Garden Projects #4

Karen

I said that because all the time I lived up north they did and so did everyone elses in the garden club. The first year I saw them white I thought someone had pull a trick on me and had maybe painted them and after a winter under 100"+ that the pain had worn off. Since your up north and have a lot of snow like us I would be interested to hear more about how long you have had them planted together.

Jan

DW has pink ones too; and near white ones. This year they are still pink so I'm going to have to tell her to move the pink ones somewhere else. We have a ton of the white ones as everyone else seems to have!!!

Karen, I like that pulling poison ivy trick with news paper as we have so much in the woods that keeps showing up in the beds and I am horrible allergic to it. I usually shriek loudly and my DH comes and pulls it out, but I might get brave if I go out with the Sunday times and attack it with sheets of it and put it all in a plastic bag. Thanks

https://exmentalis.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/bach-and-japanese-forest-instruments/

Cool Jo!

That was neat!

DH and I decided that we had to expand the veggie bed as originally planned, but we had mentally cancelled the expansion due to time constraints, but now it is on again. He worked all day digging up massive amounts of old roots and double dug the whole thing. It is 10 x 16 for this year as we are only do one part of it. We have a friend here tonight who just ripped the 10' tall 2 x 6's into 2 x 3's for the post. They are digging them into the ground 2' and we have 7' deer fence to install, but I have quite for the day so disregard the "we". If I got off the bed I could look out the window and see them. To tired.

My day was spent planting and bed cleaning. I found more yellow flag iris to rip out and more sneaky invasive spiderwort along with the regular assortment of annoying weeds. I have only 4 flowering plants left to plant until Tuesday when we are going to pick up some snapdragons, marigolds and something to plant along the new walk way. Tuesday is Friend of the Farm day with 10% off so we always shop on Tues. Of course we have a zillion veggie starts to plant in the new bed and more weeding. But I must say it does look pretty fine. Except for a new Japanese maple that looks dead. Some shots from yesterday. Patti

I have that spiderwort problem too

:(

Hopefully, you mean in the garden.

ugh

Jan, I checked on my pink LOTV today, but they had already gone by, so I don't know if they've reverted. Will have to remember to check them next year.

Looking great, Patti. I have a ton of that invasive spiderwort, too. Ugh! OMG, I will never get rid of it all.

Did some weeding and watering of my potted plants today. Had some customers for plants who spent a lot of time looking around the gardens, so I was occupied talking to them. Dug a few things for them and sold about $60 worth of stuff today, so it was all good.

Karen

Karen,

I sure which I could have come by and purchase a few plants. I so love seeing the garden of other who love the plants as much as I do.

Patti

I love your garden, and the fence is so beautiful with all of those incredible plants.

Jan

your garden looks great patti - hoping for the best for the jm!

looking great Patti

Looks great Patti!

Absolutely love it Patti! Spiderwort problem here too!

Hate the stuff.I had some the were so wild they killed a small garden .

Spiderwort-- ugh!!! I renovated and old daylily bed last year. Picked up each plant, jet-sprayed the roots with water until I was sure there was nothing but daylily, all but sifted the soil to eliminate specifically that and a particularly nasty noid vine that has pods at regular intervals along the roots that squeeze in and hide just under the crown of the plant and comes up from a whisper of a shred of a root. This year I've already pulled two small clumps of spiderwort and zapped half a dozen baby vines.

Hate it!

Pam

spiderwort's are that bad of a problem for yall... when I lived up north, all of the folks in my garden club had them and even gave me many of them. In the four years that I had them they never took over, they were very well behaved and stayed right where they were planted and just increased in size.

Sorry to hear that they are such a problem for yall. Funny that they are as I was in the same growing zone as you 5b/a. Wonder what makes them so invasive for ya???

Jan

Thanks all. I dug some of the Tradescantia out, but those roots are impossible, so I keep snapping it off whenever I see it and hoping to discourage it, but it seems to be winning. Pretty thing, but impossible. I have the white and some blue, but the blue is worse. Thugs. Any suggestions as to how to best get rid of it? I don't want it to choke my garden to death like it did to GE1836's bed. It must grow a foot in the night as I am sure I got it all until the next day when there is a new patch out of nowhere.

I am winning the Iris pseudacorus battle. I have less than half of what I had last year poking up and have been pulling out massive rhizomes that apparently I could chew on if I had a tooth ache or make a black dye out of or grow out an let flower and then roast the seeds for a coffee substitute. Who knew? I don't want one more seed of it in my garden.

I will leave that Acer palmatum Bi hou in place and hope it rallies. The others planted the at the same time in the same area are doing fine.

Out to plant our new veggie patch. DH got it done just before dark. I cheered from inside. Patti

Your iris are lovely, Patti....a lot of mine have already gone by....invasive spiderworts here also....I have many different colors...they must mutate.....I'd love for them to stay outside of the fence by the road, but they like my perennial bed better :>(.....

my problem is the roots are jammed between rocks and i can't get em out.. been digging the same ones out for 3 years now

Mine are so well behaved here

Robindog, I think you could be right as I only remember planting blue in 1983. I rue the the day.

flowAjen, not fair.

I found more Iris pseudacorus today and just as I was finished for the day, I saw some more hiding in a corner. I'll jerk them out tomorrow.

Pfg, that is a way cool idea, but so much work. I need to lift some lavender as well as many masses of siberian Iris to get out some grass. The DL could use your method too. Maybe next spring I'll put that on my 2012 "project " list.

I finally finished cleaning out the GH today of everything that goes out for the summer, except for 4 big pots of plants that belong to a friend who will have her "gardener" come by and pick them up at some point and fluff them up with some new annuals and herbs. One is an oleander tree that blooms all winter so I like having it. Plus we have 2 pots of hers filled with begonias that never have stopped blooming over the last 4 or 5 years. Non stop for sure. I moved too many heavy pots and am very sore now. Plus after I came in for the day I decided to move some big rugs from one room to another which meant moving a bunch of furniture. Now really hurting, but done.

I also weeded a terrace, divided some lavender and nepeta to use to fill in some bare spots and did some raking in the new veggie bed area. I planted up some hot peppers in pots on the deck because they are pretty and I remember to use them. I bought a six pack of mixed, but have no idea of what ones they are. I will plant a row of jalapeno's and another bunch of Serrano's in the garden as I need more of those. .

DH got the new veggie bed planted with pumpkins, potatoes, cabbage, and mini watermelons and who knows what else as I quite before he finished. Before he could start he had to put rabbit wire around the bottom as those critters eat right through the deer fencing to munch on everything. Our friend, and his ESL student from Lithuania, made us a cool gate for it and dropped it off and then hung it for us. Done. Some shots from today with the gate. Patti

Love the iris's Patti, do you by chance know the name of that columbine? It's lovely!!!!

Beautiful, Patti!

I have the blue spiderwort and they tend to stay pretty well under control. They do multiply, but slowly enough for me to stay on top of the clump.

I am at my wit's end over how to get rid of a huge patch of lily of the valley. It covers a large area (it's been there since the 1970s when Hank's mother planted a few.) Well, I have learned that the whole plant (all parts) is highly poisonous for dogs and fatal (heart and kidney failure) if any part is ingested. It is in the part of the yard where our dogs are allowed to go. We have it fenced off, but the runners keep coming out into the yard. The girls are always nosing around there and I don't want to take any chances. We tried using roundup, but it is pretty spotty and hasn't really worked. Today I poured vinegar on a test patch and it did seem to turn the leaves yellow, but I have 2 concerns about it. I'm not sure it is really killing the rhyzomes under the ground, and also I'm concerned that I won't be able to plant grass in the area after saturating the soil with vinegar. Does anyone have any ideas on how to totally eliminate the whole patch safely?

hate to say it.. dig it out

I have dogs, but they don't eat plants of at least I never have seen them do that. Grass, yes and they pull branches off of shrubs to chew on, so I have never worried about all the poisonous plants out there. Maybe I should. Lily of the valley is hard to eliminate, but you might not be able to garden at all if you eliminated everything on the list of poisonous plants

Celeste, I dug it up from Vt and I think it is called a double pleated Aquilegia vulgaris. I bought some seeds some years ago from Parks, but I may have the wrong vendor. I planted some in both places, but the ones here didn't make it and the ones in Vt did, so I dug some up and planted them in Nantucket a few years ago. Now the ones in Vt are missing. Go figure. They are lovely. Patti

I wonder how long aqulegias live anyway.
I have a dwindling 3 clumps (Bluestone ) started out fabulous,Second year great.This year one is missing altogether and the other 2 are small.No reseededs anywhere. I remember someone commenting the first year I posted the photos."They play out in a few years" guess they were right
Photo from 2009

Columbines are short lived so leave a few to go to seed to keep them going. It is a gorgeous one Patti.

yeah I found that one out too.. and I deadheaded.. didn't have anything the next year

None of the plants I have no matter what the species.If the seeds are supposed to propegate,they just arent.
Or I weed them,seems annual poppies are the only new plants I recognise.

You'd recognize them.

I can always spot strawflower babies.. helps growing them from seed .. to be able to spot them outside

Our acqulegia are a determined bunch. I will keep the ones in the garden, but deadhead those growing in our gravel driveway.

My big bunches are on year 3 , they have set seeds and I have let some grow so I would not be w/out. My 2 biggest bunches are the 'Bl. Barlow' and 'Nora barlow'

I have both pink (back yard) & blue (front & back). They are just generic plants. I have a couple 'Nora Barlow' in another bed which sometimes appear.

I believe the Clementine series are iffy as to reseed even tho Bluestone says they do.
I dont het Varbascums either,but they dont like the clay soil here.That might be the reason.
I will just wait to get lucky with Lime Sorbets aquileegia.
Its an awful year for Black Barlows and William Guiness.Too much rain,they went tall and fell over.

This message was edited Jun 6, 2011 6:35 AM

Thanks for the information. I'm putting that white double on my wishlist!