Help! yard design

Nice to and you are right, who would want to. besides it wouldn't
make it here. LOL I have not been to Fremont in a coons age, but I would be headed to Palmdale, Calif. Last time we went, we did a drive by of our old house in Pasadena, after we went to Disneyland.
But ya never know where fate goes. ^_^

I lived in a HUGE house in San gabriel... then moved to nor cal when I was 8 yrs old. We did a drive by on our old house about 15 yrs ago (all us siblings) and were all amazed at how tiny that house was! lol! the huge lawn was a lil postage stamp.... the huge house was just a tiny (and I mean Really tiny) 3 bedroom house that all 7 of us lived in! LOL! Amazing how your perception of things is different when you are only knee high to a grasshopper! LOL!

What I though when we did the Fly by, was my brother and I at 1am in the morning, on our way home (back here) I was really shocked, a tree that my Dad had planted, as a very small little bush then had grown taller than the house and just about as wide, (for the life in me I can not remember what it was.) So you could not really see the house. I was kind of sad, as we drove thru town it was not the same place we grew up, turn in to a very bad area. Will never go back.

Thats what happened to my lil town too... from what I remembered our street (my world!lol!)was pretty nice street with alot of grandmas and grandpas living there. When we went back...all the houses looked like rental dwellings and none of the yards were taken care of :o(

We also drove to our old school...and we were amazed at how close it was! we rode a school bus to school. It picked us up at the corner. if we missed the bus, we had to walk forever to get to school. We drove 3 blocks to the school and were all laughing at how close it was...and that the school district had school buses to bus us a few blocks! lol! Times sure have changed :o)
But I never did care for the cactus and succelent gardens that were planted in all the yards down there, I probably got 'pricked' by them too many times as a young kid! lol!

Yay, Steve. Happy for Gracie. And happy for your family that you're home safely.

? who is steve and grace? lol!

Steve is Soferdig, who's a vet who travels from his home in Kalispell to Alaska to fill in for vacationing vets there. One one of the threads he said he was up late with Gracie, a Pug who had eaten something that had made her sick. She's all better now . . .

This is the down side of bouncing around from topic to topic on threads . . .

lol... I thought maybe I missed a sentence somewhere....

see that big long post on this thread... I think I posted it on thurs night? well, I originally posted it in a co-op... (I think) anyhow...in the post I'm asking mom about likes and dislikes and etc... it was really long...and then someone dmailed me and told me I posted on the wrong thread! I was completely embarassed! LOL!
Since then, I have been trying to keep just one window open while on DG... too much bouncing LOL!

Seems that only you PNW are night owls like me?! Does the rest of the country roll up their sidewalks and go to sleep right after dinner? where is everyone?! lol!

Hi Anjl, Lol, yeah, what's up with all those easterners going to bed at 7pm--and then they start posting again around 4:30 AM our time.... ;)

I saw a post on here that said 3 something in the morning! lol! surely that person never slept! :o)

AND, those easerners who run co-ops want to start them at 8AM on a Saturday... (5AM here!)
I woke up at 4:30 AM to post on the order thread on a SATURDAY lol! only did it one time! The savings in a co-op is not worth my weekend morning! :o) Lol!

To boot... I ordered BEFORE I had any coffee, and now I have 150 coleus plugs that will arrive on Tuesday...what was I thinking! LOL! guess I gotta get some more beds ready :o)

AnjL

Rofl! Oh, too funny! Well, your (new) beds will look fabulous with all those coleus....Yeah, I'm dangerous before coffee or late at night... I ordered a bunch of glads-and I've never had glads-now that they're here, I am simply not at all sure what to do with them...

The time thing is one of the cool things about 4Paws co-ops-she's in Northern CA, so she starts them on our time-the easterners have a terrible time figuring out the time shifts. ;)

lol! I'll have to watch for 4paws co-ops then! :o)

Glads are great! I have about a hundred of them lining my lil 3 foot fence in the upper level of my yard. they are already starting to come up :o) they completely covered the fence last summer.

I just ordered another 135 glads and some hardy glads on a co-op.... the hardy glads are only 2 ft tall, so I'll plant those in front of my older glads.
the other new ones will be split between my front yard and my moms yard. :o)

Then I found that tulip/daff bulb interest thread.... LOL! whats next?!

Sue - if you have too many glads, i will buy some from you: I grow them for cut flowers.
Love them, and i never dig them up. They won't typically make it through winter in a container, though...
The tall ones need staking if we get lots of June rain....
by the way - how are you? =:0)
If you are ever up here on a saturday, please let me know. I will take you to the Dunn gardens - definately worth the time for the tour.
I think we had the exceptionally lonnnnnnnnnnng tour because we were examining everything, and then engaging in discussions about them!
It was fascinating to me, so I plan to go back every 4 -5 weeks to watch it go through the seasonal changes.

Well...I am finally starting on my garden. Anjl sent me a box of bulbs. I started planting them Monday, but it rained yesterday. If it doesn't pour today, I will plant the rest of them. It is sort of haphazard but should work out ok. I may change it next year. Want to put veggies in the middle of the front yard because thats where I get the most sun. Will plant flowers all around. I will let you know how it goes and take pictures when it starts to bloom.

See you later

Pat

Pat, what a delight that will be for all of us!!! Thanks for keeping us posted - you've made me smile already!

Yeah! Mom has officially 'begun' her gardening! :o)

I still need to find a Red Bark JM for her, but I'll look around once I get there... I'll be posting a butterfly bush and hydrangea bush to bring her... along with alot of seeds and starts :o) hopefully we can really get her garden going this year.

No rototiller tho :o( so I guess we will be doing alot of the Lasagna gardening to start her off! LOL!

Anjl, I just bought a coral bark maple at Valley Nursery in Poulsbo, out by Tils house, and it is the best I've seen. They have a huge selection. I bought it for St. Andrews so I will get a picture and the name next week and post it. Sizes two feet to eight feet.

do you know what their prices are? I can send mom or sister to go pick one up... lots easier than me toting one there from CA! LOL!

Here's there web site
Have lots of things. I stay away, to close for me to spend my paycheck LOL 2.5 miles from home, and would rather go see Heidi. at least that makes a trip out of it.

http://www.valleynurseryinc.com/

thanks tills... I'll check them out.
Do you know if heidi has red bark maples?

I don't know, D-mail her, cattledogs

thanks!

They ranged from $30 to the high $100's depending on size. I paid $99 for about 5' but it is just beautiful. The name was Bena something. He said it was the best red

I emailed them and am waiting for a response now :o) thank you so much for the tip! it's really hard to work on my yard here, and also moms yard there and try to find all the stuff I need for her empty lot! LOL! I do have some plants here that I started for her, and I'll just be bringing those with me when I come up next month.

My nephew was going to rototill her yard, but they dont have a working rototiller... so I may not be able to do as much as I thought I would this year :o( but I have sent her my lasagna gardening book, so she can start some lasagna beds in the mean time.

We're all into lasagna gardening and letting the worms do the work. Have your sister save cardboard for her to create new beds and keep the weeds down. With compost and the leaves on top of that, your mom can start "mapping" the beds out - even without the rototiller.

Next month - it's just around the corner. Thanks for posting, Pat. We all plan on moving plants several times, so IMO (in my opinion), the first time you can be a little more relaxed.

I too have lasagna beds here cause I'm lazy lol! but at moms we were trying to get rid of all the grass (which is all she has now) and start from scratch. Although from what I've recently read, seems that rototilling will just bring up more grass/weed seeds? and maybe she is better off just smothering the existing grass with lasagna beds and putting heavy plastic down over the lawn and then stepping stones for pathways?
has anyone tried this? and does it work?! LOL!
I'm thinking if I can get her front yard and side yards done this year, I can work on the back next year....

I'm currently smothering a patch of grass to get in a new bed. I have such stoloniferous grass that I can't even just dig it out and compost it. I have to completely cover the compost bed so the grass and ranunculus can't get light and get started. It's very hard to kill. I'm hoping that smothering it first in place will work better.

I started with leaves and added cardboard. Next will come some compost on top and then I'll let it cook for awhile.

I am reading the book on Lazagna Gardening and thats what they say to do. Add 4 or 5 layers on top of the grass and it should kill it. At least thats what I hope.

Pat

I think it's a good start.

Lasagna gardening is the only way to go, in my opinion. But it doesn't always go exactly as planned. I've unearthed grass and buttercups that are still growing after 6 months. White from no sunlight, but still alive. Argh!!!

Katie, I do find that it takes a good year to really kill off the tough stuff (I've lasagned very old pasture) - but what I really find as a benefit is that the few that come through are really easy to remove! The new soil is just so easy to weed out because of the lasagne layers.

Angl, I think I wouldn't bother with the plastic - it may kill it off, but it won't condition the soil - cardboard and a layer of compostible material will not only kill it off, it will give you a whole new layer to work with, and increase the wormies! Gooooooo wormies!

Speaking of wormies. I got a truckload of 6-month-old horse manure from my neighbor last weekend with the promise of more. The number of red wigglers in each shovel-full is amazing. I have in spread in a new bed and will be adding more grass, paper and chippings as the summer goes on. Good wormies is right.

katie... how far are you from rochester?! :oD could you drop some of those wormies off at moms?! LOL!

Looks like I'll be up there first part of july sometime... that is if i can get out of jury duty! ugh!

I'm getting excited :o) and starting to get a list together. I have some plants I'm going to bring with me, just hard to gage what all its going to take without seeing this yard first! LOL!

Not long now . . . I was told that there would be lots of the red guys in manure and that was the truth!!

Your mom could start a worm bin in a plastic container. It doesn't need to be anything fancy - you can get plastic garbage cans at Home Depot. They will find it . . . and then when you're here you can transfer the good stuff to the lasagna bed.

? where do you get the worms?

I havent looked at her soil yet.... so I have no idea what I will be getting myself into! LOL! Last time I was there was 1 1/2 yrs ago.... and I just saw green grass everywhere (compared to CA, EVERYTHING in WA is GREEN,GREEN,GREEN!) so I was so awed be the green trees and green grass and green stuff on the sides of the roads that I just figured her soil must be good! lol! Now, I'm learning that you all have issues with soil same as us CA clay soil people do :o(

so, I guess I'll find out soon enough lol! hopefully it is at least not the heavy clay I have here.... Mom hasnt any compost stuff so it may take a while before she can do lasagna beds on a large scale. We may just start with one or two beds and then branch off from there.

I will try to get her yard graphed and get it posted on here this weekend so you all can help me do a more long term plan....

AnjL

Build it and they will come. Seriously, if you find manure, it will be there. And if you start a compost bin with your very rich kitchen scraps, the worms will eventually find it. My neighbor did just that. You can buy them if you're in a hurry or just unsure, but try the worm bin first and see what happens.

The guys you want are the very red ones that do the high-nutrient food processing. They are different than the pinkish ones you see in the ground.

I do love the green, but we have our clay, that's for sure. I have veins of hard as a rock clay buried in regular clay. Some of it I can work through, but for some of it I've just gone up. Hopefully the previous owners got some topsoil brought in.

well, they did have some type of garden there when she moved in, but it was an elderly couple who lived there and they didnt do much. I'm hoping that since she has some remnant plants & bulbs that the soil was amended at least somewhat :o)

does anyone know where I can find a couple of whiskey/wine barrels in her area relatively cheap? I want to do 2 veggie gardens in these for her....

Hard to find them cheap anymore? You might try Craigslist or Freecycle. Somebody may have one they're not too excited about anymore.

hey thanks! I'll try craigslist :o) forgot about them! lol!

whoo hoo! Guess what mom.... I went to the OSH sale tonight and guess what I found?!
Coral Bark JM for $7 teeheehee :o) Guess what I'm bringing with me? lolol!
also bought a few more surprises lol! (now lets see if mom reads this and is paying attention! LOL!)

I am paying attention. And I do have a compost bin. What ever is in there has been there since I moved here in 2005. Don't know anything about them.

Pat