Monday, April 19, 2010

Renovating the Garden

to our Celtic Cross Garden!
What's more welcoming--the dalmatian sign or those cheery little forget-me-nots, eh? Just one of the many things i love about Washington....forget-me-nots seem to sprout up everywhere as soon as the days start lengthening again!
We spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon working in the garden.
Gotta get that curb appeal in shape, you know?
Unfortunately 2/3rds of this garden looked like this....
until yesterday. (This shady side will be needing lots of TLC the next time we schedule a weekend for garden tasks. I'm thinking 1 or 2 more evergreen huckleberries--4' plus maturity in shade, but am in need of some other ideas for mostly shady garden plants. Here already are ornamental poppies, hollyhocks, a white currant, and a blue hydrengea.) Any ideas??
We are working from the street side in and got this
portion in the foreground weeded, planted, and mulched. As you gardeners know, those perennials can really add up!! Sheesh. Especially when you try to add edibles in there. So, i am hoping with an insane amount of mulch and a scattering of annual seeds and clover after our last frost date, we can fill it in enough so that weeding in this area will be a thing of the past! (Especially important because Moose would like a boat for his birthday this year. Ei yi ei! Or maybe i should say, Ahoy, oy, OY!) :o)

The red current, alliums, purple cone flower, and the savory were already here from year's past, and entangled in this whole area was dandelions and chickweed. We added an evergreen huckleberry, one "Fancy Knickers" carnation, "Queen Alexander" orientmental poppy, and a transplanted volunteer purple Alpine tulip.


This morning, on the other side of this bed, where we put in the plum tree last weekend, i'm finishing cleaning out the weeds and planting more perennials. Now there'll be "Red Clock" Alpine tulip, "Summerwine" yarrow, "Green Globe" Artichoke, shrub rosemary, and a lipstick strawberry for ground cover among the alliums, snapdragons, and the pink peony that is there. I am thinking i might erect a trellis next to the tree there for some peas or bean too. Maybe scarlet runner beans for the hummingbirds.


In the paper bag is a varigated lavender and there is another oriental poppy, artichoke, and strawberry left to plant. I'd like to find some more purple cone flowers to fill in. Especially since i noticed on Friday that the gold finches are consuming the old seed heads from last year.

Man, this garden is going to look really nice--here is a shot from our deck that overlooks it. I think it will end up being one of the only things i miss about our place if we finally move.



Just means we'll have to replicate it on a larger scale wherever we go, eh? :o)
But i'll be smarter there, we won't actually build the parts out until we can plant them up right!

P.S. Did i ever mention i absolutely loath dandelions?!?!? Especially because the kind we have the most of are the fuzzy kind that the chickens don't like.

1 comment:

  1. Your talents are far flung...even in the garden you shine.

    Linda
    http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to read my silly lil musings. Hope you have a wonderful day!
~Whit