tnh

Garden

Apr 05, 2006 23:10

Seeds: Set out a tray of 120 Jiffy-7 peat pellets seeded with perennials: Achillea millefolium, Achillea m. var. Summer Pastels, Viola cornuta, Viola tricolor, Cheiranthus cheiri (one packet mixed colors, one packet all dark red), Centranthus ruber, Campsis radicans, Helenium autumnale, Lychnis coronaria atrosanguinea, Buddleia alternifolia, ( Read more... )

Leave a comment

Comments 61

jbru April 6 2006, 04:43:11 UTC
This weekend I hope to get last year's growth cleaned out of my prairie garden in preparation for the start of this year's growth. I hope that the recent spurt of warm weather hasn't woken anything up before then, lest it get invested in any of the old growth. The ground is still cold enough, though, that I doubt anything's broken dormancy.

Reply

tnh April 6 2006, 04:45:27 UTC
How far north are you?

Reply

jbru April 6 2006, 04:55:13 UTC
Minneapolis, my dear woman. But you knew that and only needed reminding because my sobriquet is so often unused in face-to-face interactions.

Reply

tnh April 6 2006, 04:59:18 UTC
Whoops, you're right. Live Journal's indigenous culture always reminds me of that style of nineteenth-century political gossip where everyone has a nickname, so if you aren't used to them you're instantly lost.

Reply


onalark April 6 2006, 04:48:02 UTC
I spent half of last summer excavating and recreating three garden beds in my savagely overgrown backyard. Moderately intensive work -- I covered the ground with cardboard, then wet newspaper, and finally several layers of humus and mulch. The wait was over last weekend, when I got to dig in at last. The soil is so fluffy and nice...aaaaah.

I'm hoping to get the rest of my seeds (yellow, purple, and pink tomatoes, lots of eggplant and carrots and watermelons) in the ground this weekend. I picked out a coconut-scented geranium at a nursery, and the sales lady was agog. She hadn't realized they had anything like that.

It does smell awfully good, especially next to the curry plant.

Reply


madrobins April 6 2006, 04:48:58 UTC
Oh, joy! I get to see all this verdant accomplishment!

Reply

tnh April 6 2006, 04:56:34 UTC
Alas, it's not very verdant yet. Aside from the popping cherry blossoms and the little green leaves on the roses, we're at the "bare dirt and last year's stems" stage. I can show you photos of last year's garden, if you're interested, though I'd rather see photos of yours.

Reply

madrobins April 6 2006, 06:29:01 UTC
Our garden is in shock, all waterlogged. The hills are alive with the sound of mudslides. Our lemons are falling and rotting, and the calla lillies and birds of paradise have not even dared to show their faces. Even the yellow poppies (which at this time of year should be everywhere) have barely appeared. Everything is luscious green, which is very pretty. But if you like, I'll bring photographic evidence.

Reply

athenais April 7 2006, 09:31:00 UTC
I hear that. I'm so disappointed in my garden I can hardly bear to go back there. My true woe, and I do blame the rain for this, is my dicentra has not come up. At all. It's six years old, it's never failed me before.

Reply


tnh April 6 2006, 04:54:02 UTC
Nice. I'd have done the same, if I'd known how many weed seeds lurked under the landscaping fabric and mulch that were there when we moved in. Last year, I couldn't weed fast enough. This year I'm not going to seed directly into the ground. I'll start my seeds, then transplant them with a heavy layer of mulch all around.

Coconut geranium's nice. I'm fond of rose geranium myself. I like to have at least one spot where the path passes between a rose geranium and a lemon verbena, because they smell so good in combination when you brush past them. Come to think of it, coconut and curry would work too. Get a little lime in there and it'll smell like a Thai restaurant.

Reply

onalark April 6 2006, 09:07:33 UTC
I wouldn't mind the garden smelling like a Thai restaurant. Except for the nam pla. Save the fish for the roses.

If citrus trees didn't scream and collapse at the notion of being planted out here, I'd have one in a heartbeat. I'd bring one indoors (I've always wanted a dwarf kefir tree) but it's too tempting a target for the felines.

My earliest memories have desert orange trees wafting through them. I bought a couple mockorange shrubs to see if I can achieve a passing resemblance to the scent I remember; we'll see, next spring.

Reply

tnh April 6 2006, 11:43:28 UTC
Oh, that's right -- California's getting nailed. I understand Death Valley has exploded with short-lived flowering desert plants.

Reply


ayse April 6 2006, 05:00:08 UTC
I have never yet found a worthwhile rose at Home Depot, so I applaud your good luck. I checked them out on a tip this winter and was shocked at the bad conditions, which reminded me of nothing as much as those movies PETA shows of puppy mills.

Not that I needed roses. This year I bought a couple dozen for a hedge from David Austin, and they are easily the best roses I have ever received. I would definitely be order more roses from them for other parts of the garden, except that they sent me 45 plants when I had ordered 26, which means that I will never want for roses again.

In regards to mint, our neighbors have it and it has invaded our garden, encouraged by the previous owners who were not gardeners. I spend a great deal of time pulling the stuff out, which would be more unpleasant except that afterwards the whole place smells like I've brushed its teeth. Freshens up the city green bin sweetly, too, unlike Bermuda grass, which is vile and evil and just rots into a stinky mass.

Reply

tnh April 6 2006, 11:54:31 UTC
I can imagine the plant area at your local Home Depot becoming noisome. You've got that year-round climate. Here, the outdoor plant area completely shuts down in the fall, then spends months in the grip of salt and ice. When it opens again in the early spring, it's clean of lurking plant diseases: strictly a temporary condition.

Those are great-looking roses you got from David Austin, and 45 when you paid for 26 is definitely an embarrassment of riches. Interesting thing you've got going there with the bricks. My old garden on Staten Island did the same thing with paving slates. My best guess was that they'd been laid down directly on the soil, and had sunk over time.

Reply

ayse April 6 2006, 13:59:20 UTC
Ah, well, the bricks are from a known source: we had our old brick foundation removed and replaced last year, and they dumped the debris in the yard, then dug a bunch of dirt on top of it, then scooped up the top layer with a bobcat, leaving us a nice layer of sand-submerged bricks to clear out for the rest of our lives. In the process, a bunch of Bermuda grass grew through the pile of bricks and sand, and made a huge awful tangly mess. Cleaning it up is how we spent our late fall and early winter.

I did have a garden in Massachusetts that had an entirely submerged slate patio about four inches down. I hemmed and hawed over what to do, and eventually just dug it out, because as it turned out it was level and still in good condition. I think that there the grass and dirt had piled up over the slates rather than the slates sinking into the ground.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up