The End of an Era

Well, we made a big decision to say goodbye to the garden plot.

[play taps]


It was a spring of what can only be decribed as "meh" about the garden plot.

I went out there once and spent over an hour just cleaning out the smallest bed and planting lettuce.

An HOUR!!

It was absolutely thick with weeds.

This picture shows them all piled up next to the tiny bed.

It was crazy.

Other than that, the garden was a mess!
Our winter cover crop never sprouted, bed edging desperately needed to be re-done, and there were not horrible amounts of weeds all over, but definitely very tall ones in certain areas.

Spring was so delayed anyway and then I had a busy few weeks while garden plot partner was out of the country and so there it sat.

A mess!

We had decided to scale back anyway and try to focus on what we could grow well and do more established plants instead of seeds.

I was thinking that perhaps I wasn't "feeling it" because we'd had some pretty miserable fails the last two seasons.

And frankly - a community garden only works if you live nearby.
Apparently working nearby isn't enough  because staying after work means fighting extra horrid traffic on the way home (or staying there even later and starving!).
Or going out in the heat of the day over lunch breaks to weed and water...not ideal (and actually, 4-5 is typically the hottest part of the day here, so after work is even worse than doing an early lunch around 10 or 11!)

The more I read, the more I realized that consistent watering is so key.

NOT our strength!!


So partner gets back from her trip, we compare notes on how poorly we've done with it and she finally says, "Soooo....how committed to the garden are you this year?"

Oh dear. How do I graciously say that I'm struggling to get motivated and pessimistic that our watering habits will be any better?

Then she lays on me how I'd feel about giving it up because she's really not feeling it this year.

Oh!

We discussed it for awhile and since she has moved from an apartment to a townhouse-with-a-gardenable-backyard since starting the plot, we both agreed that it wasn't ideal for us anymore.

We wondered about having to muddle through the year planting only a few "sure-fire" crops.

She decides to email the garden organizer just to see if there is interest...

Hears right back - yup, there is definitely a waiting list; someone would be ready to take over the next weekend!

Well alrighty then!

So she spends that Saturday doing a smashing job cleaning it!
I went out for a bit the next week to grab a few things and give it a final look and then slowly walked away from what has been a fond, fun (mostly :-D) and educational journey.

And that's it. Just like that we pass along a really spectacular garden plot weeded and with lettuce growing and blueberries, strawberries and grapes already blooming.

Dear stranger: please take care of it!!

I'll miss the beans and soybeans which always did well.
I'll miss the peanuts.
Other than that, it was so hit or miss from year to year what worked and what didn't!
So I won't miss that. Or the "stress" of when to get out there and finding over-ripe veggies because neither of us could make it, etc., etc.

Now I just need to get creative on growing more edibles in my quite-shaded-except-for-the-front yard!

Farewell, little garden. 

The Deluge

We are finally basking in glorious sunshine after over a week of rain - some really hard!

Our town didn't get slammed as hard as others further west (we're a little mini pocket of weather that is typically milder from most other areas in the state...even just a few miles away!).

Even so, we received several inches and my poor plants are showing it!

The roses and peonies just pummeled...

The sun finally came out yesterday, so we walked around and guess what bloomed in the middle of the rainy days?!

BOTH kinds of clematis!

Just absolutely beautiful!

Pretty sure that's as tall as the smaller, Jackmanii will get, but the Earnest Markham has now reached the top of the side and is stretching fingers towards the top supports of the arbor! Yes!!

The delphinium is starting to bloom. I will definitely have to tuck that guy back towards the fence for next year; it's incredibly tall for being smack in the middle of the bed!

Oh how I love all the colors in bloom!

Apparently the little white Chinese lantern flowers I planted last year like to heavily seed themselves!! (They're the larger triangular leaved clumps of plants in the middle.)

The lilies are all budded up too, so hopefully in the next week or so we'll have full color again!

Many things definitely grew impressively throughout the rain and I'm wondering now that the sun is out if they're just going to explode with blooms!

And I'm sure the weeds will far surpass them all! 😩

Flower Updates

I'm behind on posting about the flowers...

After such a delayed spring, the bulbs finally, slowly popped out one by one...

The cute tulip border with daffodils and hyacinth:

Note the heavy clusters in the middle. When I re-planted the bulbs in the fall, I had spaced out some of the types of flowers. If you recall, I ran out of time before I got them all planted, so came back later with the shallower planted bulbs and filled them in the "blank" space I had left.

It now appears highly likely that the "blank" space was not in fact blank and so now bunches of bulbs are clustered on top of each other. Deeeelightful.

White daffodils I have no recollection of planting!

Colors!

Now these are my new favorite!
Unlike 2016, I did actually get my fall pansies in last year and one of the options was these "black velvet" ones which are a really, really dark purple. They are gorgeous!! Cannot wait for them to fill out!

Within a few weeks the new tulips I had planted in the fall were coming up. They're quite tall!

Such pretty coloring!

Unfortunately they're the only tulips that came up!
Why can't I get tulips to grow year to year?!  (And don't say squirrels - everyone goes to squirrels. The beds are undisturbed, ya'll. Unless the squirrel mafia hired the mole as an underground bulb hitman...it's not the squirrels!)

And then soon after, my newest addition started blooming.
I saw Ranunculus in a catalog this winter and just couldn't pass them up. I've never seen them before, but wow. Just, wow!

They're what I panted on top of the tulips instead of in the blank spot. 😑



Cute little blooms on what I think is a geum marmalade, but I'll have to confirm that on the tag when I locate it. And the fuchsia not-an-anemone (freesia) came back again!

















As per usual, the front beds are a mess! All a tangle of yet-to-be-trimmed liriope, spanish bells, rogue peony, lilies and gladiolas coming up, pansies filling out and newest of all: apparently the yellow balloon flowers I purchased last year re-seeded! EVERYWHERE!!

Craziness!

And then there are the two dying camelias I tried because of the inability to grow anything else in the corners of the stoop.
I say "dying" and not "dead" because, to the contrary of all visual cues, at the suggestion of a nursery owner I gentle scraped away some bark and did find some green!

When I was describing the condition, he came to suspect lack of water being the culprit. They are not only under the 2nd story overhang (several feet), but are also under the roof overhang which is several more feet!
So when it rains, I figure I'm good! And apparently probably not so much :-/

So I went home, fertilized them, gave them some good soakings and we watch.

In the meantime, I put a large pot back there to fill in the space and since my hopes are at about 12% chance of the camelias surviving.


I put several partial shade plants in the pot, so we'll see how it goes.

The crowning jewel?

A honeysuckle!!

Who doesn't need a ginormous vine climbing at their front door?!

I'm going off the plan to keep it trimmed, cut it down to the base each year and hope that the pot helps keep it manageable and that it will survive winters in there :-/  Fingers crossed!

I did quite the number on it trying to stuff it through the trellis, but by the morning a couple days later, it was already wrapping itself happily around it again!

Moving to the back, we had a lovely spread of blooming tulips in the wildflower border:

And the clematis are doing marvelously!!

Halfway up a week ago:                                           Nearly touching the top support as of this week!

 Both have put out buds, but the earlier Jackmanii (on the left) seems to have peaked out. It is a smaller plant, but I was hoping it would get a little higher this year. Oh well. Patience.
The Earnest Markham shows no signs of slowing down! Yes!! Cover the arbor! Go! Go! Go!!!

The knock-out roses are starting to bloom, the peonies will pop soon and then there's the huge delphinium that shot up and should blossom soon.

Here is a shot of it on the left compared to the arbor. It's huge!

The good news in the rest of the wildflower border is that the Sweet William re-seeded itself.

The bad news in the wildflower border is that the Sweet William re-seeded itself. Extensively.















Such an anticipatory time of year - watching everything come back to life! Wondering how well they'll do or how big something will be or in the case of wildflowers - where the heck they're even going to come up at!

Purple Beauty ...and Pests!

Time for the not-native-ginger (mazus reptans) to bloom. Loooove it!

The avocados are spreading their leaves and everything is filling out marvelously.

I hadn't made it to the newest section so it's been a weedy mess as shown here.
I did finally get to clean it up Saturday - still a bit messy since it's my
"testing zone" to see if things that look like weeds are really weeds. 😆

My white bleeding hearts from my friend finally bloomed!
Think this is the first year they've been hardy enough!
The pink bleeding heart plants are holding on by a hair;
looking pretty rough. Definitely no blooms this year :-(

And a moment of silence for the columbine :-(

I saw that the columbine were blooming, but hadn't gone close for a couple days. I finally went out and wondered why the flowers looked so sad. Then my eyes moved down the stalks to realize that the bottom was skeletonized!!

I looked at the other ones I had divided throughout the bed last year and every - single - one...destroyed! 

Tiny bugs that I later identified as aphids AND small green caterpillars. Seriously?!!

So off to the nursery I trotted for insecticidal soap. Boy does that do the trick!

But so sad that I didn't catch it earlier. 

The columbine usually bloom so long! 

I'm very thankful that I caught it before they likely moved to other plants. Can't believe they only targeted the columbine which are spread all throughout the garden!   

Alas.

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In happier news, I've seen little friends in stores and decided I needed a little turtle or snail or something. But I'm cheap. So imagine my happiness when I'm strolling through a flea market and find a little snail friend!!

I was so excited when the guy said $3, I didn't even think to talk him down to 2!

Perfect!

Annuals

Took me forever 2 Saturdays ago, but I got the deck pots done!

Chives a'bloom with Thai basil and some
annuals...gorgeous Dogwood in the background!

Fabulous against our new blue house!
 
(New as in new siding we had installed in December)

The siding looks marvelous, but meant that I had to re-arrange a few pots since my blue ones now look hideous against the siding (differing blue colors - not great!)

So that's part of what took so long - I wasn't just planting, I was designing!
What pot goes where and which flowers go in which so that the colors are split up appropriately, etc. 
Highly important work! :-D

Love all the color!!! The canna in the big blue corner pot has just poked its first little head up!
(Also can't wait for yellow pollen season to be over so I can scrub the deck!)

My newest pot (green) with a lemony herb and I
believe I put one of my grown-from-seed zinnias!

The fabulous curly grass isn't looking so hot -
teeny greenishness is peeking through, so we shall
see if the winter did it in or not.

This time at the nursery, I looked for plants that had low water needs; never looked at that before for the sun-scorched deck pots!

I also watered THREE times in a week!! Very proud of myself.

And now the forecast is 10 days of rain...soooooo...sorry little plants; I tried!