The Long View 2009 - 2

Nice street scene Jumper.
I used to live in a neighborhood like that and loved it.
A nice mix of ages and intrests.

Hey everybody...great pics! your places are gorgeous. A note on slugs, I had a big problem this year...they were chomping everything...found about 20 of them on one hydrangea one evening....I picked this up the beginning of the season, and sprinkled it around everywhere, when through two containers...seemed to help a lot so far, and it does not need to be reapplied after rain:

http://www.arbico-organics.com/1271101.html

And here is the latest pic of my new bed/patio/fountain from last weekend....miles

This message was edited Jun 9, 2009 5:55 AM

Here is the older side of the bed with plants more than a month old ;-)

here it is from the back....

very nice Miles!

here is my bed by the garage....the roses climbing the trellis were supposed to be the focal point, but the catmint and cranesbill is stealing the show!

Wich cranesbill is that?

yeah, i get them small from bluestone so I can get lots of them for cheaper...then by year 2 they look pretty filled in....here is the side bed I started last year...already much fuller....

that is 'Brookside' cranesbill I just love it. Color matches the Nepeta 'Walkers Low' exactly and has gorgeous mounded foliage when the flowers fade away, and great fall color...got that from Bluestone as well last year. Here is the arbor bed I lasagnaed last year...just planted this spring.

No a long shot, but I had to post this since it is so gorgeous...my 'Crystal Fountain' clematis...year two...doing great this year. I notice the clematis don't do much year one and really shine after that....

One last shot...here is the perennial bed off the veggie garden to the right....has golden rod, monarda, heleopsis, Rosanne cranesbill, goldsturm rudbeckia and other stuff...can't wait for it to bloom....

here is my lazagna bed from April.I call it the garden from hell because its so hard to plant anything. Clay besides the newspaper didnt decompose enough.
I have lost many plants because of the clay so I'm just sticking to Ecinacias and daylilies and coriopses.

My long shots from this AM cloudy day so theyre dark

.End of the deck. I'll move astilbes there beside the hosta

.

Oh yeah, Dahlianut! I was talking about my neighbor's gigantic garage that I wanted to block the view of. It's just impossible. It's too close to my backyard. It's 6 bays, 4000 sq. ft. and about two and a half stories high! Ugh. It's the big, green one behind my fence in one of my pictures. Only 3 bays are visible on my side.

Looking good JoAnne!

Miles, you have a beautiful space there!

miles the patio looks great - needs some weeding i think from that first picture:) the brookside is nice - have a couple outside growing in pots that were bare root this year.

Miles, it's all so beautiful. You've done great, and the colors are to die for on those cranebill!

MIles, it's looks really good, I LOVE the little stick fence(in post 6662424), how did you fasten it togther?

Thanks everyone. My DH made the fence out of apple and maple branches we pruned. Held together with exterior deck screws. I love all the rustic twig structures as we call them.

Miles

Thanks for the info Miles.

ooo I luv the patio miles. Is that the 'blue stone' that everyone is talking about? ge I hear you about the clay sigh. The only lasagna beds that I've heard worked here are raised with amended soil added. I tried one by flipping over the grass and it is so/so. I figure if I keep throwing poop and compost in it, eventually it will come around. O thanks, I get it now Sofonisba.

Dahlianut:

Yes, that is tumbled bluestone. I originally wanted native stone like the wall, but you can't get it in even thin pieces like the bluestone. Sine we were laying it ourselves and had no experience, I got the easy stuff...we planted thyme seeds and few plants in the joints so hopefully someday we'll have that all filled in. Overall I'm very happy with it, just what I wanted.

M.

noreaster back on your post http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=6646899
which jm is that in the pot?

That's 'Orange Dream', which I bought last year and buried next to the north side of the house over the winter. It came thru great and got much bigger...so much bigger that I'm not sure what to do with it from here on. I just want to be able to enjoy it as a potted accent like that. Not ready to put it in a permanent home anytime soon. I have to read up on how to care for them in pots long term.

thanks NE'r - i thought it looked familiar - i have a new one that is about 3 ft tall - hope it fills out like yours! mine is in the ground under a sugar maple. go to davidsansmaples.com site where he has listed a lot of info on caring for jms - the ones i have in pots i use some pre-mixed soil for container planting from "something of Maine" it can be found at many garden centers

Oh, probably Coast of Maine? Just the Potting Soil mix? I'm so intimidated to repot mine, because I keep reading that none of the commercial mixes will drain well enough and that you should make your own mix...and I really don't want to be running all over the place looking for " bark fines"- whatever those are! I saw one recommendation to mix topsoil, compost, and perlite.. I was sort of thinking about trying that. But really I just want to make my life easier and buy a bag of something. I'm off to check out that link now.

wha, that link didn't turn anything up...are you sure about the name?

Main thing is that it's well-drained, light soil, nor.

But how do I judge how well a soil drains? Don't all potting soils drain well?

No, they are not all the same. The better ones have some coarse pieces - bark, etc.

NE's - yes coast of maine it is - they have a mix special for landscape container planting that has a mix of ingredients that provide the drainage that victor mentions and the nutrients required for a healthy tree.

http://www.davidsansjapanesemaples.com/

hey victor check the the link to davidsans - he has something called a monkey tree that is very rare and kinda expensive. also promoting the sodo jm that i almost went with yesterday which does not get as big as i needed

Sodo looks nice. Never been a fan of monkey puzzle trees.

See now that site is telling me I have to make a mix with turkey grit in it. For crying out loud, where am I supposed to find TURKEY GRIT? Now I really just want to buy a bag of something and be done with it.

wha, I don't see any landscaper container mix on the Coast of Maine website...the only potting soil they sell in the Bar Harbor blend...which isn't that chunky, as far as I can remember from the one time I used it. Are you sure that was the brand? Or did you maybe use one of the other, non container blends? http://www.coastofmaine.com/soils-barharbor.shtml

This message was edited Jun 12, 2009 9:36 AM

i used the cobscook blend

This message was edited Jun 12, 2009 10:42 AM

Thanks to Jen I finally realized there was a new thread. Took me a while to go through all the wonderful pictures. Everyone's gardens are so great. It's been raining here, so although I was thinking everything was starting to look nice - some hard rain last night really made everything flop. : (

wha, the Cobscook blend is described as:

"Cobscook Blend is a richly textured all-purpose gardening soil. Because it is made with compost, it gives you the benefit of requiring less frequent watering and feeding. Because of its water retaining qualities, it is not recommended for summer annuals like geraniums and petunias. We suggest it as an amendment for planting azaleas, rhododendrons and blueberry bushes. Its fine texture also makes it a good top-dressing for new lawns.

Cobscook Blend is made with a blend of fully matured salmon and blueberry compost (both locally recycled byproducts), mixed with aged bark, long staple sphagnum peat moss and horticultural limestone".

Now I'm confused, because doens't water retentive mean that is doesn't drain as well? See, this JM stuff is just way too complicated.

has not retained that much water here although with this rain i check it

I guess I need to pull mine out of the nursery pot it's in and check to see if it even needs to be repotted...I expect that it will, since it really seems much bigger than last year. I only need to repot if the roots are at the very bottom of the pot, right?