Here's one to try in the patio section, to crown the granny-cartful of annuals:
http://www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/1722/elf-dwarf-mountain-laurel/
The PA house is in the Laurel Mountains, which are replete with the full-size version. I can try one dwarf in Ohio and see how it does in that climate, before getting more. If it does well, then there's sidewalk hedgery in its future.
Suburban Right Angles to Cottage Garden - Year1 Planning
Those are BEAUTIFUL! Looking forward to seeing your work!
LOL-- all the fiction I'm reading now is garden based, and my kindle lets me go right to wikipedia for pix and info. Then I add "dwarf" to the search term and bingo! Eye candy!
WOW that is cool. What are the titles & authors of your fiction. I'd probably LIKE it!!
Oh just the stuff I missed when I was younger-- The Secret Garden and The Enchanted April. More as I come across them. There was one audio book recently-- have to look that one up. [edit: Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth vonArnim] All at Librivox.org, free audiobooks.
Today's DG newsletter solved a scale and finance issue for me-- upthread I posted about a windowbox for a garage window with shutters? Gutter Gardens, in place of windowboxes: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/5188/
For the pictured areas, under windows and along fence (if neighbor OKs). Another example of taking an internal "great idea" and scaling it down into the size property this is!
This message was edited Nov 25, 2014 5:44 PM
This message was edited Nov 25, 2014 11:54 PM
Instead of crown vetch:
http://www.vermontwildflowerfarm.com/perennial-hepatica-acutiloba.html?cmp=googleproducts&kw=perennial-hepatica-acutiloba&gclid=CjwKEAiAtNujBRDMmoCN46aB8noSJAC7SYv7GurDqZUT0kRA5Z7sQNTCWxnbSc038aa_sSW6bWXSbBoCRvvw_wcB
Looks tolerant of the mixed shade area around the maple, and leaves for winter interest? What to mix in with it?
I can see that as I begin to plant I will have to do threads by garden 'room' but for now I'll keep dumping plant candidate details here.
The last time I planned and created a whole-property garden was 30+ years ago, at a home I rented with my mom. When the landlord died the old cottage centered in a double lot was bulldozed along with all the work I'd lavished on it.... I'd converted dense undergrowth and overgrowth to a neat but unstructured harmony, and this included ground covers and a showy raised bed full of expensive bulbs. Now I co-own my first house, and am much creakier but do still have some skills.
I was reminded today of an old friend while reading Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth vonArnim: so a candidate for the west-facing 'room' described above, with the wisteria arbor, is Vinca. One idea with this property is to eradicate most of its crappy grass-- thus the attraction of crown vetch. But Vinca instead.... I think I can manage. From sidewalk to arbor, with walking path.
According to Wikipedia, a mix like this:
"Many have a less vigorous habit than the species, and are therefore more suitable for smaller gardens. The following cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:-
'Argenteovariegata' (leaves have creamy white margins)
'Atropurpurea' (purple flowers)
'Azurea Flore Pleno' (double blue flowers)"
This message was edited Nov 30, 2014 3:48 PM
This message was edited Nov 30, 2014 3:50 PM
ACTION today!
I'm sure enough of my planning now that I invested $50 in help getting the the digging started for the first section of the childrens' cottage-garden-within-the property. Just forward of the spot shown below in front of the kitchen windows, in the center of that half of the front yard, is getting prepped for the tall plants that will anchor that whole min-garden. A 24" circle to extend later as time, digging power, and money permit. My list of perennials for that spot will be set by the time planting season returns.
I won't be able to SEE that at our Ohio house til late January, but I'll know it's ready for spring to come!
So how's it all coming, Poolrunning? Any new pics for us? =)
What a good idea! Think I'll borrow that one and just move potted stuff around till I decide. I'm redoing a lot of beds.
I am SO bummed out.....
The paid digger failed to dig, as I suspected when we returned to the property in February. There was no telltale hump under the snow, nor a dip if it had settled, but a double-dug 24' hole oughter been visible. I thought, maybe when I'm back in April it will be waiting for me..... but no.
So I reallocated the giftcard for $100 worth of mulch-- to begin laying out the lasagna layers outlining the cottagey children's garden.... but without a hole to start my centerpiece, the cracked toilet was calling for a replacement. ...
So I just came back from the local garden center whose brief daily radio program is like a winter visit to a warm greenhouse. Had visited in February. ... I thought I could find the tall blue bloomer I'd heard about in a DG newsletter, take it back to PA and container-garden grow it till the August visit, ask DH to dig my hole, plant that bloomer, and check on it during a longer September visit. JUST ONE PLANT. I had just enough cash, too!
They had no idea what plant I wanted and Delphinium seemed the best option for size, color, and situation. Then I asked how to care for it until planting, picked a smallish one that would travel well back to PA.... and that was when the brutally frank salesperson told me they were "too high maintenence for a 'weekend' gardener." That I should wait till we are in Ohio fulltime and focus on bed layout, soil amendment, container annuals, baskets. Which of course I'd planned to do. I thought, tho, that till then I could start one foundation planting per year or maybe per season.
Well I am often sometimes painfully frank when integrity calls for it. But it was different to being on the receiving end!!!
Thanks for listening. When I get back to wifi by golly I'm a-gonna search me up that newsletter plant and buy the damn thing online!
~Susan
This message was edited Apr 19, 2015 3:31 PM
This message was edited May 3, 2015 3:03 PM
I FOUND it!
Aconite:
More looks at Aconite (Monkshood):
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/13/?utm_source=nl_2014-11-24
~S~
Aw Susan, sorry the salesperson burst your bubble but it looks like you're making a come back! GOOOOooooo SUSAN!
Hey Susan!
Sorry about the brutally frank nursery worker, and digging fail! That monks' hood sure is pretty. What a gorgeous blue.
Welllll...... it changed my whole plan. It IS a poisonous plant to center a children's garden with..... so I researched how rare any ingestion has been, and then talked it thru with a few people. I decided that rather than put it in NOW so I can take my time surrounding it with other, lower plants-- I'll go with the plant I want but "safen it up" by putting it in LAST, with some ornamental grasses to lend it some support. Til then, I can get the tall, spiky look I want with a pvc vertical tower of annuals.
But I got good long term news a few days ago.... I can file now for social security and use some of it wisely to mulch out the surrounding future beds, lasagnga style, and enjoy container annuals on top of that mulch til I'm there for fall planting. I've also adjusted the sked of my quarterly visits to make a longer Fall visit each year to get my foundation plantings going as budget permits.
That should mean bulbs and Spiraea in an already-present trench out front, and maybe a pair of dwarf lilacs flanking a spot on the side if the house where we anticipate a picture window adding needed living room light-- moving the window that now faces north. I'll move it to the windy west wall and, in its place, put in a bay window of the same size. That will give me elbow room at the dining table, as well as a deep shelf for potted plants and hanging plant space that doesn't take up the limited floor space.
~S~
This message was edited May 3, 2015 2:55 PM
This message was edited May 3, 2015 2:57 PM
This message was edited May 3, 2015 3:01 PM
And my fall visit will be timed to the dates the garden center lady said would be right for the area, and long enough to give things a good start. It's worth it to me to make the other annual solo visit very brief.
LOL... true gardener... one who plans around the planting!
A great advantage to the fall schedule will be that I have been saving most of the the 4-cup yogurt containers I go through each week.... the PA house has a large, sunny bay window to start seeds, now that I have my choices better in mind and a target season for getting them into the ground. That window has plenty of space, and the nights here are cool enough in late summer to harden the plants off; the containers are study enough to box up and carry south, on the trailer (in a plastic bin for wind protection of course).
Ornamental grasses my not be exactly "cottage," but oats is oats, right? Here's my shade tolerant ornamental grass to support that monkshood: Northern Sea Oats.
http://home.howstuffworks.com/northern-sea-oats.htm
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/hardy-ornamental-grasses-shady-areas-48546.html
~S~
This message was edited May 4, 2015 9:55 AM
This message was edited May 4, 2015 10:09 AM
The oats:
With the added bonus of a blue/green color, very nice.
Yup. Some coppery tones in fall.
A lot has happened since my last visit to Dave's Garden, even some of it in my garden.... one GOOD thing is that I have now determined that my annual FALL visit to Ohio and our someday-retirement house will be the annual LONG visit, so I can hopefully get some roots into the ground.
To that end, the trench full of rocks (anti-grass strategy) is now empty and ready for mixed daffodils. That's the first pic below. I'll plant it this week. Where you see a black bin set into the far end of the trench-- that's the white windmill to rebuild in the spring and set on a base of the white stone.
The antique woodstove arrived and has a first mock-up of its eventual fully-planted look; that's the 2nd pic below. Till we're here fulltime, I'll plunk a dozen potted annuals onto the burners. A few baskets with pansies are enough to feed my eye 'til spring's visit.
I still want a windowbox under the window pictured with more pansies in pic 3. Since we may move the adjoining door a tad, I didn't build it this visit.
The last 2 pix are the lasagna-gardening extended front bed. I've now more than doubled those beds from the skinny row of white rocks that were there when we bought the house; I've also added small pieces of garden art. The bed now also extends towards the side wall of the house; where you see a pottery owl, that's where the dwarf lilac will go. At the February visit, the lasagna will be extended all the way across that side of the house.
One more pic to come in the next post-- my garden art.
~Susan
The pieces pictured here are a combination of found, made, and thrift shop items; total cost under $10.
Another good thing that happened was meeting the current crop of neighborhood kids to helop get all my projects done; also, we learned why that cleft I'm doing in bulbs HAD a cleft, and why not to put my beloved spiraea there-- that's where the sellers' old shrub already clogged the drain with roots!
Pic 1: Black and Peach colored dolls to come, on the bench. (Need waterproofed.)
Pic 2: Hummingbird on the hummingbird side (R) of the front door.
Pic 3: The rusty gold planter sits behind where the storm door opens, which needs a very heavy item to tether it open; slated for that spot is a concreted base for the planter shown, plus a heavy stone liner, with annuals to top it. (As it sits now, it has a shallow lead liner tray-- which will come out to allow for a deeper center of gravity.)
Pic 4: The older I get, the more I AM my late mom. (Big surprise.) Also, her estate paid for half of this house.
Pic 5: More small pieces still needed here. To come from more future Goodwill trips.
The plan for the left half of the front yard is still a children's garden. The kids who helped move rocks affirmed this, and will help lasagna-mulch a path for me in the spring-- now that I actually know where the path needs to be. That will leave, then, two medium-sized areas to lasagna-garden, and start getting perennials into the whole children's garden next year, including the bed shown here with the bench.
The vision is to plant and/or mulch what I can, each visit-- within an overall plan to "cottage out" all of it... when I'm here fulltime.
I've missed you guys!!! How are your gardens? Links to see?
~S~
This message was edited Oct 12, 2015 7:09 PM
Lovely to stage a few areas to remind myself, this cold winter in PA, what this house is capable of..... other found/thrift items (winter/spring projects in the garage) to place and foto:
... White wooden dbl bed headboard, to become bench same size as existing wicker.
... White wicker framed oval mirror to hang on patio privacy fence.
... White wicker washstand, as placeholder for patio window box.
... Four woven hearts to water-seal, stain, and hang on privacy fence (2 sizes; large and huge).
... Pink fairy (costume) sparkly wings to affix to woven hearts.
...Monarch butterfly (costume wings) to affix to heart.
...Old toilet to plant, in eventual small-pool area.
... Six wrought iron chairs to scrape and anti-rust paint; chair covers cut but need ties affixed.
...Old metal freestanding firepit to scrape/paint.
...Two conical towers (stacked tomato cages) to cover with chicken wire, paint, stuff with moss, wire to heavy base pots, place, and plant.
...Drill holes in various items to ensure drainage.
...Outline path to be made later, in solar lights, SO I CAN SEE PATH FOR FEBRUARY MIDNIGHT ARRIVAL.
...Gather all pcs of Pennsylvania bluestone on hand that will form the later path on top of lasagna mulch. Measure to be sure enuf is on hand. Place for now on top of front bed mulch to limit weed seed opportunities.
...Mix non-roundup weed spray, for lawn peeps to use in my absence.
And some of these are do-able when an OT friend arrives, the last few days before I depart Nov. 1.
More staging pix due soon: this aftn, I ran out for dog bones and bananas I'd forgotten to nab-- I'm blending two tense dogs who honestly are like having newborn twins just home from the ICU! Getting the bones, I ran into marked-down mums to stage the rest of the garden areas!!! They're all soaking, so I can clean and place them first thing tmrw. More pix to take tmrw, love it.
Yard kids have a project Saturday. Then I'll have many more pix-- and post the lot here and to my FB album.
~Susan
I especially like the antique stove. Do you plans for painted messages on the white faces of it? One of my favorites "Bloom where you are planted". I stenciled that on the face of white porch stairs when I first moved to Idaho. It was my reminder to live where I am, not be so focused on it NOT being where I wanted to be! (8 years later, I am NOW!)
No.... because when we're here fulltime, all the white doors will be open, with plants cascading out.
Today's pix-- Mums and chums:
Pic 1, the stove's top is not yet screwed on; a topless mums pic.
Pic 2, the gold planter with fading mums (for scale).
Pic 3, the plant stand (empty in prev pic), where the front R bed curves around.
Pic 4, chums. Not a great pose (I'd need to wire them after spring waterproofing), but confirms scale and vision. Just waiting for tea and company... and their mini-wagon. I didn't get that out yet.
WooHOO! Just had a delightfully productive trip to the local garden center-- my first!!!-- where Master Gardener Judy scoped out my overall plan, and helped me buy mixed daffodils for that trench in front. Tomorrow they go IN THE GROUND! So much advice!
Daffs and grape hyacinth-- an old favorite color combo. Perennials to add there at the spring and fall visits. Something low and spreading.... maybe Vinca with......? To coordinate with annuals spilling out of white wishing well...?
Today, prepping the area to back the car to the trench to fill the cleft the easy way, right off the hatchback's deck.
More staging, below. Note to self: Swan Ramona holds 1 large and 2 small pots. More contrast IN the swan next time to use less backdrop material. (Smalls/flats also in front of and around her.)
LOVE your stove!!!
Thanks Caitlin! Just imagine when all the doors and burner openings are stuffed with spreading annuals this spring! I am! My laptop in the kitchen gives a great view already, off to my right thru the open kitchen door! Sunshine, flars, doggehs. If only hubby would retire so we could live here year 'round-- it would be herbs!
The bulbs are in, just in time to look like a fresh grave for Halloween. I have several more inches of topsoil and mulch to add, and bricks all around to prevent dirt creep-- the adjoining grass gets lasagna layering in the spring so this daffy bed is mounded accordingly. Haha-- lasagna in the cottage garden. Makes sense since the odd veg here and there goes in too. Green peppers. Leeks. Carrots for kids-- this IS after all on the children's side of the front walk.
The big un's up the middle are mixed Daffs, loosely clumped (with a few 'escapes') by variety. The little ones at the edges and lower end are grape hyacinth. Where you see the big black bin-- that will be filled in Saturday with white rock for the wishing well to go in the spring. I'll add some garden art after I add the rest of the topsoil-- my back hurts. Enough for today-- they're outta the bag and IN THE GROUND!
This message was edited Oct 15, 2015 1:23 PM
You do need to add a tombstone or two since it IS Halloween time!
Lol... of course there IS a plan.
In one of the garden art pix upthread is the miniature headstone I made, "Old Grudges." There had been some nasty issues going on here yesterday..... I walked away from those to see if gardening really does work for stress relief. So that miniature headstone clearly needs to head the grave.
I also have several tiny plastic glow-skeletons that the sellers left.. to bury. Partially. (And I may treat myself to a slightly larger walmart version that can also help me illustrate my spinal deterioration.) And a mini shovel to set by the grave..... will def photograph! ;-)
I do hope it doesn't actually encourage anyone to DIG in your newly planted bulb bed!!!
Hopefully, involving the kids on the block will have made a difference.
Finished getting the bulb garden done today. Over the two days I worked on it, mostly on my own, I emptied fourteen 40-lb bags of topsoil, and I placed about 35 bricks around it today. Neighbor/friend Portia also helped me supervise the (paid) neighborhood Kid Crew to finish re-outlining the giant mulch ring around the grand old maple, in white rock. Well, it will be whoite again after some rain and snow wash it. ;-)
The kids enjoyed emptying the last two bags of topsoil onto the personally-buried bulbs; the lightest of them was invited to walk gently on the whole, to compact it a bit. I'll add more topsoil in Feb. once it settles. They're still trying to figure out why I would plant bulbs, when I know I won't be here in April to see them come up. No matter; when I'm here in May, I can set out annuals above the bulbs. If I did it right, they'll greet us some April after we retire to here. Portia promises pix. I hope the kids will enjoy seeing "their" garden come up.
We also covered the scar where a bush was torn out in the side yard, using an old rip-stop tarp to prevent any more new growth in the spring; it's weighted down with buckets full of more rock to use elsewhere next year. There's just enough rock to cover a wide ring outside the front door for song circle chairs to sit upon, making the old (straight) concrete walk up to the door appear to blow out into curves. I'll add a little pea gravel on top, to variegate the color and blend the ring with the concrete color. inside the ring, some ground cover-- vinca?
Eventually, a bluestone path will branch off from it into the children's garden, for which this new bulb bed furnishes a rounded corner. The kids gathered up all the bluestone, and there's just enough for where I want it next year.
In the pix below, note that dirty white rock has replaced the black trash bin shown upthread-- the base for my wishing well, which the kids are eager to patronize already. I better re-build it with them before they get too old and too cool to wish! ;-) The bricks at that end will come out when I place the wishing well, and then outline the well. The rocks and bricks are holding the soil in place nicely; thanks to garden center maven Judy's advice, the grape hyacinth should come up just against the wishing well, for contrast.
~S~
Nobody really understands gardening but another gardener! When I was preparing for a divorce, my son saw me out planting the pink tulips bulbs, he asked "why are you doing this when you know you won't be here?" "Because I designed this landscape and I'm going to FINISH it!" "Besides, it gives me peace. I can never have a bad thought out here working in my flower beds"
Yup.
'Why aren't you using the hand rake you just bought, to spread that dirt?'
'Because I've waited my whole life to get my hands into my own dirt.' I HAD been using the rake on the first layers of topsoil I'd also spread, to go UNDER the bulbs.... to sculpt the line. These last layers were a different brand, and instinctively I knew I could only evaluate its composition with my hands!
This message was edited Oct 18, 2015 8:43 AM
This message was edited Oct 18, 2015 9:43 PM
In another thread I recently wrote about a bonanza in rotted cow manure amounting to about half a hockey rinkfull. .. that is mine for the taking in the barn behind the PA house. Now there's been another bonanza....
A recent Freecycle pickup of used cardboard boxes and packing paper (for moving) resulted in a huge haul towards my cottage/lasagna-gardening plan, I learned a few days ago. I had assumed that in the 7' box stuffed full of used packing paper would be newsprint sheets the size of newspapers. Wrong! Unpacking that box into trash bags, about 4 bag-fuls were double-bedsheet sized pieces already in 3-layer batches with brown and white paper sandwiched together-- enough to lasagna-out major yard areas. The smaller white sheets are about twice the size of a large newspaper, for the smaller areas.
What a haul! It would have taken years' worth of weekly ad papers to cover all my lasagna plans, and many hours of paid labor to piece those smaller sheets to cover.
This seems almost too easy (but I'll take it!), and is a wonderful boost in cow manure motivation!
Hi all. I didn't care to resubscribe after the forum got reorganized, and my pix are all in Facebook albums now.
I've continued lasagna gardening out from existing beds, and started a new area along the empty side wall of the house-- a 3' strip of unplanted lasagna, connecting bigger, quarter-round beds for dwarf lilacs at the corners. Each also holds canine cremains.
In the daffodil bed, I overplanted a few Dianthus to take hold, and spread and built the lasagna up to about 6" above yard level as well as doubling the width. In the beds across the front, I built up the lasagna to 4-6" to hold a few Coral Bells I don't love love.... it's shade there, and hard to find flower/foliage to contrast with the existing hollies. It may be that those beds will become knickknack beds.
I scored a very cute child's hutch, meaning a cabinet for a toddler's play kitchen. It may masquerade as a bush.
I also lasagna-mulched a large circle bracketing the front walk.... we leave heavy chairs there all summer for music/storytelling, and Lawn Boy never seems to put them back right, after moving them to mow. So I eradicated the grass with dark brown mulch. We call the monthly gathering the Celebration Circle-- so even with chairs put away for winter, I do like seeing that circle.
I've continued to collect found Bluestone, for the path I want thru the children's garden from driveway to front door. I've determined the path's desired layout, and plan to lasagna-sand a base; and then I'll fill the gaps with more lasagna I can plant into. I'll make my own pavers from freely available bluestone chips and Sakrete, if I can't find more good pieces.
Making my Fall visit here the long one-- to get plants established-- has been WONDERFUL. I love the job of moving the hose every hour to give everybody a good long drink.
The City tore out all 4 sidewalk corners here to put in curb ramps. I was so lucky to BE here as they began demo-- asked for and received all of my corner's scrap. Net: 1 yard topsoil, 10 gallons gravel, 5 gallons fist-sized rocks/concrete/asphalt, and about a half yard of thick, busted concrete. Used everything except the concrete already-- the gravel repaired our driveway mouth and the soil filled lawn holes and was used in lasagna, too. I figure the irregular undersides of those big pieces (from cantaloupe to watermelon sizes) will make a good base for rock gardening. In the spring I'll decide where/what.
We rolled the pop-up camper out of the 2- car garage, and I took one whole side for garden gear/supply. When I come back in May (and r maybe Feb. too), I saved a spot for a potting corner and can't wait!!!
My best purchase this trip was the telescoping hoe/cultivator I'll be able to use from my ADA scooter to snatch weeds out of all this mulch.
The pic here shows the path layout. It was created the day I dragged groceries, in a recycle bin; I liked it so much, I plan to reproduce it in lasagna! ;-)
Look me up at FB if you want to see this fall's projects! I miss you guys!
~Susan Oldberg Hinton
Sucks to lose another DGer. I'm not very good with FB, I just can't seem to get the hang of it.