Just a girl with a hammer

Tag: garden

  • I am so traumatized.

    Remember this?

     
    We had a guy from craigslist come and do this. Listen for when I tell him to “watch the peonies, brother.”

    Everything looked so good at first. He was removing big chunks of concrete without disturbing the plants around the slab. I mean, check this out:

    Unfortunately, the lawn looked like this. And he dropped a piece of concrete on one of the bloodgood maples on the parking strip.

    Our front yard looks BUSTED. I don’t even want to post photos. It was incredibly stressful watching him barely skim past the side of my house, over and over. He started dropping pieces and I started worrying he would take out my chimney. Remember your mantra when hiring people: “Are you licensed and bonded?”
    I have no idea if he was licensed and bonded because I FORGOT TO ASK.
    But now my yard, my beautiful yard, looked like this. It was traumatizing. I felt like someone had raped and pillaged my happy place.
    Greg and I got up the next morning to start moving the raised beds (I swear I’ll post The Plan soon) and Greg discovered that my Oregon Iris is about to bloom for the first time since I planted it 18 months ago.

    And I swooned and I was happy again. Luckily, nature is good at recovering. We are both trying to remember that. I was shocked at how viscerally I reacted to seeing my yard torn up; I was even more shocked that Greg was upset too. So last night after dinner with his family he thatched and reseeded the lawn in the dwindling light. I took photos of parts of the yard that are still pretty.

    The good news is that I can see the plan coming together now. We dismantled the dog bone and reassembled it where the cement slab used to be. Our shape inspiration was two wine glasses (the stemless kind).

     
    It the corner behind the wine glasses we’re going to put in a Colorado spruce. This will give us some height in that corner and something green to look at in the winter. We’re gaining more planting space in front of that and I’ll need to really work on getting stuff that’s evergreen. And of course I’ll need to finally yank the weird mystery willow. 
    So yeah, short evergreen plant suggestions . . . GO!
    Cedar bark is being delivered so we can lay down pathways before everything turns to weeds. Then the boy and I can get down to the sweet business of arm wrestling over who gets to choose what kind of hippie lawn to plant on the old dogbone space. I want something flowering and low water; he wants something that looks like a traditional lawn.
    Of course, he rescued me from a LOT of garden spiders this weekend (new and interesting ones that were SO scary!) and he removed the biggest slug I have ever seen, so I’ll probably let him have his way.
    He’s all curled up here–he was HUGE
  • And now, your moment of zen.

    And now, your moment of zen.

    We destroyed our yard this weekend. Pictures of the carnage soon!

    In the meantime, here’s something pretty to look at.

    Deer fern, columbine, lady fern, swoon!
  • Shut up, it worked.

    Shut up, it worked.

    I waited too long to order peony cages and then they took forever to get here, so my plants were HUGE. After denuding the smallest plant of a lot of its foliage trying to get the cage on, I decided to try wrapping the peony stems in tinfoil.

     
     Whatever, it worked.
  • Weeds

    Weeds

    Five dollars to whoever can identify this weed. It’s new to my yard this year and it’s EVERYWHERE.

  • We finally got sun!

    We finally got sun!

    Most of my family lives in California and I quietly weep when I read their Facebook updates IN MARCH that say things like, “First barbecue of the season!” Jerks.

    It’s been cold and raining like crazy but we finally got some sun this weekend. I had picked up all these plants last week that I ordered in March. Advance plant sales are awesome because your order arrives and you’re like, “I ordered five meadow Sidalcea why? Where was I going to put all this now?”

    The pink tulips have been up for a while and I’ve been waiting on the black ones.
     
    The black bulbs are my favorite.
    Heuchera

    Chive blossoms

    Goatsbeard

    Western trilliums and lady fern
    Wild ginger Asarum caudatum
    The boy spent the whole day weeding and we barbecued and ate outside. Maybe I had to wear a sweatshirt toward the end but, whatever, I’ll take it. 
    Shooting star Dodecatheon hendersonii
    And 7 out of 9 of all y’all liked the birdbath so now we’ll just wait and see if the birds will use the thing. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for hummingbirds.
  • Bird bath, part deux

    Bird bath, part deux

    Last fall, right after I got back from Hawaii, I discovered that the patio umbrella had fallen over, taking the table with it and smashing the top of the birdbath.

    And this tree was chopped down at some point by the previous owner, only to have it sucker back to life.

    While I admire its tenacity, I think I want that stump to be the base of a new birdbath. So I gave it a little haircut.
    And I took out a crummy day at work on the stump with my handsaw (which would have been so much easier with a chainsaw–YOU’RE WELCOME, ENVIRONMENT).

    I was left with these funny guys. Hands in the air!
    Then I grabbed this tray at Ikea. I like the size and the shape. It’s swoopy. But I’m not sure about the pattern.

    Now if the Nootka roses I have on either side would hurry the hell up and GROW the birds would have a semi-private area in which to bathe. And the thorns from the roses would deter any would-be predators. Modesty and security, just what every bird wants!

    But seriously, does this look super lame? Should I stain or paint the tray (in bird-friendly ways, of course)? 

     
     Vote, yo.
    Stump birdbath–yea or nay?

    • Yea! Keep it as is.
    • Meh. You need to do X to make it usable. (Gimme suggestions in the comments)
    • Nay. That’s just a bad idea.
    View Results

    poll by twiigs.com
  • I have the coolest boyfriend

    I have the coolest boyfriend

    My friend T came over a couple of weeks ago to help me figure out what to do with the front yard. I was filling Greg in on her ideas and we got to talking about the backyard. He asked me if I’d want to hear what he’d do back there. He then proceeded to spew a bunch of awesomeness.

    Despite the fact that he hates gardening and has zero interest in landscaping, and the fact that I’ve never really articulated what I want in a yard, he came up with a plan that nailed everything I want. It’s a good thing he’s so cute because that’s frankly kind of annoying. I think about my yard constantly! Why am I not coming up with this stuff?

    Basically his plan involves building a rather large (and low–think Japanese) deck off the second bedroom, which would eventually get French doors. BEHOLD, my superior MS Paint skills:

    It would be big enough for a table that can seat 8-10 so I could have dinner parties back here. He’d shorten the existing rotten wood deck off of my bedroom so it was really just stairs, then put down large stone pavers. He’d build up the plantings between the two decks so I’d have a little seating area just outside our bedroom sliders. Think Adirondack chairs and martinis. The big bone planter would get dismantled and moved to the other side of the yard where the cement slab is (and it would have a new shape). The cement slab would get broken up and removed so we could expand the plantings in that weird back corner.

    My one addition to this plan was to add a tree in the center of the yard for height and to provide a tiny bit of shade to one side of the deck. And I added a rain garden. And of course I mocked up these awesome plans in Paint.

    Of course, he had to outdo that too. While I was out drinking wine with Bill, Greg measured the yard and built me a layout TO SCALE.

    So instead of doing everything back there haphazardly, I can PLAN. And give the shrubs the right amount of space and whatnot. Mock-ups will be coming shortly–if we can pull off what we’re thinking, we will have the coolest yard in the city. Of course, this could all be an elaborate plan to eliminate the lawn so he doesn’t have to mow it. I conned him into doing it every week if he doesn’t have to do dishes. Sucker.

    (Have I mentioned I love living with him? He’s a fabulous roommate and I couldn’t be happier.)

  • Squee!

    Squee!

    I love plant sale weekends.

  • Erythronium oregonum

    Erythronium oregonum

    I don’t mean to be hyperbolic but this flower is the prettiest flower in all the land.

    And it’s growing in my yard!
  • Garden fever, part deux

    Garden fever, part deux

    It was almost a year ago that I posted I was suffering from garden fever.

    It’s back, the garden fever. All day at work I’m thinking in the back of my head about what I could plant along the back side of the house. Do I have a place for another viburnum? What’s a good low-growing evergreen for the area with the weird willow? Could I turn that suckering stump into a birdbath? Is 28 ferns enough? (No.)

    It honestly makes me feel very manic. Fall and spring are really creative times for me, when I get very excited about EVERYTHING. I have a stack of interior design books, a pile of yardscaping guides, new music on the iPod, crude sketches everywhere . . . I catch myself bouncing in my seat when I catch wind of another plant sale. Everything feels full of possibility.

    I was flipping through a plant encyclopedia at lunch one day and I felt like I would just die if I didn’t get a goatsbeard (Aruncus) under the conifer in the backyard. I called Marbott’s after work and found out that they don’t carry it and I was so sad. I didn’t want to drive all the way out to Portland Nursery during rush hour, either.

    I saw this picture in this yardscape book of gas water heater flue baffles used in the garden and I. had. to. have. some.

    Yanked from The Revolutionary Yardscape, p. 160

    Do you know how freakishly hard it is to find those? Nary a hardware store in Portland (not even Wink’s!) carries them, there weren’t any at The Rebuilding Center, and the online stores that carry them (Sears, mainly) don’t include the dimensions or a picture. Stymied again!

    That’s why it makes me feel so much better when I hear from friends who are just as antsy to get out in the mud to start planting. And then I saw this, from A Way to Garden.

    “I garden because I can’t help myself.”


    On Being a Gardener: From “And I Shall Have Some Peace There” from Margaret Roach on Vimeo.

    That’s exactly how I feel. I can’t help myself–what am I going to do, just not garden? That’s not an option. I honestly don’t understand how people DON’T get excited by gardening.

    In other news, I think this mystery bush might be a dwarf Canadian hemlock. Maybe? Either way, I want to move it somewhere else. That’s the bedroom off the deck there and I want something that smells good so the scent will waft in through the screen door that I’ll have someday. Can someone drop a hint to the boy that a screen door would be an excellent birthday present?

    And one of these. WANT. 
    ‘Fireworks’ fountain grass