It has been a whole year since my last post! Yay! Ummm….ok. I guess that’s nothing to celebrate, huh? What can I say, I have been very busy with my other blogs/websites like this one: www.aviewtoathrill.net and . So, please feel free to check them out.
Now, how do I start to discuss what I’ve done in the past year? To be honest with you, not much really. I did a run through the yard collecting things that did not fit into my English cottage garden theme and gave them away to a gardening friend. She was very happy to take those items off of my hand. Which leads me on a tangent…..it’s always a great idea to find someone at work or a neighbor or a good friend who shares a love of gardening with you. It’s a great way to find a willing partner to share plant divisions, unwanted hardscapes (is another gardener’s treasure!) and good gardening advice. Don’t underestimate how important having that resource available to you will be.
Back to the matter at hand, we did redo the bed where the two butterfly bushes were planted. We chopped down the butterfly bushes because they had gotten gangly and unattractive and while we questioned the wisdom of eliminating something that attracted butterflies, bees and hummingbirds alike, we knew that we were making the right decision. Unfortunately, the stumps of the bushes were ginormous, so we had to hire a stump removal company to finish the job off for us. Even still, the roots of the bushes were atrocious and we spent a good day pick axing the remnants so that we would end up with a relatively clean and cleared bed. The only thing that remained was the large gardenia bush in the front center of the bed.
Since my love affair with roses was very new and compelling, we decided to fill the bed up with more of them. I got a really great deal online from Home Depot of all places and we began to plant four rose bushes in either corner and one in the back center. I planted an agapanthus dead center right behind the gardenia and flanked it with two small roses on either side. I was lucky enough to find two sets of white fencing that a showroom threw out after a show. They cut a six foot piece of fencing in half and connected them together so as to form a 90 degree angled corner. I thought that would be the perfect backdrop for the two rose bushes on the back right and left sides. It gave the entire bed a nice ‘country’ feel. Later on this year, I plan to buy more river rock so that I can use it to frame that bed and get rid of the landscape timber that surrounds it now.
My gardening friend, Minh introduced me to a fellow who raises daylillies. I don’t know what amendments he puts in his soil but they are HUGE!! He sells them for five dollars per clump and each clump has at least 10 fans on them. I bought four, but I plan to go back later on this year when they are in full bloom to buy more. He has every color imaginable and I plan to use them in various beds this year.
The only other thing of note is that I’ve added quite a bit more statuary to the garden. My good fortune is a result of The Gardens moving to the new building at work. Many of the vendors preferred to get rid of their older stock by selling it at a good discount and that way they didn’t have to bother with moving it to their new home. Of course, gardeners like me were only too happy to help them out of their predicament! I was able to score two concrete benches, one garden cherub who acts as my sentry leading to the pond, and lastly, a concrete pedestal to uplift my hebe goddess. Also, I lucked up on a black metal tri-level flower stand. It’s unique and I really didn’t know what to do with it or where to put it. I finally settled on placing it near the diamond bed closer to the trees so that it would be in partial shade. I placed a small cherub in the center and I have two wire baskets in the top and bottom levels that I filled with colorful annuals.
My plan for this year is to start my rose care program next month. I will prune all 30 odd roses and feed them with alfalfa pellets. I will spray them all with dormant oil this weekend to keep pests at bay for the year. As I stated before, I will purchase river rock and flagstone for the bed where the hebe goddess and the roses of sharon are. It will be a big job so I plan to do it in stages. One weekend we will move the goddess and the borders; the next weekend we will dig up the bulbs that we placed around the goddess and remove the rock surrounding the bed right behind the statue. The weekend after that we will remove all of the plants from that bed and put it in other beds. Finally, we will till the entire perimeter of the new bed, keeping the center intact because we will be placing flagstone there and it will need a solid base. I will find some ground cover (haven’t decided which) to place in between the flagstone and will place the hebe back front and center. I will finish everything off by using a variety of perrennials to surround the flagstone bed.
Since the price of produce has reached a record high, we plan to start a new veggie bed. We plan to have a load of top soil hauled in for that purpose. Of course, we will use some of the top soil to freshen the flower beds. We’ll start off with onions, tomatoes, bell peppers….something we use quite a bit of and we’ll see where it goes from there.
Well, that’s it for now. I promise to stay up to date on the goings on in my garden and to record whatever I do every step of the way. Cheers and Happy 2009!
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