Another problem area

After fixing up the garden in the front of the house, inevitably another spot is starting to look messy and unpleasant. Many elements of this corner garden are struggling. The overgrown Miss Kim Lilac, the mishmash of day lilies, a giant decorative rock mostly buried under the shrub that serves no purpose, constant weeds, and dead daffodil leaves are a few examples. This corner says anything but “Welcome to my house!”

So we really needed to spruce this up a bit. The giant flat accent rock and daylilies moved to another spot and immediately the site perked up. I was going to leave some of the daylilies right on the front corner and add 2 boxwoods to the spot next to yew. As soon as we set the boxwoods there, it was obvious the other daylilies had to go and one more boxwood was added. The lilac, I will continue to prune in hopes that one day it’ll be small and full again. And here’s what it looks like now!

One of the constant things I mysteriously find in the garden is small rocks. They are everywhere! I assume they are remnants of the initial house construction and walkway construction. I bring this up because I found about a bucketful in this small area. Rocks are one of those things that I just don’t know what to do with. They’re not landscaping waste, too heavy for the regular trash, so they now go to help fill in the swale in the back that has river rock in it.

Problem Areas

Everyone has problem areas in their yard. This week, I’m going to show some of ours and some of the solutions we’ve finally come up with. First was an area off the corner of the house. When we first moved in, the landscaper designed the space to have 3 large Austrian Pines in the corner with some yews and junipers in front of the window.

Little did we know that a self-planted maple was growing right next to it in my neighbors yard. It grew extremely rapidly to become one of the biggest trees around the property. It was so dense that it created too much shade for the Austrian Pines to grow properly (and killed off all her shrubs as well). So, last year we finally threw in the towel and had our trees removed to try and fix up this very noticeable part of the garden and house. In the process, we also took out the creeping junipers that were half dead as well from lack of sun.

In the new garden we wanted some type of visual distraction from the neighbors fence since that’s where your eyes would go as you walk up the front walk. But, also wanted to keep it fairly low budget and therefore decided on 3 Arborvitaes. They’re one of the few evergreens that will tolerate shade, although their growth will be very slow. We didn’t want a full privacy hedge, just something to distract your eyes. We happened to have 4 Annabelle hydrangeas on the side of the house that are far too big for the space and by mid season flop over into the main brick walkway to the back of the house. In this new shade garden we created, the hydrangeas would be a perfect plant. They can obviously tolerate the shade and can finally just grow as they want in an appropriate space. Of course, to fill in the rest, I moved some hostas from elsewhere in the yard. We also had some boxwoods added to give the space a more finished, less wild look.

We think this was a great improvement to the front yard. The only problem we had was that everything was planted/transplanted right before the drought hit last summer. I did a lot of watering to keep all the plants alive and they all survived the drought and the winter.

MI Garden Photos

Here’s some beautiful photos from my mom’s garden in northern Michigan.

Photos taken by Peggy

Really??

A couple of weeks ago as I pulled in the driveway, I noticed a dead patch in the parkway grass.

We’ve had problems in this area before because it’s a really sunny hot spot and I don’t run the in-ground sprinkler that often, so I assumed it was more of the same. But, I finally went up there and was looking more closely and I could see dead grass footprints walking away from the dead area, going up between us and our neighbors, towards the side of the house.

So what happened? I’m not sure, but my guess is that fertilizer, some type of weeder concentrate or even possibly round-up, was spilled and the landscaping worker stepped in it and it stuck to his boots. It must have been pretty strong because obvious footprints probably go for about 30 ft. I really would have hoped that if such a spill happened that they would have taken more care to clean it up, and certainly not traipse it all over the yard. Looks like I’ll be reseeding some more in the fall.

Japanese beetle update–

I went and checked on my roses and there are many fewer Japanese Beetles on the roses, and the ones I saw seemed to be chewing on fresh rose buds. I sprayed a little bit more on the new growth areas so hopefully there’ll be some new blooms soon. I also saw that the Bee Balm was still nicely covered in all kinds of honey bees.

Farmer’s Market

We are lucky to have a fabulous Farmers Market to our town every Monday, June-October. The fruit and produce changes every week, so you never know what you might find. But, you are guaranteed that it will be super fresh and in season. It’s a great way to supplement the harvest from my own garden (which so far has yielded some lettuce, spinach, radish, and recently a cucumber and a squash). This year, they’ve added a couple of fresh bread vendors and some specialty items like olives and olive oil, tea, an old time knife sharpener, organic meat and more. In June, they had some of the best tasting Michigan strawberries that I’ve had in a long time. I bought a bunch and made some very tasty jam. I try to remember to go every week.

I find there are a lot of vegetables I don’t know what to do with, so I’ve started asking the vendors for their recommendations. Kohlrabi is one of those things (the big white turnip looking thing in the right hand corner). They were passing out samples last year of freshly sliced kohlrabi and it quickly became a favorite. Cut up on it’s own, or as a tasty crunchy item in a salad, it’s delicious. It’s season is short, and I can’t always find it in the grocery store. So that’s something I’ll be getting for sure the next couple of weeks. I’m looking for other ways to cook it, too. Any suggestions?

Hope you can find a farmer’s market nearby you.

Check your supplies :(

I finally found time to go out and fertilize my annuals, perennials and vegetables. I have always used Miracle Grow All Purpose Plant Food, either as the water soluble plant food granules I mix into the watering can or use with their refillable garden feeder or the ready to use Liquifeed garden hose system. All seem to work fine, just depends on what form I can find the food in at the store. I know there’s other plant food out there, this is just what I’ve always used and it works for me. If anyone uses something else, I’d love to hear your experience.

But, like anything, the best laid plans can go awry. When I opened the gardening cupboard, I apparently had pretty much used up everything last year and never bothered to buy more, or make a note of needing to buy it for this year.

So, I watered with what I had on hand, and then went to the store later in the afternoon. I did have a problem with the liquafeed dispenser in that it was clogged. That happened last year too. That is one downside to this set-up. It takes a while before you realize the food isn’t being mixed with the water and that you need to get it unclogged. I never had that problem with the older no-clog garden feeder. But, the downside is that you have to deal with adding the crystallized food to the dispenser (but that’s not really that big of deal).

To get it unclogged, first I rinsed out the sprayer bottle attachment pretty well to get clear any crystals or gunk. Then I squeezed the unnattached bottle really hard to get a little spray to come out to clear that little hole. That seemed to do the trick. Some hints I’ve come across to keep it working well include, run some water through the sprayer after detaching the bottle to clear any crystals, don’t leave the bottle attached to the nozzle during storage and keep the bottle capped when not in use to prevent unused solution from evaporating.

Watering the plants this way also gives me a chance to check everything out and see what might need attention. This is important as we get into the heat of the summer.

Life is What Happens To You While You’re Busy Making Other Plans

I came across this quote by Allen Saunders (and later attributed to John Lennon) and it struck me as being what happened to my blog the last month. Sometimes things in your life happen that just throw everything of course and you just need to go with it. But, I am back and I will be trying to catch up with what has been happening in my garden since my last post. The garden has not stopped growing and needing attention, but luckily, the weather has cooperated and everything is looking wonderful and making us all smile, as only a garden can do.

This beautiful hydrangea was a gift from a friend to brighten my day. I found the perfect spot and I’ve enjoyed looking at it everyday from both my kitchen window and the patio.

Clean Up

The sun has come out so the ground is finally beginning to dry out. We were able to get out there and assess what happened. We were able to rake most of the soil and mulch out of the grass and back into the gardens. The really muddy spots in the grass we need to just stay off and see how it’ll recover.

Even More Rain

In the last 24 hours, over 5 inches of rain has fallen on already saturated soil, with a little more to come tonight. Most of the day was spent watching the backyard flood and turn into quite a river as all the water from up the block flowed past, and some through, our backyard. All that rain washed whatever mulch there was remaining from the winter into the grass and across the yard. It took a lot of topsoil with it too, and left that all over the grass as well. Thankfully, we fared better than some, our water stayed out out of the basement (so far, fingers crossed) and did recede when the rains finally slowed down to a drizzle. But, we’re going to have to figure out pretty quickly how to clean up this mess, protect the plants that have had the soil eroded around them and get the mulch and soil out of the grass. The good news is that plants in higher areas are loving the water and warmer temperatures. We’ll see what it all looks like in the morning. We may need to deal with rerouting some of this water flow permanently to keep it to the perimeter of the yard where it belongs.

Water is always a hassle to deal with, whenever one neighbor alters their landscaping or grade, it affects everyone around them. It’s a constant battle to keep it flowing to the end of the block where the storm sewer is.

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Beginning to Look Like a Jungle

I finally got my basil seeds to start indoors. I kept forgetting to by them at the store. I planted them in the seed trays on April 11, so I should be fine for transplanting in May. The other seedlings are growing like gangbusters. Just need to remember to keep them watered and turned. When the water starts to get too low, the first to go will be the corner squares. In the picture, you can see a pepper plant looking a little weak, signs that I let the water get a little too low. You can also see that I need to turn the plants, they are growing all over each other towards the window.

Two things I need to work on. 1) Thin out the plants. I usually put a couple of seeds in each space, so once they get growing I need to pinch back to just one plant. It remains healthier, and I just don’t have the space in my garden to plant them all. 2) I also think I need to figure out how to stake some of the seedlings, otherwise I’m going to get a giant tangled mess of climbing plants. What do you do when your seedlings get too leggy and big and it’s too soon to plant them outdoors?

Category: General