Sunday, June 26, 2011

Beyond the Picket Fence



With a few exceptions, which can only be completed when it cools down, and of course some tinkering, the garden in the white picket fence is chock full.  For now, I can do no more.  I still have to replace the hedge screen hiding the hideous and huge furnace, which also requires replacing the fencing there, but that will be done when I can be outside without risk of heat stroke, severe dehydration and possible death.  It involves digging up privets, digging a bunch of post holes and doing this amongst a front row of roses which I don't want to dig up if I don't have to.  So, yes, definitely putting that off.  Its funny, I almost never take pictures of that view, because despite how pretty the roses are, the rest of it is such an eyesore I pretend it doesn't exist.  But the dang photos don't seem to have my brains ability to edit out all the stuff you don't want to see.

So anyhow, instead of doing this, I'm moving on to the next garden at Chez Children of the Corm, what will be hereafter forever known as 'the parking garden.'  Here is the inaugural 'before' shot.   What lies here now is a very large pecan tree, some runaway lirope, and while now underground, a seriously beautiful amount of Summer Snowflake (Leucojum Aestivum).  These have populated this area en masse pre-Jess, and bloom in February, one of the very first things out of the ground.   The rest of the space, and even under those weeds, all around the tree is gravel.   I've mentioned that this house used to be a college rental and there are still many vestiges of these days, like encasing a tree in said gravel.



My plan, which is ill-formed at best is this: plant things that are extremely drought resistant.   My second plan is try not to do too much damage to all the summer snowflake bulbs hidden there.  My third plan is that I need to get that gravel up, and it is a doozy of a job.  However one that can happen 30 minutes at a time each morning.  Because of the compacted gravel it cannot be shoveled, and even the hand trowel doesn't get too far. Its all about the hand cultivator and the hand.



Final plan is I got my mom to donate a host of drought tolerant daylilies when she divided them. Woohoo, and I accepted delivery a few days ago.  This area gets only morning sun, so we'll see how that goes, but I can envision a swath of daylilies here next year, can't you?  Isn't my Mom cute with her little labels, knowing how I can't stand not knowing what things are? She's made them waterproof for me so I can just stick the stick in right beside the plant when done.

8 comments:

  1. yay for moms! how sweet! your garden is looking beautiful...especially with that paparazzi-shy statue. (congratulations, btw!)

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  2. Your full flower bed looks wonderful! I love your mother's labels! I have dreams of giving away plant divisions with labels like these, but I've never actually done it. I have many close-up photographs of beautiful plants that grow in parts of the garden that are an embarrassment, while I limit my landscape shots to the more photogenic garden areas. Your privet project sounds like one for late fall, when the weather is cool. -Jean

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  3. way to go mom! labels and in plastic. she's my hero. I did a double take when you said the snow in summer bloomed in February. Sometimes I forget how different our climates are.

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  4. I like the area, Jess. I wonder if you could just add soil, some edging and build a raised bed. This way you wouldn't have to work on extracting the gravel--just dump soil over them. Plus this wouldn't disturb your bulbs... Just my two bits. I look forward to the after shots. Kudos to your mom for sharing.

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  5. Grace has a great point...reduce the work with a bit of a raised bed...wonderful garden you are planning with your mom's pass-a-long daylilies..

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  6. Jess, I clicked comment to say exactly what Grace said. The area looks like it could raised somewhat and all the gravel would provide excellent drainage when mixed with soil. You could use Pam's (Pam's English Garden) no/less work lasagna method--she did a recent post explaining how it works. Carolyn

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  7. You know, I had thought about it myself, and I probably will have to do it to some degree, though I'm still going to try and get at least a bit of the gravel up. My area doesn't have issues with drainage, the exact opposite (sandy base) so I'm going to see how much of it I can get up, it will only help, as I'd have to build it up a lot higher than I'd like otherwise. But yeah, that does sound a whole lot easier huh?

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