Garden Projects #8

Gosh, Deb, what a funny picture I have in my mind as the lady stomps her impatiens! Bill, your soil should be golden by now.....

I thought I did a fair job of clean up
But my helper reallllly did a good job
Krapp I cant load an image. This really bites

This message was edited Mar 22, 2012 9:52 AM

Garden Helpers job edging too.

love the way the yard looks after clean up - and then the wait for plants to grow - a nice job there joann

my wife came home yesterday and told me our friend who lets me take rock from her yard wanted to know if i would clean up her yard and she would pay me - wife explained the was a busy time (20 yds of dirt arriving) - she is in no hurry so i will probably get to it in late May or June, will do it no charge except for more rock

Nice trade.

Your helper does great work, Jo!

berm mulched and trenched, just realized I never notated on my map where I planted the alliums...will they find their way thru the mulch???

Yes.

whew, that's relief

Today, before it just started to rain, we began our annual many days of burning all the pruned stuff that we have been stock piling since last May. I think we have enough for at least 2 more full days of burning. I love it, though dragging all the cut stuff is hard work for this old gal. The garden is very much full of color and doing well this spring. The deer did chomp down some hyacinth and pulled out some iris and ate some primula. The rabbits have had been nibbling away too. grrrrrrrrrrr. And then my dear dogs have done some pruning on a couple of shrubs and a Japanese maple as well as digging up some bulbs when they decide to make a nest in the middle of one of the beds. Not helpful.

I re-caged a few shrubs today that also got chewed on by the deer. But all in all the garden looks like it survived our non-winter pretty well. The beds are in good shape, though I need to finish edging some of them. I am lousy at that. Ge1836 your beds look terrific. You have a good edger.

My big plans are to build a couple of new stone walks, make a bamboo fence for behind some roses, make a fence around some raspberry bushes and do some more clearing among some native shrubs and in the woods. I planted a bunch of peonies the other day from a coop of intersectional ones (Itoh Hybrid) that already had big fat buds on them, but it is tricky to plant them this time of the year, so I hope they make it. I do have a couple of orders in but not many as I am trying to be prudent and get what we have in the best shape that I can for the Garden Tour. I will be planting some masses of annuals if any areas look pathetic.

Nice rain happening now, but the burn pile is glowing and it wicked hot as we put in a bunch of cedar logs from the trunk of a big one that we lost last fall during a storm. It will burn through the evening and then we can do another tomorrow if the weather is good. Patti

Would love to be able to burn my brush pile....no burning permits here because of fire danger.....waiting for my mowers to haul the pile away! They are not responsible, and I would like to drop them, but they are my neighbors, so I feel funny doing that....my wellhouse has been repaired, now Peter is working on my garden fence....tonight Garret will till the veggie garden, & a new garden in front of one of the stone walls.....it's for daylilies.....

Sounds like a great deal of help . My garden helper isnt the best but he cleans and edges which is something I cant do. He misses some of the things I ask and does some things I didnt ask ,no harm so I just count myself lucky. He does keep tossing the grass plugs from edging, back into the garden. I just rake and toss after he leaves.

Ge1836, that is odd that he keeps replanting the grass he digs out back in your beds....more work down the road for him I guess.

I am off to Boston to the studio for a couple of days and to take care of my BIL & SIL adorable dog while they head to Fla for a week. I won't stay up all that time, but will bring Miss Penny back to the Island paradise to do more yard work. Overcast today so it would have been a perfect day to continue with the burning though my DH doesn't feel well so I think he needs a couple of days off. But knowing him he will be out there the minute I leave though he actually went to see our doctor this morning.

Robindog, we never use to be able to burn until about 5 years ago when after a big storm the fire dept. realized that people just wouldn't haul the dead trees to the landfill as that was too expensive. Hence the fire danger would be worse if huge brush piles just languished on everyone's property. I was impressed that they sent out a fireman yesterday to check if we had a safe burn site and water, rakes etc in place. We did.

I got in a box of lilies (36) yesterday from a coop and should have another really big box coming today from Bleek's coop, so I will be planting them early next week, mostly Asiatics to make a splash for the Garden Tour but some Orientals and a couple of Species ones. Love the lilies but am keeping an eye out for the red lily beetles which haven't gotten here yet ever, but I hear they are out already this year in other places. Horrible things Patti

Patti,He doesnt replant ,he just tosses them at the edge.

Received my FW order today.

:)

who says christmas is 12/25 :)

Patti, those lilies sound wonderful....I keep planting them & one day, God will take away the red lily beetles! Have fun with Miss Penny......hope your girls get along with her.....also happy that your fire dept has some sense.....without a truck, I'm stuck with the brush.....the garden looks so nice just tilled, & the new garden is waiting for the DLs!

Robindog You are on your way.Those walls look great.

Thanks....Garret put them up when he was in teens & college...every once in awhile he fixes them.....the airedale loved to jump over them & scatter the stones!

LOL! Patti, you're funny, about maybe getting arrested for dividing that PPAF 'Banana Cream' Leucanthemum. Ha, ha! I love burning, too, and we've been getting a lot of that done around here. There's always lots to burn.

Jo, we always seem to lose an umbrella to storms once a year at our place, too. Patti, you have so many wonderful ideas for Jo's slope. I like them all. Like the idea of hellebores, hosta, astilbe, and maybe some actea, ligularia, pulmonaria and brunnera.

Of course Victor wants to see the video of your fall. LOL!

Wow! In ground pools really are expensive! I imagine it raises the property taxes quite a bit, as well, not to mention the homeowner's insurance.

Bill, I ordered my annual load of cow manure. Will be here on Saturday. I have a lot of work ahead of me. Hoping I have a helper or 2 this year. Need someone mostly to load up the wheelbarrow and haul it for me, then I can do the spreading. Could use help with the woodchips in the same way.

How does one plant impatiens by dropping them on the ground and stomping on them? I would thing that would smash them up too much.

Woohoo, Marilyn! More daylilies! Always a good thing! Love the wall. Hello, Suey!

I've begun work on renovating an old daylily bed of my late mother's that also has a few peonies and a bunch of bearded irises. Also phlox, and some Sibs. It has a lot of invasive grasses in there, as well as tons of tradescantia. It's a huge bed and will take awhile to get done. Putting a rock walkway through it. It's looking good so far. Been wanting to tackle this one for a long time.

Karen

karen, Happy Birthday Nutsfordaylily!!! onewish1 March 26, 2012 05:24 AM to debi_k S of Lake Ontario, NY (Zone 6a) April 3, 2012 06:56 AM

So you never told us how your birthday was? Hope you did more than weed tradescantia which is one of my worst weeds. I didn't get arrested, yet. I have some Juno Iris in bloom, Iris aucheri which is way pretty. Patti

Ooh, Patti, I looked that iris up and it is very pretty. I may have to look into that some more.

Karen, just take it slowly. I've got some icky grass in a bed and it's awful. I feel like I need to dig the whole thing up and start over.

This message was edited Apr 4, 2012 6:54 AM

finished moving the 20 yds of dirt here - a few wheel barrel loads left that will be saved for jm planting - hoping for some rain so the grass grows and covers the tracks left behind. ended up creating a large bed to the right the veggy garden - it is very wet back there so i hope the 2-3' high raised bed will be enough to safely plant a couple jm's, will be moving some vib's, fothergilla, hosta, hydrangea there and maybe the celestial shadow dogwood i forgot i ordered last fall, although that will require more dirt so will have to see what i can do about that.

had to move what turned out to be a boulder first - a good sized rock was in the ground that i had attempted to move several years ago and stopped - thought it was being held in place by old white pine roots that are finally starting to root - turns out no roots just pretty large boulder - it is out now and i have set it up to begin the lichen process which should go fast back there - pictures will follow after a get some stuff planted.

Woohoo! You are in inspiration, wha!

Wow, Bill.......that's a lot of work....I spent 3 hours in one bed....the weeds were almost impossible to get out....still have 1/4 of the bed left....many other beds to do, but not in such horrific condition as this one....

just exercise jan :)

good luck with the weeding marilyn - that is something i try and keep up with although it is back breaking - all this new dirt and bed building/expansion will bring a huge amount of new weeds - one year it was filled with lambs ear another tomatoe plants along with normal crab grasses and who know's what - i just put on some flooring knee pads and crawl through the beds with a 5 gal bucket - usually one or two major passes does the trick - my back hurts thinking about it.

Congrats for not collapsing Bill

Wha, I'll bet that boulder was bigger than my garden shed. You are amazing.

Wha and Robindog, Have fun with your new crop of weeds. I just wish the rest of my garden would grow as well as those nasty new ones that seem to keep showing up and certainly uninvited. Rude. I can never figure out how every few years we get a totally new type just when I think I am winning the weed battle. Evil beings must be sneaking into the yard with pocketfuls of seeds to keep me busy and annoyed.

We ordered the mulch yesterday (20 yards)and are having it delivered 3 weeks earlier this year. I hope the bulbs aren't all crushed by it being put down so soon. But things are exploding way earlier everywhere so I think we must do the mulching sooner too. I am planting lilies now which is earlier than normal for me too. Patti

good luck with the mulching patti - i will not be ordering my 20 yds this year - have a bunch left over and may need 4 or 5 yards for my new creations - i found spreading it by hand you do not use as much although takes longer and there is bending involved athough not as much as

the boulder was not quote that big :)

Use a pitchfork to spread the mulch

I use a couple of hired help to spread the mulch as that and mowing are not in my job discription. They do use a pitch folk while I mostly use my index finger to point. Lazy me.
It was a frustrating day as I keep finding that my dear dogs are indiscrimatinly punning many shrubs and Japanese maples. But DH got some hot pepper spray that imay discourage their bad behavior.
I did a bunch of bed cleaning and more raking then I weeded around many free standing shrubs so they will be ready for the mulching team. I moved a few more shrubs. One is a mystery find that I hope it is a volunteer beach plum, but it could be just a weedy choke cherry. I planted a couple of tree peonies from a coop. Nice big plants. Took some pictures that I will post later. Geogeous day still but I over did it this morning so I am done for the day. Patti

using the pitchfork does take some practice but once you get the hang of it you'll wonder why you never tried it before, LOL


Hubby is working on redoing the deck, the darker color is the new stain, we'll be running the pool decking right off the stairs so we had to take out the 2 HUGE arborvitaes

Huge project. I like the darker colored stain. How will you get the roots out. Big Job but worth it to have a pool. Patti

Gonna get one of those mini excavators or maybe have a tractor pull, LOL

Looks like a fun project, Jen! Patti,I know how you feel about the dogs"working" in the garden, I complained about Robs many times....but I looked into the "bathtubs" he made in my shade garden, & just cried knowing he won't be in there giving me that innocent look.....they just break your heart.....finished cleaning out the bed....ended up digging a whole bunch of iris & Star of Bethlehem out, now I've got to put the iris & coral bells back......

OMG! I didn't even think to look and see if anyone wished me a happy birhtday. Just checked now after reading your post, Louise. Thank you, thank you, thank you, everyone! I did have a very nice day. Will post over on that thread what I did.

Bill, you're hard at work. Good for you.

Jen, that's looking nice. That pitchfork method of spreading mulch sounds like it would be really hard on the back. I use a rake or my hands. I shovel it into the bed first. Mostly I use my hands to spread it around.

Patti, I wish I could afford to hire a crew to spread mulch for me.

Karen

The pitchfork I have is lighter than the metal rake(or you talking the wood ones?) even the large wood rake is a little unyielding....

Karen, Glad I made you look as we all need a birthday blast from all our DG pals.

My crew and the mulch is my birthday gift each year from my DH. We use to do it ourselves, but there is no way I can do that many wheel barrels full any more, so every Jan. he says that my gift is two trucks loads of mulch and two strong men to put it down come spring.. He doesn't have to wrap a thing. This year with the garden tour coming in June, it must look better than normal. We use to go get truck loads of washed up sea weed for after a winter storm, but haven't done that for years.

DH has been putting down our homemade compost in lots of areas and we have mostly gotten all the pruning done as well as the cutting of any dead wood on the property. He took down a big pine the other day. . He attacked all the roses recently as the forsythia has bloomed. He read somewhere that the time to prune roses was when the forsythia was out which is a good thing to help remind us of that chore if it is a correct adage.

Here are some shots from today.

Here is a photo album link which is way easier for me to load. Enjoy. Patti

https://picasaweb.google.com/pmc.ack/GARDENALBUM2O12?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLz9w4f_sr6D7gE&feat=directlink