stained with a light blue, which pretty much matches the Senecio I’d planned to use as a groundcover. That might look dumb. 
  • Drunk plant shopping

    Drunk plant shopping

    The best part of having the memory of a goldfish is that I order plants online and, two days later when they arrive, it’s a genuine surprise opening the box. What did I order? Why would I order only one of these? Why did I order this plant I’m recommending for my sister’s yard? It’s a mystery and a little like living in that movie Memento, except without the constant tattooing.

    I’ve been wanting to rearrange some plants in the yard, some of which were just working as placeholders. I received this Carex flagellifera ‘Toffee Twist’ at a garden exchange and plopped it in the ground in the front yard. The agave berm didn’t exist then. I really dig this grass but being surrounded by brown mulch wasn’t doing much for it. Greg thought it was dead and I was just having a hard time letting it go. I hoard dead leaves and empty nursery pots, Greg, not dead plants.

    It’s alive

    I moved it to the berm, where hopefully you can see it a little better against the light gravel and agaves.

    I planted some Showy Milkweed, Asclepias speciosa.

    We still had a tarp covered in extra gravel hanging out next to the berm. It looked super classy, especially with the garden hose laying about. I finally got the extra gravel moved to buckets in the garage and I planted some of the plants I don’t remember picking out. I have to stop shopping when I’ve been drinking wine.

    I will never stop plant shopping while drinking wine. It’s way too fun.

    I need something to make my Dasylirion grow BIG, now.

    Where the tarp used to live I planted an Anchusa azurea ‘Alkanet’ and a silver sage (Salvia argentea).

    I know it will happen soon but I want everything in the front yard to grow already. It all looks so placed in a line. 
    In the hellstrip I planted two Redbirds in a Tree (Scrophularia macrantha). They look exactly as advertised. They are supposed to be clay tolerant and require no summer water.

    In other news, the Coreopsis ‘Moonbeam’ that I got from Kate is exploding in buttery colored blooms. I hear these peter out after a couple of years, so I’m enjoying it while it lasts. I’ll forget what it was by then, so remind me, okay?

    Bought anything good while you were tipsy lately?

  • Opening your eyes

    Opening your eyes

    I haven’t been gardening that long, so my plant knowledge is limited. But the funniest thing keeps happening: once I finally notice a plant exists, I see it EVERYWHERE. Case in point: I was at my friend Jason’s house, exploring his front garden. He had a giant silver mullein, Verbascum Bombyciferum, doing its freaktastic fuzzy phallic blooming thing.

    Image source: Frisco Vista

    I went out the next day and bought one at Garden Fever. Mine won’t bloom until next summer but I’m stoked that I have one now. Once I knew it existed Ryan blogged about it, Loree blogged about it, and I see it in gardens around town. How did I not know this plant before?!

    I’ve said it before: everything is more magical when you go through life not really paying attention.

  • Bloom Day May 2012

    Bloom Day May 2012

    Farewell to Spring never lies. It’s supposed to be 80 degrees this weekend! Hooray!

    Farewell to Spring Clarkia amoena ‘Aurora’

    Salal Gaultheria shallon
    Allium shubertii
    I really need Scott to teach me how to photograph grasses.
    Tufted hair grass Deschampsia caespetosa
    Penstemon
    Black lace elderberry Sambucus nigra

    Viburnum plicatum var. Watanabe with a sleeping bee. HE’S SLEEPING, RIGHT?

    This ladybird poppy is on my shit list. If the other one’s foliage goes dead overnight like this one, it’s getting yanked. I don’t care how pretty its blooms were for two days.

    Ladybird poppy Papaver commutatum ‘Ladybird’

    Brakelights yucca and roses
    If anyone wants this penstemon, I saw it yesterday at Garden Fever.

    Penstemon ‘Dark Towers’

    Jasmine

    Salvia microphylla

    Paeonia lactiflora ‘Sarah Bernhardt’

    Spiraea japonica ‘Magic Carpet’

    Heuchera ‘Hollywood’

    Monkey flower Mimulus cardinalis

    Ocean Spray Holodiscus discolor

    Jerusalem sage Phlomis russeliana

    Juncus effusus

    Juncus ensifolius

    Sedum oreganum


    For the full show of bloom day entries, head over to May Dreams Gardens. 
  • Are we done yet?

    Are we done yet?

    This weekend I started to remove sod in the backyard where I’m going to increase the planting beds, but I remembered that I hate removing sod so I decided to work on the front yard instead. It’s nice to have options.

    Thus, we have a rock wall to separate the gravel mulch from the bark mulch. I’m not sure if I like it yet. I don’t have much experience working with rock so it doesn’t look terribly organic. Of course, the rocks in the bottom of the rain garden annoy me so much that they are all I see in this photo.

    Rock is expensive so I just ran it across the front with the hope to enclose the whole area down the line.

    We really need to incorporate some decorative boulders and rocks so it’s not just gravel and flat rock.

    I’m really not crazy about how it looks on the back side but that can be improved later. (Someone tell me this will look great once it fills in with weeds.)

    .
    And while we’re telling me lies, someone tell me that the piece of cedar bender board will actually keep the cedar chips and gravel separate.

    But I’ve decided I’m not going to sweat any of my landscaping choices until things start growing. I discovered that these plants that thrive on poor soils annoy me me because I can’t do anything proactive with them. They want sun, not too much water, and no fertilizer or compost. So I can’t fuss over them. I just have to wait. I hate that.

    So I can feel like I’m doing something productive in the front yard, I police the grass that wants so badly to return. If I had to do this project over again I would have left the whole front yard under black plastic all winter to really kill the lawn. I keep finding individual blades of grass poking up in the bare spots, despite the fact that I used a sod cutter, then roto-tilled, then applied a thick layer of mulch.

    Fun fact: when I tell non-gardeners that I’ve planted agave they tend to ask me if I’m going to make tequila. This weekend the kid at Oregon Decorative Rock informed me, “I just use sugar, myself.” Alrighty then.