Just a girl with a hammer

Tag: garden

  • The good, the bad, and the ugly

    The good, the bad, and the ugly


    THE GOOD

    Summer flowers like penstemon are budding.

    Penstemon ‘Dark Towers’

    And peonies will be blooming any second.

    THE BAD

    The old apple tree, whose stump I turned into a birdbath, won’t die. It sends up suckers all along the root system and I’ve decided that this fall I’ll need to dig up this entire area and have the stump ground out. I should have done that from the get-go. Or maybe when I was already having stumps ground out last fall, since that would have been way cheaper. Sigh.

    What a bunch of suckers.

    I also sort of suspect that The Stump That Won’t Freaking Die Already is the only thing keeping that bamboo clump behind it in check. I’m thinking about removing the bamboo, too. I’ve been obsessed with the chartreuse smokebush Cotinus coggygria ‘Golden Spirit.’ I think it would look pretty in the shrub hedge, possibly trained into a tree.

    THE UGLY

    The problem with planting a lot of tulips is that the greenery sticks around a lot longer than the blooms. I’ve been waiting for the foliage to die before pruning back the hundreds of tulips I planted in the yard, which means everything that used to look like this . . .

    . . . now kind of looks like this, which is to say: messy.

    So. much. visual. noise. ugh. i. can’t. even.

    That gaping hole between the stringed-up Cryptomeria and the ninebark is where I pulled out a flowering currant and planted a wee huckleberry. The lady at the Audubon sale told me that they are fussy and difficult to get started and “I should plant it over a rotten log,” as if normal people have those lying around. Except it turned out I did have a piece of rotting wood from The Stump That Won’t Freaking Die Already! Let’s hope it doesn’t reanimate and start suckering over here too.

    THE GOOD

    The elderberry that I moved, only to have it make a giant sad, is rebounding.

    No, really, this is an improvement.

    THE BAD

    The doublefile viburnum (I think it’s Watanabe?) I planted to the left of these two elderberries, was planted as a privacy shrub. Viburnums aren’t privacy shrubs, they are specimen plants! They are beautiful and deserve to be front and center, not sandwiched in the back behind a vine maple.
    Viburnum plicatum var. Watanabe
    THE UGLY

    I’m smothering the lawn here to increase the size of this bed. This part never looks good.

    I sort of think I should move the vine maple to the center of this cardboard-covered area, since I’m moving everything in my yard around. It just sat there for two years, not getting much beyond a foot tall, and now that it’s putting on some growth I think it’s time to shock it. That’ll teach you to thrive in my yard! I’ll move you, in June no less!

    Too much stuff crammed together

    I’m also tempted to move the viburnum but I think the cedar tree will steal too much water from it. In conclusion: I don’t know what I’m doing, so I’m rearranging everything. Who wants to help me dig? Who has a better plan that doesn’t involve angering established shrubs?

  • I’m officially sick of digging

    I’m officially sick of digging

    Digging holes, that is. I will never be sick of Digging. Pam’s up there with Margaret Roach for me.

    I spent this weekend digging out the path in the front yard. Someday I want decomposed granite and beautiful stone edging, but for now we’re going to do cedar chips. I needed some sort of line in the sand to say “chips go here, mulch there.” I went to Home Depot and decided that I couldn’t stomach putting plastic edging in the yard. It will break down over time and if I’m going to have pathways decomposing I want them to be made of natural materials.

    So cedar bender board it is.

    Anyone want to take bets on how long it will take before this starts to break down? I’m guessing this winter mostly because I know I’ll step on it before then. This stuff shatters if you look at it wrong.

    I’ve also built up a bit of a berm behind the rain garden for agaves. An incredibly generous woman named Sarah contacted me, offering up her agaves in trade for something that wouldn’t poke her toddler. How great is that? I’m hoping the raised area will provide enough drainage that I can put them in the ground and not have them decompose in the winter. I have pretty good drainage in the front yard but I want to give the agaves every chance to succeed during the wet months.

    I know, my MS Paint skills are incredible.

    I saw an image somewhere of a giant agave paired with a fountain grass that looked incredible and I’d love to recreate it. I’m running into the problem where all the pretty grasses I see have pale pink blooms, which I think will look yucky with all the orange stuff I have planted. Of course, I have a metric ton of Sedum Joy planted, which will be pale pink, so I don’t know why I’m worried. My color compositions are always a mess.

    Now ask me about the time when I was pulling the hose across the driveway, forgot about the pavers I had stacked there, backed into them, then fell backwards over them into the roses. I hope one of my neighbors at least got a good laugh from it. Related note: do you know how hard it is to get mulch slivers out of your backside? Send band-aids.

  • Hello, gorgeous

    Hello, gorgeous

    I can’t not get excited when Oregon iris blooms.

    Iris tenax

    Uh huh.

  • I am super pooped, you guys.

    I am super pooped, you guys.

    So I dug the hole, I planted the plants. I met a LOT of my neighbors. Working in your front yard is totally different than working in the backyard. I’ve lived on this street for three years and just now met people who live four doors down for the first time. I talked to people from their cars, on their bikes, as they walked their dogs, on the way to the bus stop . . . Why doesn’t that happen when I mow my lawn?

    Greg and I went to Home Depot Saturday morning with about half as much caffeine as we needed and bought half the supplies we needed to run the roof water from the gutter to the rain garden. Then we struggled to get the caps off the PVC solvent and got in a fight about where the wrenches went. It’s probably better not to go into it. Another trip back to the store and a couple of hours later and I was testing my connections.

    I tested the connections by standing on a ladder, holding a garden hose to the gutter, right next to our power line. Home improvement isn’t any fun unless there’s the possibility of winning a Darwin award. But at least nothing leaked!

    I mulched the mulch, I applied the rocks. We used all the scavenged rocks in the backyard rain garden so I bought river rock from the store and ended up with a bit of a dry river bed.

    I totally overplanted the rain garden but think of how fun it will be to move all those rocks so I can divide and move grasses!

    Anyone have tips for making that look more natural and less like the bottom of a fish tank? I know I need some larger rocks, for starters. In the rain garden I’ve got a mix of slough sedge (Carex obnupta), soft rush (Juncus effusus), dagger rush (Juncus ensifolius), and slender rush (Juncus tenuis). Here’s the rest of the breakdown:
    Click to embiggen
    I’m going to run a 3′ pathway through here and install some more plants on either side. Under the big window I have three New Zealand wind grasses (Stipa arundinacea).
    I know I want a black daphne (Daphne houtteana) and possibly a larger grass or three (probably Karl Foerster) for the other side of the mahonia. Other plants on the shortlist include variegated red twig dogwood (Cornus Alba ‘Elegantissima’), a Kleim’s hardy gardenia (fragrance!), and an alpine mint bush (Prosthanthera cuneata). There’s also a plan in the works for adding some agaves and I’d really love to add a dasylirion. Anything awesome I’m missing? I’m leaning toward evergreen, structural plants or things with multi-season interest so the front isn’t so barren in winter.
    It’s supposed to rain all week so we’ll see how the rain garden fares. I feel like the whole neighborhood is invested in it now; I don’t want to let them down.
  • Say yes to mahonia!

    Say yes to mahonia!

    My sister-in-law and I chatted recently about how we’ve both been reluctant to put Oregon grape in our yards. I see it in landscaping underneath big trees and it looks leggy and sad (not to mention it’s pokey and I’m clumsy, a bad combination). But then I saw this guy at Portland Nursery and I wanted to buy five of them. So pretty! So colorful! Evergreen!

    Mahonia nervosa

    I’ve placed it in the dry zone of the new rain garden where hopefully it will spread and stay bushy. I’m also plotting the inclusion of a Mahonia x media ‘Arthur Menzies’ for structure behind the rain garden. Any other great varieties I’ve been missing out on?

  • I think they leaped

    I think they leaped

    This past weekend the boy and I missed the 80 degree weather in Portland to fly off to Minnesota for a really lovely wedding. The weather wasn’t quite as nice there but the company was so good I don’t think anyone cared. Greg’s family is warm, welcoming, and hilarious. I didn’t want to leave.

    The garden went nuts while we were gone.

    My trillium, after two and a half years, finally multiplied. At this rate I should have a nice clump in about 40 years.

    I think it’s finally time to admit that I can’t cram many more ferns into this area. I’ll still try but I really shouldn’t.

    Hooker’s fairybells! Thank goodness I didn’t weed these when I forgot I planted them.

    Disporum hookeri var. oreganum

    Shooting stars bloomed. I still wish they were broad leafed starflowers.

    Dodecatheon hendersonii

    The black tulips all finally bloomed . . .

    . . . and the ‘Flair’ tulips and hyacinths went to the big wooden shoe in the sky. Hyacinths don’t go gently; these keeled over dramatically, all of them at once, and then turned brown overnight.

    I am very excited about what the hesperaloe is about to do. That stalk doubled in size while we were gone.

    Hesperaloe parviflora ‘Brakelights’

    And the dogwood out front started to blossom! This is the time when I get to put my money where my mouth is. Orange door, pink dogwood, purple maples. Oof.

    We’ve had trips and meetings and so many fun things eating up our weekends lately that I feel completely scattered. The front yard is still a mess, I need to install baseboard in the kitchen, and I really meant to rebuild the kitchen’s screen door this winter. Pretty soon warm weather will be back and I won’t have a screen door in the kitchen to usher it in.

    But we will have that swimming pool we’ve always wanted.

    I think I dug the rain garden too deep.

  • Bloom day April 2012

    Bloom day April 2012

    Man, I love this time of year. The daphne is still scenting the yard, the tulips are all opening, and we still have all the summer and fall foliage and blooms to look forward to.

    Dicentra spectabilis ‘Alba’

    Tulipa ‘Orange Princess’

    Erythronium oregonum

    Lonicera involucrata

    Pieris japonica

    Tulipa ‘Flair’

    This flower hasn’t opened but I had no idea that oxalis even made flowers, so . . .

    Oxalis oregana

    Helleborus x ballardiae ‘HGC Cinnamon Snow’

    Tulipa ‘Merry Christmas’

    Daphne odora variegata 
    Strawberries

    Ribes sanguineum

    Arctostaphylos uva-ursi

    Check out all the gardeners’ blooms at May Dreams Gardens.

  • I think I’ve become a flower floosie

    I think I’ve become a flower floosie

    Annie of Annie’s Annuals calls herself a “flower floosie.” I’d probably lean toward calling myself a shrub whore but now I’m starting to wonder.

    While you’re hanging out, would you mind voting for Meryl and Chris of Picardy Project? They’re up for an award and voting closes this Friday the 13th. Go vote here!

  • A trip down memory lane

    A trip down memory lane

    I didn’t realize you weren’t supposed to let your rhubarb flower, even though vegetables flowering generally = vegetables giving up the ghost.

    Good thing I have my Sunset vegetable gardening book from 1987 to remind me to pull that sucker. The information is timeless even if other things look dated.

    Every man features a mustache . . .

    He’s not even being ironic!

    . . . outdated terms abound.

    Arugula is called “roquette” and it’s “a salad green of Europe seldom discovered here.” It tastes like socialized medicine and reasonably-priced wine. If you want to try it, you’ll have to grow your own.

    Anybody have an idea what they’re talking about here? Celtuce? What?

    Does anyone grow peanuts anymore? Fun fact: my parents spelled my sister’s name “Ami” because they didn’t want her likened to Amy Carter. She spent her life unable to find a personalized license plate for her Huffy or a pencil with her name on it, but NO ONE compared her to Ms. Carter.

    And everyone looks like this.

    But really, should I reapply compost to my rhubarb? I know they are heavy feeders but it got three inches of the good stuff in the fall.

  • The lab is open for business

    The lab is open for business

    As Loree reported, March was a wet month. We got 7.75 inches of precipitation in 31 days. We had snow, hail, and so much rain. I panicked that I hadn’t gotten my big orders from Annie’s and High Country Gardens in the ground and worked feverishly after work over two nights, digging in the pouring rain by porch light. In a perfect world I would have weeded, then worked compost evenly through this area, then carefully planned the layout of the plants based on color and size.

    Instead it was dark, I was soaked (to my underoos, guys), and I just kind of threw plants down wherever felt good at the time. Nothing had been weeded. Even though I’ve been planning this stupid strip for a while, there was a still a lot of impulse buying and random last-minute adds. I was struggling to read the tags in the dark, wondering why I bought an eryngium and where had I planned to put it?

    For better or worse it’s done, aside from mulch.

    Here’s the breakdown of the plants:

    And how they should play together:

    One of these things in not like the other!

    And the other half:

    I’ll probably have to move things around a little, still. I’ve realized that my approach was more madness than method and there are some shorter plants that should be swapped with taller ones. Good thing I like to move plants. And yeah, it can stop raining at any time and I will be a happy camper.