I am chomping at the bit to purchase my tomato starts. I have tried my hand at starting seeds indoors, but that resulted in colossal failure. I now know what I did wrong, but I wasn’t willing to put for the effort for a grow structure and lights. Besides, my house is a little small for such a contraption. Instead I built myself a coldframe and started a few things in there. Tomatoes were among the experiments and they are puny to say the least. Our weather has been too cold and my door was poorly built. Needless to say, I will once again be purchasing my tomatoes from the local farmers.
I have a love of heirloom tomatoes. They are the most spectacular specimen that can be grown in the garden (in my opinion). Last year I only grew 3 varieties (Cherokee Purple, Brandywine and one other that I cannot remember the name of). This year I plan to at least double that.
99% of the seeds planted in my vegetable garden are heirloom varieties. I do this to make sure there is no genetic modification and that I have the option to save my seeds should I choose to do so. There is too much uncertainty in the conventional seeds. Besides, the heirloom varieties have far fewer pest problems and they taste better.
Since my vegetable garden is planned and set I thought I would move on to other parts of the yard. Our flower beds are in serious need of some repair. The front sunny side bed is full and beautiful. It just needs some weeding. Our late winter project was to fill in the shady side of the front bed. Mission accomplished with a visit to the Rose Society plant sale. The corner bed… well, I’m in a state of denial about that one. It is my problem child. It is mostly full, but full of weeds. The bed against the house and against the Laurel hedge is fairly under control with the exception of the weeds. But it has landscape fabric under it so weeding is not difficult, just time consuming.
That leaves the last bed. It is on the side of the house by the street. This poor bed gets hot sun all day long. It’s on a slope so it can be difficult to water. Despite landscape fabric it is one of the worst beds in regards to weeds. When we purchased the house I was determined to make it into a rose garden. I had visions of masses of beautiful roses to make up for the horrible view of my neighbor’s house. The first year in the house the roses were spectacular. However, as the years went on the roses declined as they are apt to do. Where I once had 6 gorgeous rose bushes, I am now down to 2 1/2 (maybe).
This bed is where I’m turning my attention to this spring/summer. I intend to relocate the hybrid teas and floribunda roses to other parts of the garden and replace the whole area with an heirloom cottage garden. I have plans of beautiful flowers, an actual drip irrigation system and something to really block the view of my neighbor’s house. The best part about is that I actually drew up a plan for the area. Normally, I purchase plants and just throw them in the ground. I am taking a risk with this project and ordering most of the plants online. I don’t want to go to all of that trouble and not have somewhere to put the new arrivals. I’m also being smart and not going terribly overboard. I have focus and know that I can’t order plants unless I have somewhere for them to go. That means the bed needs to be properly prepped. I’m doing it right this time.
Who says I don’t have focus?
One would assume that the nice weather around here has had me out in the garden. I wish that were not the case. My seeds still have not arrived (and I’m getting impatient). Instead of sprucing up my garden I’ve been remodeling my kitchen. I kills me a little that it was over 70 degrees yesterday and I was inside sanding and staining cabinets. I did take a moment to photograph a little of what is blooming in my garden these days.
Within the last two days my Thundercloud Plums and Weeping Cherry have fully blossomed. I also noticed one of my odd primroses has now bloomed and the smell of the hyacinth is a reminder that it is actually spring. It makes me ignore the fact that it might snow on Friday.
We purchased our house in the fall of 2003. That summer preceding had been exceptionally hot and dry. The previous homeowner had left the house vacant for months and other than a lawn scalping not much was done. We spent two weeks prior to moving in resurfacing nearly every surface of the interior. We made 35 trips to Home Depot in that two weeks span. We were nearly on a first name basis with the cashiers.
Once I felt like the inside was live-able I moved to the outside. This house was the first we’d purchase therefore this was the first garden that was totally mine. The garden was in worse shape than the circa 1982 interior. I spent weeks in the cold January rain pulling Ivy, Vinca, Fatsia, Honeysuckle Bush and anything else that I could get my hands on. I also wanted to cut down 1 or two of the three trees in our front, but my husband wouldn’t let me. However, I still swear something has to go. Honestly… who puts Thundercloud Flowering Plum next to a Photinia (and this is a 20′ tall Photinia tree). The Red Hat Society is a great organization. I just don’t want to be their signature garden.
Unfortunately, all three trees give us a great deal of privacy in the front and the Plums are pretty when they flower. Everything stays.
Once I had my fun of tearing everything out I started to put back plants that were pretty. One afternoon my neighbor stopped by to chat. She asked me why there were no flowers in my garden. I also heard two women on their walk mentioning that my garden would not look nice in the winter because there were no evergreen shrubs. I was crushed. Here I had spent all of this time and money to start creating a garden that was just mine and my neighbors thought it was awful. Granted, it was better than what was there. I got to thinking about it and realized that I wasn’t planting my garden to be beautiful to them. I was planting it to be beautiful to me.
Now notice that I did not say that I planned it. For a landscape designer my garden is anything but planned. I was so eager to put plants in the ground I skipped the planning stage. I would go to the nurseries and have a full on episode of, “oh that’s pretty,” and in it would go. This proved to be a bad idea in the long run. I didn’t know where the shady spots were. I didn’t know what portions would be difficult to water. It was a mess. Five years later I’ve almost figured it out.
I also began to realize that my neighbor who told me that my garden had no flowers was wrong. My garden is full of blooms. It is also full of amazing textures and shapes. Her definition of “flowers” was that every garden needs to have a flowering Dogwood. I would love to have a flowering Dogwood. I just have a mile long list of other trees that I want first.
Topping my list of favorite trees is the Paperbark Birch (Betula jacquemontii). The stark white bark and the pyramidal shape make this the most elegant tree (in my opinion). I love the fine texture of the branches and how it almost glitters in the summer breeze. Nary a showy pink flower, but still beautiful.
In the shrub category I would have to go with dwarf conifers. I am a sucker for a dwarf conifer. I have a huge collection of them. Some are sited in an area that is far to shady so they are getting leggy, but for the most part they offer that evergreen backdrop that my nosy neighbors failed to see.
For perennials I would have to go with New Zealand Flax (Phormium tenax). There are three of these in my garden and I would love to have more. The bold texture and color add weight to the garden. They are easy to grow and wonderfully drought tolerant once established.
I do have flowers in my garden. I have a little Rose garden (that I truly dislike) and I once had the most beautiful Dahlias in town. I’ve let the roses go to pot and I decided to divide my Dahlias, but forgot to put them back in the ground. My cut flower selection if fading. Re-establishing that is my main focus this year (oh and the weeding).
The point is that you don’t have to have a garden full of bright and bold flowers to make it beautiful. While I have a large population of weeds, my garden is still spectacular come summer.
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In bloom this week:
Forsythia, Primroses, Pansies, Heath, Daffodils, Christmas Cheer Rhododendron, Grape Hyacinth, Thundercloud Plum (starting), Hyacinth
Spring rolled into the Northwest on Friday a nasty rainy mess. It was as winter had a tight grip on its dominance and was reluctant to give up. Although, the people on the Kitsap Peninsula are probably saying, “what is this Spring you speak of?” Winter relented (somewhat) for the weekend allowing me to get a few things done.
First and foremost, I squeezed in the Tacoma Rose Society Plant Sale. The Rose Society works in conjunction with Metro Parks to tend the rose garden at Pt. Defiance park. If you’ve never visited the garden I highly suggest that you take a moment and do so. Just don’t do it this afternoon. Unless you like looking at thorny twigs. I suggest sometime in the summer.
This is the first year I’ve attended the sale and I was rather impressed. It is not a gigantic plant sale by any means. However, if you want some beautiful roses $8.00 a piece will get you quite far. I have a tough enough time managing the ones I have so I admired their shapes and skipped straight to the buckets of perennials. So many perennials need to be divided and what in the world do you do with all of those divisions? If you are me you let them rot in your garage and then cry when you have to compost oodles of Dahlias. If you are the Rose Society you sell them. And on the cheap. Most things were selling for $5 or $10. Good sized divisions that really can be divided yet again. While I was waffling about how I wanted to spend my allotted $20 the nice lady informed me that everything was 1/2 off… wait? did she just say these huge divisions are now $2.50. Damn! I brought the Bug and not the truck. Needless to say I walked out with only $15 worth of plants. But for that $15 I purchased 2 Hosta, 2 Red Hardy Lobelia (which I later divided 1 of), 1 Bergenia and 1 Daylily (of an unknown color, my luck it will be orange). Not bad.
I sweet talked my husband into helping me plant my treasure Sunday afternoon. In addition to the planting I dug up both of my Sword Ferns and transplanted them to new locations. I divided one of the ferns, planted most of my new plants (including a double Hellebore and 2 Primroses) and now my shade garden is nearing completion. It was a lovely feeling.
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In bloom this week: Heath, Tete a Tete daffodils (and a few other varieties), Pussy Willow, Snowdrop, Forsythia, Christmas Cheer Rhododendron, a blue flower that I forgot the name of, Primroses and Pansies.
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