Taming the wild garden

Had the most wonderful day suns out no rain got some weed eating done even tho my feet are soaked and the the lawn is almost a foot high, blackberry's have taken over some of the yard cut some out and they didn't like it so they shredded my arm, but love every min. of it. and I captured this gorgeous creature. A Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly, His wind span was almost 4" and loves my Buddia
He made my day. Took 8 pics of him then went on the web to make sure I thought it was a Monarch but no. He has been damaged, but still so beautiful to watch.
Tilly
http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/bfly/tiger_swallowtail_fig1.htm

Another pic.
His so pretty

Tilly,
Beautiful pics! I spent the day out weeding, mowing and planting too. Loved every minute of it! Rachel

I spent the day cleaning my parents' kitchen and taking my mom to the podiatrist. I got lost going there (later found out I had just not gone quite far enough - needed one more block), called my daughter for help, got there and the place was torn apart and I had to lead my "wobbly" little mother and her walker through a maze to get to the doctor. He's great, though, and she was just happily chatting away with some of the world's craziest stories ever. So real to her - my, my. Tonight was good, though, had dinner with friends and now I'm at my bro and sil's house . They are gone until tomorrow so I am having a peaceful evening all to myself.

Tomorrow morning I am going to buy a few groceries for my granddaughter, drop them off at her place, then head home and to the garden, I hope. Famous last words!!

Very nice photos tillys! I don't think we get Tiger Swallowtails - I am envious. And Murmur, reading your note reminded me - in one of our local freebie newspaper, those papers where you sell your old sofa and look for second hand rabbit hutches - was DH and my favourite small ad of all time: "For Sale - Chain Saw and Zimmer Frame". Doesn't the combination inspired images! Straight out of Far Side. Hope you enjoyed the evening to yourself.

time to walk the dog and then back to work.

LOL Laurie, I had to look up Zimmer Frame. Yikes!

LOL - I admit I had to look it up, too, but think I will call my mom's walker "Zimmer" from now on. And perhaps I should tell DH to hide his chain saw? However, it's probably not my mom's zimmer that would be in jeopardy.

We call it out here the Nifty Nickle
And not interested in a Zimmer frame, Thank you (wouldn't know what to do with it anyway) And never heared of it, and it might hurt me.
Weather was gorgeous today, but I had to work of course>>>>>

But how about a dog day in the pool. The only one injoying it. She loves water but hates baths.

Tilly

Aw shoot, Tilly - I was at my granddaughter's about 11:30 this morning . . . actually came out Highway 99 from Costco (on 205th) and went by Big Lots. Oh, well - another time!

love the doggie enjoying the pool!

Never dawned on me that Zimmer Frame didn't translate -

laurie, In this neck of the woods they're called just Walkers. I guess it's sort of a boot/trunk thing?

To me, Zimmer frame sounds a little less sad, though. Like the person using one could be zooming around and not just barely walking.

Susybell, I agree with you - I would love to get my mom to call her walker a Zimmer frame, but I'm not going to hold my breath on her being able to make that switch!

Yes I was there, Wish I was some were else though>..
Vacation starts in 2 days hope the weather likes me some (with my luck it wont) so many things to do around the place, Don't plan on going anywhere, to much to do,
cars to haul out, sheds to clean out and the list goes on and on, ten years of junk. Haven't had time off since last April, So sad>>> The life of Riley I don't have.
O for got to tell you after the tire incident, my car had to be tow home So now I am without a car been borrowing my brothers. Really need a break.#####
Still dont know what a Zimmer frame is Tryed to Google it but all I got was a bunch of ads.
Sorry you didnt stop bt Murmur would of been nice to see you

A zimmer frame is just a walker, Tilly. After your vacation, let's try to figure a time when you'll be at work and I'll be stopping by my granddaughter's place.

Would Love to see you, Be back to work after the 7th of Aug. Let me know.
I am glad you told me because I thought it was something to do with framing a house, I think I have lived in the woods to long or out of touch with the world.
Go figure
Mary

This message was edited Jul 27, 2007 7:48 PM

Nah - some of us had to google it to learn what it was!!

Laurie, I posted on the other thread because I got confused, but thanks SOO MUCH for posting with the Harry Potter stamps!! We'll keep the envelope forever! Oh yes, and thanks, too, for the seeds! LOL! Shall I plant them directly into the ground? Or pot them in the winter?

Laurie
Got my seeds today Thank You
LOL the postage is awesome. Will add them to my HDs stamp collection.
And Just in time >>>>VACATION>>>> HEY
Planting seeds, moving plants, taking pics, and nice weather forcasted (I hope)
I worked late tonight and i know I will be up at the crack of dawn to get started so excited to do what I want when I want at least for the next 9 days.
Tilly

So glad the seeds have all arrived - wow, snail mail doesn't deserve its name! I was afraid the postage might attract too much attention. do hold on to the stamps for a while - they have now just about sold out in the post office, and only the collectors covers are readily available - I'm sure they will be gone soon too. Who knows, they might make a nice little addition to your pension plan (or your kids pension!) some day. (I have been told that since they have been used, they are more valuable on the envelope than off - gives provenance).

As far as sowing seeds, I have a tendency to sow in a quiet area of a bed - and hopefully mark the area, which I usually forget to do. I sow them in moderate sun, good soil, not too wet for germination. Leave them for the first year (if you can tolerate where you've sown), and then lift in the second year and plant out. Should start to get blossom year 3. Remember - they die down in the summer, and disappear until early spring. They do very well out doors - hardy as anything - and will grow in deep shade to full sun - heavy clay to full humus - I've never tried them in sandy loam. They don't even mind some dryness. Pretty flexible really.

We have a third day of sunshine - I am out to plant out some penstemons! Tillys, enjoy your 9 days!! Hopefully, 9 very long days.

I forget about the time change, What is it there?

It is almost 10 a.m. -

Its almost 2 am here
I know why I'm up so late only been home 3 hours not the type to go straight to bed
Still waiting for the Helbournes to do something. how long did you say it would take.
And thank you for the postage.

Tillys - there is a chance, very slim that you will get some seedlings in October - I've never had that happen. I find they really need a period of frost to break hibernation - I find it is best to put them in a slug-safe environment, where they will stay moist and cool, and then forget about them until about March. You should get good germination starting around early spring. This is very fresh seed (I actually had to dry it out enough to post without getting damaged) - but older hellebore seed can take two winters to germinate. This is why hellebores are sooooooo expensive to buy: fairly low seed production, long germination periods, and slow to reach flowering maturity. But once you have them, the plants go for generations - gorgeous things.

Patience, Tilly dear.

This is the last addition to Happy Trails for this year, Have to wait to see what happens next. How big do they get, and did I over plant????

I feel so bad I let all my other gardens go to the way side, went out today and started cleaning out my poppy bed, Very ugly

Tillys - I think gardening is like that - I find when I am stumped in the what-to-do-with-it-phase, I start working a new area, ignoring everything else. That's what is happening with the wild garden right now - I am growing loads of shade plants, none at the plant out stage - I can't bear the idea of drawing out a planting plan (seems to kill off the impetus of a project for me, as if it is already done) - so I just go dig a new area (also in the wild garden) - but it means that the lettuce bed needs weeding, as does everything else.

Oh well, one more week and then 3 weeks off! crawling crawling towards next Thurs.

Just had the best time this weekend - digging in the sunny part of the wild area and planted out the beginning of a slash of penstemons (blackbird and firecracker) - took 25 cuttings from each colour and have them started in the greenhouse (boy that greenhouse earns its keep!). Stood back and thought, wow that is great - took a picture and thought, hmmm, still more in my imagination than in the ground. But, at least it is a planting that I can see - everything else just looks like dirt right now.

I will try and do a photo update over the break.

It's nice to hear that others do the same thing I do! Concentrate so hard on one area and all of a sudden you turn around to discover a "weed paradise" somewhere else.

Laurie, that's exactly why I haven't posted many pictures! Nothing is cohesive and everything seems half-finished! The camera is a blessing and a curse. I sometimes see things in interesting new ways that I hadn't noticed-and sometimes that bare spot just looks worse, lol!

I have tried doing the drawings on paper, And lo and behold it doesnt quite work out that way. Kinda like my poppy garden when I started it also was to be a herb garden with the poppies around the outside and I made one no two very bad mistakes one the Poppy's got to big and I planted some mint now the mint has taken over I have tried digging it out, spraying it and it wont go away. So I decided to let it have it. But I want to move the poppies. I have been told that once established they don't like to be moved. So now Im at a standstill.

HI Tilly,
You have my most sincere sympathy about the mint! A good friend of mine gave me a little tiny bit of lemon balm once upon a time and it took over a huge area.

Don't give up! I am in year 2 of my serious removal efforts and I am seeing a difference! What has worked for me is to go after it in early spring after a good drenching rain and the soil is super soft. You have to get ALL the roots!. Luckily they aren't that deep but do grab hard and get big. I'm sure I'll be dealing with remnants for ages, but I've successfully removed three big huge lemon balm colonies. I've done well enough that I'm starting to miss my weeds smelling so good! My goal is to get it down to a controllable small clump that I can still enjoy. (I may be fooling myself, though!)

Careful that little clump could be a disaster some one told me to plant it in a old sink or tub but I didn't listen I can keep it under control The big problem about digging it out is I planted the seeds around a cedar stump. When I get it under control I m going to put it in something.
I planted potatoes in a bathtub so they wouldn't take over.
I wish I listened about the mint.

You'd be surprised at how many people approach gardening as has been described. There are positives to jumping around (yes, i dug deep for these excuses - but they are logical!), such as limiting repetitive motion (less injuries if you vary what you are doing), and, being in the particular space at different times of the day allows you to experience what the plants would in terms of heat, wind, soil conditions & moisture content, not to mention the evil weeds that grow there.
I get bored quickly, so I hop around. I spend an average of 20 hrs on the weekend, and 10 during the week. I am on 1 1/2 acres, so there is always something that needs to be done.
Weeding is a huge time consumer: but Susy is spot-on about getting all the roots out. Short term pain = long term pleasure...
However, the time that is necessary to perform this endeavour is limited.

examples: I weedeat the orchard & let the sun dry out the remains. I can remove it, or let it stay in place: thinking of it as free mulch.
The borders get watered & then weeded from front to back - what is readily within view is what counts.

It really helps to know your weeds & what grows where. This can tell you lots about the condition of your soil, too.

Tap root weeds get Round-up; anything easy to pull, gets pulled. I work in the shade during the heat of the day, morning & evening are reserved for the hard, sweaty work.

Vegetable garden gets a going through every 2 - 3 weeks - this has been essential as it has the optimal conditions for producing excellent weed specimens.
Gravel paths get the burn treatment.
The perimeters of my property might get Round-up once a year, as do any blackberries that the birds have so lovingly provided.

I am not a human weeding machine - I am sick of it after 20+ years, but it is part of working/maintaining your land.
I also make use of a small & very sharp japanese hoe - works good for quickly skimming the soil surface in those areas close to plants that are too "tight" for a weedeater. A small hand rake is useful, too.

Although it is difficult to see the end of weeding and giving up entirely is not part of my mindset, I believe that keeping up with it is an essential to reducing weeding time.
I made a rule for myself too: if i move a plant, both the area that I am moving it from & moving it to, must be weeded to about 2' radius of the plant.
I think it is overwheming to see ALL that looks wrong or messy. Working in small increments has advantages, as long as you are aware of the priorities associated with growing plants well.
Watering takes precedence over pruning, but I always have my pruning shears with me, because I can prune while the hose is busy watering an area.
Same goes for weeding - what is seen first, then what is hidden. And get the thugs out before they flower & go to seed. Weed birth control...
Too much to think about, so back outside to continue my multi-tasking for the weekend!
I'll leave you with this so you don't have weeds on the brain:

What I like to do best is hit the weeds really hard in about March and get them while they are still very small and weeks from going to seed. I've noticed that makes a huge difference in how hard I have to work the rest of the summer.

I've been disturbing large areas in beds that I haven't done anything with in a long time this year, and I'm paying the price in disturbed-soil weeds. I need to add a fresh layer of bark mulch, but I don't want to put it down until I'm done messing around.

Tilly, Yes, the lemon balm is headed for a future in a small pot and trimming before it sets seed in late summer. I'm sure I will be dealing with the stray seedlings and bits of root I thought I got rid of for a while, but I can see such huge progress I'm encouraged.

Oh, I forgot! I bought something very silly today. This isn't my usual kind of thing but for some reason I just had to have it. Kind of fits the thread of "Taming the Wild Garden" though.

Susy, I love it!!!

Katye, that is a gorgeous garden!!

Tilly, love the wishing well and all that you have done.

And add my name to the list of those who jump around. Unfortunately, my issue is more like ADD - I'll be working on something and out of the corner of my eye spot something that I just have to take care of, then I stay in that new spot until I do the same thing somewhere else. And rarely get back to the original site. And I also have a bad habit of tossing my weeding stuff on the grass . . . and there it sits. I did do a bit better today - went and got my plastic tub I bought recently and picked up most of the stuff and then continued to use it. There's still some nasty blackberry vines on the grass - I didn't have my gloves on.

A plastic kid's toboggan works real well as a portable weed depository, particularly for blackberry canes or rose trimmings. It can be pulled to its destiny & tipped on end to empty.
Murmur - ever left a trail of piles?
That's how I tell where I've been: here, there & everywhere...
The picture was taken AFTER rogued out the tall weeds & easy to pull types. You just can't see the rest!

Hi Murmur, Thanks! Now, where should I put it? Do gnomes do best in shade or sun? ;) I"m hoping that a tamed snail will scare off the real ones, lol...

Katye, your garden looked great-no weeds I could see! :) I've definitely left little piles of weeds behind me as I wandered. That toboggan idea is a good one. I usually use a blue plastic IKEA bag-the one that's like a tarp. Handles are handy, but it doesn't slide along like the toboggan. But, I can fit a LOT of weeds in those.

Susy! Can your new little elf and mount to weed? Give him a list!

So glad to hear that others do the pile bit too - I am a weed slut, I walk around 'after' weeding and diddle in the beds, pulling things up and making neat little piles I intend to pick up - then when I go out the next day - can't be bothered, don't want to be distracted, so I pass them up promising I'll go back with the barrow - nope. Eventually (once a fortnight) our mower guy comes along and just goes over them. Excellent, I can start again.

katye, I agree with your whole weed plan, have almost the same routine in mind (minus the round-up), and then keep it in mind as I'm wheelbarrowing in the tools at the end of the day saying 'd*&n, meant to......' . I do however forgive myself as soon as I find I can put at least one line through the list (even if I have to add the line post-doing!) Works for me. And, some mighty fine weeding went on in that photo - looks lovely, and I like the birdboxes.

tillys, don't worry about moving poppies - as long as they are perennials they won't mind at all - best done in the autumn or spring and then let them settle in again. What you will find is that where they were they will come up again - perennial poppies are brillant at putting up new growth from root cuttings - so it is a good way to increase stock. I move my Papaver Patty's Plum regularly just to get new plants, works every time. And may I suggest that when you want to plant out more mint - try putting a metal barrier around it - if you bury a large can (are there still coffee cans?) with the bottom removed it is deep enough to really inhibit the mint from spreading rapidly. You'll still get some over growth but it will be pretty well contained but still in the ground - no watering. (make sure you smooth over any cut surfaces so you don't catch yourself when weeding).

now, off to mug a kid for their tobaggan.

Katye, I have definitely left a trail of piles while weeding, but it's not a good idea for me to do that as I get overwhelmed when I look at them and the thought of picking them all up . . . so I'm trying more and more not to leave them. I'll mow over a few things, but sometimes my mounds of weeds are almost mountains!

Laurie, a 'weed slut?' - you make me laugh so often!!!! You are quite the writer, you know.

I do the weed trail too, Then bring the wagon around and pick the up most of the time or HD thinks he should help out and picks them up for me but not often, Hes worse than me his little projects my lay there for days.

I think the little gnome is cute and yes give him that list and better make him a little bucket or wagon for the weeds.

Don't worry Laurie I will never do mint again. " weed Slut" my my

Katye nice pic Is that a ceanothous in the back ground (I think I spelled it right)