More yard work

I didn't quite feel up to going out to Bobbie's to get another holly to plant today, so no planting. I started my work in the yard today by installing the 3 pavers in a path from the water spigot. They worked out really well, except I think one might be a little thinner than the others, but I think they look good. After that I watered the shrubs as we are not expecting rain until Thursday. It was nice to be able to walk on the pavers instead of in a mud hole to get to the spigot, as the hose connection leaks pretty badly. I think this summer I may invest in a new hose. I have no idea how much water my shrubs need. I was thinking that the small pieris might not be looking quite as good as it could, don't know. Also, something has eaten a tiny bit at my tea olive. I really don't know how much water any of the shrubs need. The ones without leaves right now are the worst as I REALLY have no idea how they are doing or if they are even still alive.

On at least 1/2 of the plants you can still see the root ball area that was in the container. This is a tad concerning. I am most worried about the small beautyberry, as it has been in the ground for almost 2 months now and its top from the container is still VERY noticeable. The large beautyberry is doing much better in that respect, but it will still be months before I know if that plant is even alive.

I spent some more time in the yard trying to clean up some of the sticks, small branches and dead vines in the woodland garden. In the process, I found a number of additional bricks. I filled 2 large trash bags mainly with sticks and dead vines, as well as a little trash I found. Just as I was finishing up, I found even more bricks along the yard side of the shack. I was wondering if I know have enough bricks from what I dug up today to edge around the one tree in the front yard. Not sure what I want to do there... I will definately go back and get the bricks from the side of the shack. I noticed that my neighbor behind me also had a number of old bricks behind the falling down shack on the back of HIS property.

I am suspecting that some of the vines in the back might be honeysuckle, as there are some that are curled around the fence just like the honeysuckle is curled on field fencing. Terri had said some of the other vines were clemetis, but I haven't seen any of them bloom.

Today was nice and warm, almost 70, so we haven't turned the heat on at all today. Ususally I like the cold weather, but with having to keep my house so cold due to the gas prices, I am enjoying our still warm weather. I wish I was able to insulate the house right now, but unfortunately, I lack the budget for that right now. Currently my hope is that I will be able to insulate the attic before NEXT winter. I also would love to have the shack in the back torn down, but that too costs more money than I have right now, so I will just have to deal with it.

My major issue right now is to figure out some way to get the trash people to haul away all that plastic sheeting that I dragged up there last week and they left. We need to call the trash folks tomorrow and see if they will pick it up if we tell them about it.

I also have found some more scrap metal around the shack, but without a gate into my yard it is hard for anyone to get back there to pick stuff up. I have been collecting what I've found and when I get some more I'll call the scrap guys and see if they can come haul it away.

I have decided that it is a REALLY good thing I have my backyard all fenced in as my neighbor kids were telling me how they used to play in the "blue house" (the shack in the back) and how they were fixing it up. I can see how it would seem like the ideal place to play to little kids (and would probably have wanted to play in it myself as a child) but as an adult homeowner, it worries me as the shack is NOT SAFE! I did tell them the shack wasn't safe and they said that their dad had said the same thing. Again, glad there is now a fence between them and the shack. I would hate for anyone to get hurt on my property.

This coming week I work all week, then I'm out of town on the weekend, so I doubt much will get done around the house. We did go to our storage space today and bring a few things back with us. We really need to finish up the painting, move the paint out of the kitchen and get a wooden cabinet to use as a pantry. Then maybe we can put everything away and start really going through and getting rid of things.

Foundation planting, pt 1

Today I decided to work on my foundation planting, since I had the hollies and I haven't gotten any painting done. I got an early start today, before 9 AM. I got the three bigger hollies planted on one side of the walk, measuring to make sure that the trunk of each holly was the same distance from the porch (32 1/2 inches- not quite 1 yard but oh well...).


I planted one of the small hollies on the tree side of the walk. It is closer to the porch, but pretty much lines up with the hellabore on the other side of the tree.


I used all the mulch I had and it did not even come close to being enough to go around just the three hollies. So, it was back to Home Depot for 4 more bags of mulch. I also bought a bag of 45 crocus bulbs since they were all 1/2 off (the crocuses were the only ones that still looked decent) to put around the tree over on the line between my and Curtis's properties. After seeing Bobbie's pansies at her house yesterday I decided I had not purchased enough pansies and that my containers looked pretty sad, so I got 6 white and purple pansies to add to the pots. Then, while I was heading toward the bulbs I walked along the shade aisle and a rhododendron called out to me. It is an English Roseum and should bloom pink in May if it survives.

Back home with the mulch, I finished up mulching the three hollies and I think they look pretty good. Then I ran out of mulch trying to mulch on the tree side.

I had purchased the rhodie thinking it would be great to go along the area I just cleared in the back of the house, but when I got there the spot I was thinking of was in full afternoon sun, which will not work for a rhodie. So, instead I decided to plant it on the very edge of my woodland garden. I planted it as directed in several books, I scraped back the soil a little bit, set the plant on top and threw dirt over top and around it in a little sort of volcano. The plant's hang tag said to use basically pure peat moss, but a bag of that would have been more than the plant (rhodie- $6.97, peat moss- $9.95 on sale) so being the cheapskate that I am sometimes I decided to forgo the peat moss. Instead I used leftover soil I had from planting the hollies (which should be acidic) and added some Miracle Grow soil and a bunch of mushroom compost. I'm hoping the soil will be well drained enough but still acidic enough. We shall see...

I also planted the 45 crocus bulbs under the tree on the property line. Most of the bulbs seemed in pretty good shape to me so we will see if I get any flowers. They should be purple, yellow and white. I also added the 6 pansies, splitting them between several pots and added more soil to the one pot that I seemed to have really shorted on soil.

This evening I decided to go back out to Home Depot as I needed ONE MORE bag of mulch and I also wanted to go to a nursery to look for more of the large cabbages, as I thought they might look nice to put between the hollies temporarily to give it a more filled in look. My original plan was to go to Country Boys, as I thought they might be most likely to have the cabbages, but we somehow managed to overshoot them on the way up there. So, we went to Twin Bridge, where they did not have any big cabbages (or is it kale, who knows...). We did manage to find Country Boys on the way back home and they didn't have the cabbages either. So ended up at Home Depot getting the last bag of mulch and also 3 big pavers to make a little path to the water spicket. The hose leaks badly and is making a mess, and I am planning on adding some plants in the area, so figured I'd get the pavers now while the ground is freshly dug and the pavers are on sale. They each weigh 20 lbs and they are currently in the back of my car. I'm actually going to have to carry each one through the house to the back yard. YIKES!!

Tomorrow I have to work all day so I won't really have time to do anything in the yard or the house. My plan for Sunday is to finish up the mulch in the front of the house, set the pavers and try to get to Underwoods for 2 more cabbage.

Thanksgiving

So far during my days off for Thanksgiving I have not accoplished any of my painting goals. Yesterday I went over to Bobbie's house to help her leash break her puppies and then she gave me 5 hollies (some with berries) to start working on the foundation planting on the front of my house. So, I FINALLY got everything planted and now I have things to plant once again. I currently have the 3 large hollies set out front where I will plant them. We both think I need one more BIG holly to use as a corner plant. I would then like to put some firehouse nandinas in front of the hollies and maybe edge the whole thing with mondo grass.

This afternoon I went to Thanksgiving dinner at Bobbie's and when I got home I had initially thought I might try to get started planting the hollies, but instead decided to work some more on pulling crab grass. I had started pulling crab grass yesterday. My yard is over run with some sort of I'm guessing it is a weed that almost looks like a very green, slightly larger leafed version of the ajuga I have out front. I have assumed they were weeds and have been pulling them up. I do have some ENORMOUS crabgrasses on the side of the house that I keep meaning to attack, but have not gotten to yet.

After working on the weeds for a while I decided that instead of digging in the hollies, I would try to dig out the roots of the catalpa saplings I had hacked down along the back of the house. There were TONS of roots and some more sapling stumps I found as I was digging out roots. I got most of the surface stubs gone except for a few under some bags and two really big ones on the edge of the house that are near the water heater. I certainly didn't get all the roots, but in most of the area now there is at least nothing above the surface and probably nothing for at least 3 inches down. I need to go get some pine needles before the area becomes overrun with weeds. I think pine needles will be on my shopping list at Home Depot tomorrow.

With the arrival of the hollies, I have pretty much given up painting this weekend. I think tomorrow I will try to work on planting the hollies and try to get some pine needles spread.

Tomorrow is the delayed trash pick up, so this afternoon and evening I had to tackle the task of getting the 40+ bags of leaves in the back and side yards up to the trash collection area. Finally got them all moved, with mom helping me get them over the fences into the back yard. I can't wait for the trash to come tomorrow so I can have my back yard back, leaf and trash bag free!

Trying to adjust to the cold

This AM I was able to keep the heat at 65 while getting ready for work, but mom said she had been cold all night. I think she did okay as far as keeping the heat at 70 while she was home all day, but she did say she was cold. I think it will take some getting used to, as we have in the past probably kept our apartment at 73-74 in the winter and both of us like warm houses. But... neither of us wants a $400 gas bill so...

Hopefully everything will work out and we will be able to insulate the attic before too much longer. I really hope that will help keep the house warmer.

Today it sleated just a little bit and was cold all day. We are going to have more cold, wet weather tomorrow. YUCK.

Burr...

The forcasted snow did not arrive but the gas bill did. I've been worried about how much the gas would be as the estimate they had given me had been around $200/month. YIKES! The bill today was $99 and that was only through November 8th. That was really only about 2 weeks of us living in the apartment full time and there were some 70+ days in there. Now it is starting to get cold. To top it all off, I came home and found the thermostat set at 74. I had already decreed that we should never have it above 72 except in emergencies. Now I am going to change my plan, 65 when we are not home or sleeping and a MAX of 70 the rest of the time. I'm going to look into electric lap blankets and we can drink more hot cocoa and tea.

It is currently 70 in the house and the gas is not on. I turned in down to 65 while I was at the gym and the heat came on for a few minutes to get it back up to 70 once I upped it when I got home. Hopefully this plan will prevent the dreaded $400 gas bill. I'm afraid I might be stuck with a $200 one a few months as we just can't live in a house that is 65, we are both too cold natured. We could barely swing it but we sure won't be doing much around the house with those kind of gas bills, that will have to wait until it is warmer.

It is supposed to get down to 32 tonight. I am hoping that maybe this winter I will be able to scrape together enough money to get the attic insulated. I would HOPE that insulation would keep the house warmer and cut down on the gas bill, and maybe cut down on the electric bill for the AC in the summer too.

Garden is ready for winter

The forcast for tomorrow is calling for SNOW! So, I got an early start on the yard, out bagging leaves at 9 AM. Ansell did come a few minutes after 9 and we were able to get all the rest of the leaves bagged up and even get the plastic sheeting that had been over by the water heater dragged up to the trash area as well. I've currently got a bumper crop of plastic bags in my yard!

After Ansell left, I went to Home Depot to try to do something about the containers and my bulbs. I got 5 more plastic pots (shouldn't crack in the cold), 1 rosemary, 1 kale, 2 6-packs of pansys and a little periwinkle. I also got another ajuga for under the tree. I bought 3 more bags up bulbs as well: hyacinth, iris and scilla. I potted up the containers with the bulbs about 4 inches down and the bedding plants on top. The white container has the almost black tulips underneath, then has rosemary, kale and 2 pansys on top. The one smaller pot by it has the pink tulips in it and the other has some some paperwhites. Both have pansys on top. The three pots on the porch are all the terra cotta color. The one big one with the cabbage in it does not have any bulbs, the other big one has pink hyacinths and the smaller one has some more paperwhites (I think!)

Then I planted out the rest of the bulbs. I planted the rest of the paperwhites under flowering pear (which is currently making me happy by having some fall color). The irises were planted right up by the drainage ditch on either side of the walkway into the house. I planted the scilla over by the side door where the flag irises (or whatever) are starting to come up. I'd pulled some roots out of this area earlier so the dirt was nice and loose and it was easy to just slip the bulbs right into the ground. I also planted some hyacinth bulbs I had purchased a while ago. These bulbs looked pretty worse for the wear. I planted them along the fenceline with Norman, right near my side fence. If any of them do bloom, the should come up roughly behind where I planted the puschkinias a few day ago. I'm not sure I got all the bulbs deep enough and the one set of hyacinth bulbs really looked pretty bad, so we will see if I get ANY blooms from ANY bulbs! The ones I bought at Home Depot today were 50% off and to me anyhow the bulbs all seemed in good shape. Only time will tell.

When we were raking the leaves, I had warned Ansell not to try to get the leaves right up against the shack as there has been poison ivy there earlier in the year (it died back before I could work up the courage to try to get rid of it...oops...). As that area is kind of scrubby anyway, I just decided to leave the leaf litter there as mulch for a natural foresty look (sounds good huh). I also happen to have a bricks and pieces of brick scattered around my yard. I picked up a bunch of these while we were raking (and there were also some stacked along one side of the shack). Don't know what these bricks were from, but some have morter on them so they were obviously part of some structure. I dedided to take these bricks and make little edge on the side of my "naturalistic garden" to give it a better look and make it look more like that was what I wanted. I got a decent amout of the border finished with just bricks collected from the yard (dug two out of the ground) and finished it off with some of the bricks stacked behind the shack. I thought the results were pretty nice looking.

After finishing off the brick border, I went back to a project I started on closing day... digging the brick patio by the side door out from under a bunch of weeds. I finally got the whole brick area exposed and then finish off by using my new crab grass puller to get rid of as much of the crab grass as I could in the area. There is A LOT of crab grass in my yard unfortunately. I think I am essentially done in the yard for the winter. My only other project I would really like to do is to get one of those oak barrel planters to put over the other place that used to have a clothesline holder (I tried digging this one out of the ground too but no luck!). I guess for winter I could plant it with pansys and kale or something. That project will have to wait at least for a paycheck or so though.

Now that I basically have the yard done, my goal for my three day Thanksgiving vacation is to get as much of the painting we have left finished as is possible.

leaves, leaves, leaves

Yesterday mom was off and was able to get the top half of the bathroom entirely painted. All that remains there is doing the woodwork and wainscotting.

Today I was off and decided it was another garden day. I still had 4 shrubs to get in the ground.

Started out working trying to clean up around the ajuga in the front and made some progress. Also after reading my shade gardening book, I decided to stick some chionodoxa bulbs under the one catalpa tree. They were only $2.99 at Big Lots, so I'll see if I get anything. Now that I have pulled out most of the clover, I need to buy another ajuga. I had planned to go to the Farmer's Market today, but will have to hit Home Depot instead.

First up was the hydrangea, which I finally planted down with the camellias. The soil down there is really nice, so it was pretty quick and easy. On the way back up to the front, I ran into the mostly cut down metal clothesline and noticed that the ground around the concrete it was set it was very moist. So, I grabbed my shovel and decided to see if I could dig it out. Imagine my surprise when I was able to move the concrete with my shovel. I was able to actually get the concrete with the metal ends set in it flipped up and out of its hole surprisingly easily. Then I rolled the concrete piece across the yard. This left me with a hole. A hole in my yard I did not dig seems like a sort of gift from the gardening gods, especially as this is in an area with no visible tree roots and also no direct overhead shade. So, I may have to buy at least one more plant, something for that hole!!

Next up was the forsythia. I bought it to go in front of my fence on the air conditioner side of the house. When I was getting started planting, I noticed I could still see the gas line markings and due to the gas line, was not able to center the hole in the middle of the available space. Making sure I was well clear of the gas line meant going a lot closer to a little stand of the dreaded catalpa trees. This meant tree roots, LOTS OF TREE ROOTS, in my planting hole. Due to all the roots, I ended up digging most of the planting hole with a trowel, stopping to cut roots regularly. This was VERY time consuming and exhausting.

I had some dirt left over from planting the forsythia and as I was on the front yard side of the fence, thought I could use that dirt to fill in the hole in my front yard. I had the hole about 1/2 way filled in when I looked over and saw the abelia. Abelia that needs a home... hole in the front yard that is in the sun at least part of the time... I ended up digging the dirt back OUT of the hole. The hole did have grass growing in it, so I tried to remove it as sod and placed it over by the forsythia in an area with no grass. As it turns out, the abelia had one of the shallowest rootballs I' ve seen so I basically could have just thrown the dirt in the hole and planted it right over the grass probably. I basically had to fill the hole almost full then set in the abelia and fill a bit more. I didn't even make a soil ring around it as the natural hole kind of made a soil ring for me.

After all this work, I took a short break for lunch. After that is was on to my final shrub, the hellebore. I finally decided to plant it by the front porch and it wasn't until I was digging the hole that I realized it was going in right next to the ajuga that I don't think is doing too well. I only needed a small hole, so I ended up digging it all with the hand trowel and emptied my mushroom compost into the dirt, so it was nice and ammended. The I got the hellebore planted and we will hope for the best.

Just as I was finishing up with this, a guy came over from my neighbors. Turned out he lived in the neighborhood and had been laid off and was looking to rake leaves to earn some money. He agreed to rake and bag my leaves for $10. I had planned to go out to the farmer's market to get another ajuga and see if they had anything else good for my containers, but ended up spending the whole afternoon in the backyard working on the leaves. I didn't want to leave him at my house by himself and I just did a little pruning while he was raking, then helped him bag the leaves. As of a little after 5 PM today, all the leaves in my backyard were raked into piles and I think we bagged (I helped with this part) over 20 bags of leaves. I ran out of bags before we ran out of leaves. Since it was such a task, I paid him $15 and told him if he wanted to come back tomorrow and finish bagging the backyard and do the front yard I'd pay him another $10 (I seriously don't think he realized HOW much there was to do in my yard when he said $10 but he also said he needed the money and I did note that he smelled vaguely of pot). So, hopefully he will show back up tomorrow. If not, all the bagging will be a lot of work for me but I should be able to get it all done and then work on the front yard next week. If he does show back up, then we should be able to get all the leaves taken care of in the AM and I should be able to work on the containers in the afternoon and maybe even have enough time and energy to work on some painting (yeah right!).

Not much work getting done

Yesterday it rained all day, so I did not have a chance to do any gardening before work. Today we were again having a little rain and a lot of wind. I did get a chance to bag up a few leaves (few of the MANY leaves there are) while the dogs were out in the yard.

Tomorrrow mom is off work and plans to try to finish painting the bathroom. Then I have the whole weekend off and will try to finish getting the last few plants in the ground. I still have to make a decision on where to plant the abelia and I found out that hellabores are poisonous so I need to put in the front or side yard, not the back yard. I am just going to have to finally dump the hydrangea in the ground back by the camellias I guess. At least I know where the forsythia goes. The other decent note is that the abelia is the one one in a really big pot and it isn't as bad as some of the others, so it should be a doable task. I do still want to get another ajuja for the front yard now that I have pulled out all the clover and I also need to get to planting bulbs!

I brought home a book on shade gardening today to try to get some ideas for the far end of the back yard.

I do still want to add one more shrub along the fence line with Norman, after the dogs fence fighting. And, since I want to block that access, it needs to be something pretty good sized. I may try to run over the JFS on Saturday or else maybe in the next few weeks. Or else, it will probably be best to wait until spring I guess??

I have 3 days off for Thanksgiving, so I am thinking if we can get the bathroom painted this weekend and get some of the boxes moved out to storage, we *might* be able to work on painting the kitchen over the Thanksgiving holiday. Hum... need to see where we this coming Monday.

tried to paint the bathroom

I decided pretty late this evening that I wanted to try to paint the bathroom today. I had bought another one of these little painting edger pads that had worked well when we used them in other rooms. I thought it would be just the thing and that I could get the bathroom done in a very short amount of time.

Well, the little painting pad kept coming apart when I tried to use it, and also seemed to be pulling the paint off the wall where I had just painted. Add to that, getting paint on the bathtub, and I soon decieded hte edging pad was not going to cut it. Ended up finishing out the rest of the paint that I had poured out with a 2" brush. With the shape of the tub surround area and also the cabinet that is hanging on the wall, getting to all the parts of the wall proved to be more difficult that I had initially expected. I got some parts of several walls painted, but there is still plenty more work to do. Then I definately do want to paint the ceiling and also all the woodwork and the wainscotting, as the trim in some areas is looking pretty dirty.

Of course, maybe someday I will get the rest of the touchups done in my bedroom and as soon as we get some of the empty boxes moved out of the laundry room maybe I can FINALLY work on painting the woodwork there. I am VERY glad we chose not to start painting the kitchen yet, as it is nice to have a few rooms that aren't full of additional painting that needs to be done. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that we spent around 3 weeks painting before we ever moved in and we still seem to have so much more to do. I don't even want to think about the one outside window I stripped. Currently the mullions on one front window are white (not stripped) and the other black (stripped). I need to just prime both and paint them both green.

Then there is the window in the laundry room, which I think really needs some additional glazing put on it. I should just buy some of the Dab stuff or whatever and shove in the the empty looking spaces for right now. Not ideal, but hopefully it will keep the glass from falling out.

I did talk to Frankie at work today and Derek can come install my light and blinds anytime, which would be great, except now I have to wait until I can come up with some money to pay Derek...

I unfortunately seem to have reached the stage where I still have lots to do, just no money to do it with. And of course, I still have more stuff to plant, including bulbs, which I tend to forget about and soon it will be too late to plant the spring flowering ones.

fireplace area is finished

Last night I painted the fireplace surround the wall color in the living room and today I looked at it an decided that it does not need a second coat of paint. So, the blue tape is gone and I got the TV stand repositioned in front of the bricked in fireplace. Had a little snag trying to get the DVD player set up, but we now have a working DVD and TV.

I also got another poster I ordered off ebay in the mail today. I just need to have some extra money to buy some frames and then I will be able to get some more artwork on the walls. We do need to go through some of the framed prints and try to decide what we will put on what walls. One of the main problems we are haivng is that a lot of our artwork is small and with some decent sized expanses of blank wall, it will look better with slightly larger artwork. I do have several prints I want framed, but they are a non-standard size, so I will also have to have mats, which adds to the costs.

My original plan for this evening had been doing some touchup painting, so I stopped at Lowes on the way home to buy 2 more small paint trays. I also tried to find where they had closet orginization things so I could buy another clothes rod for my closet, but got tired before I could find what I was looking for. On the way to the checkout, I happened to go past all the heating register covers. Since I have baseboard registers, up to now all I've seen really is a few yucky looking white register covers and expensive oak covers that Home Depot only carries in 18" size. Lowes has some baseboard covers that were in a pattern they called wicker, which was very geometric. Not only did it come in white, but also in an antique bronze color, which was about $20 for a 15" size. I think I will have to buy one of these for the dining room when I have some extra money, as that vent is very visable and the bronze will look a lot better than the slightly bent white cover that is there now.

My goal for tomorrow night now is to do the rest of the touchup painting in my rooms (except for the crown moulding, maybe I'll do that this weekend).

In the garden again

I was out of town for part of the weekend, but got home early enough to try to finish up some of the planting. With the weather getting colder and more frosts, I'm really getting to the do or die point with getting things in the ground.

Stopped at Home Depot on my way home to buy a pair of loppers to take care of some of the catalpa saplings I want GONE from my yard. Of course, had to look at what else they had and ended up buying a 1 gallon Pink Ruffles azalea for $1.97 and a little pot of vinca minor for $1.75.

When I got home I got the tea olive planted in the shrub border then worked on getting the three hostas in the ground. The stilletto hosta is over near the fence line nandina, one that starts with a C in by the AC and the other one (??- lost it's tag) is by the water heater.

I did get a bit of a surprise when I was working with the loppers trying to make a place for the azalea and get rid of some of the saplings. I did a little trimming on my back neighbor's tree that is hanging into my yard and discovered what sure looks like a camellia along the back fenceline. It doesn't have any buds yet, so I'm not totally sure what it is. Also found several other suspected camellias over by the shack. Nice to see that possibly not everything in the yard is junk. I also decided that I would not try to do too much work behind the shack until it is torn down. The area is pretty overgrown, but there are some vines and a few other things back there that might be worth saving. Also there has been poison ivy in the area, so I really want to be careful. And, having found some vines that might be worth saving, as well as several shrubs that might be good, I will need to watch that area and see what does what over the spring and summer so I can decide what stays and what goes.

All the catalpa saplings I can lop DO GO though! I want that crap out of my yard! And will some of them gone, you can see that good stuff in my yard much better. I may try a little more "tree work" on my back neighbor's tree later this year... it is getting in my hair when I try to work with the 3 Tom camellias.

While I was gone this weekend, mom did some more rearranging in the kitchen and also hung some artwork in both her room and the dining room. She also got started on the long delayed project of painting the bathroom. Some day we will finish...

I ended up putting what will at least be the first coat of Torchlight paint on the fireplace surround. It now really blends into the wall and once the TV is back in place, you will hardly be able to see the bricked in part of the fireplace.

Still more planting

I seem to be having trouble keeping this consistantly updated, but on days when little happens and I'm home late, I don't think to write.

Today I am working nights so this AM I went out and decided to try to do some more work in the yard, as we had had a lot of rain yesterday.

I still had leftover unammended dirt from planting the Rose of Sharon, so I used that to fill in the two ankle breaker holes in the back yard. Then I decided to put in the big 5 gallon Mountain Fire Pieris that I had bought at Home Depot. Again it was a lot of digging and I ran out of bins to put dirt in, but at least the digging was fairly easy going as the ground was pretty soft from all the rain yesterday. Did have a bit of trouble getting the Pieris out of its pot and of course again had the whole the hole is too deep, now its too shallow problem that seems to plague me whenever I try to plant anything.




















The Mountain Fire Pieris before and after planting.

I also planted 15 puschkinia bulbs. I have no idea what they are, but they seem to be some sort of white flower with blue stripes. Who knows if they will bloom but they were only $2.99 at Big Lots. After all that, it was time to get ready for work.

This weekned I will either go to Greensboro for a dog show, or stay home and plant more of the plants. Still have a 1 hellabore, 1 hydrangea, 1 abelia, 1 forsythia, 1 tea olive and 3 hostas left to plant. YIKES!!!!!!!!!

So far I have planted 6 camellias, 2 beautyberries, 2 Pierises and 1 Rose of Sharon

Back to the Garden

I had the day off today so the plan was to run a few errands in the morning, then spend the afternoon painting. I also wanted to get some more topsoil to add a moat back to the small beautyberry.

Well, plans got a tad derailed when I was at Home Depot getting the topsoil. I ended up walking down one of the shurb aisles, even though I had already decided I couldn't get any more plants until I plant the ones already at my house. What did I see but a Tom Knudsen camellia. Tom Knudsen is my great-grandfather, and I knew that there had been a camellia named after him and his wife Valley, but figured that they probably didn't exist anymore. So, it was quite a surprise to find Tom at my local Home Depot. They had 3 Toms and I couldn't decide which one I liked the best so I figured at $6 each it was best to buy them all.

The Three Toms

Once I had the 3 Toms, the plan for the rest of the day pretty much fell into place. Obviously I wanted to plant the Toms and I have been REALLY needing to get to Underwoods and get my plants there, one of which was a camellia. And that made 4 camellias, which really meant I was going to be having a camellia garden. So, home to drop of the Toms and soil, then off to Underwoods to pick up my plants and get a few more camellias and maybe something to add a little color to the yard, as it is getting kind of bleak now that the leaves are all falling and the birds have eaten almost all the berries off the beautyberrys. I was SO worried as I had left my plants there for so long, but felt better when they said they didn't mind, especially since I had already paid for them!

Debutante in the center, flanked by two Miss Biloxis.

I ended up selecting 2 more camellias, another Miss Biloxi (a pretty double white, which was one of the plants waiting for me) and a Debutante, which is light pink. We decided it would be best to do 2 groups of 3 camellias each, the 3 Toms, then the Miss Biloxis and Debutante in another group. I also selected a Lenten Rose, which will be purple and bloom in the winter and is evergreen, for some winter interest. And, finally a plant I don't think I've ever even heard of before a Valley Rose Pieris, to plant across from the side door where I had originally planned to plant the small beautyberry, but given up due to all the rocks. I said I was looking for something to brighten up my yard, but that due to the rocks being hard to dig in it had to be in a 1 gallon pot! So, Pieris it is.

Got home with the plants and of course the "sunny" spot I had all picked up for the Pieris was in dappled sunlight, which turned to shade as the afternoon wore on, hopefully it will get enough sun. It was slow going digging through the rocks, but once I got under them, the ground was pure red clay and pretty compacted. I ammended it with lots of mushroom compost and some Miracle Grow garden soil, planted the Pieris and am hoping for the best.

After that it was off to work on adding more soil to the small beautyberry and rebuilding its moat. Did that and then watered both of the beautyberries. I figure all I can do with the big one is wait until spring and see what happens.

Next step was to start planting the camellias and I decided to plant the Toms first. I set them out along by the back fence and starting diggging. What a GREAT surprise, the soil back along the fence seems to be a nice loam, not at all sandy and definately not clay either. I almost hated to ammend it, but added Miracle Grow garden soil as that is what it said to do on the tags. I did get all three planted, but it was after 5:30 PM by the time the final one went in the ground. Mom came home and I sent her off to Home Depot for more mulch (to mulch around the camellias), a longer hose because mine wouldn't reach and a sprayer for my hose. Finally got the Toms mulched and watered by about 7:20 PM after getting a bunch more leaves raked while waiting for mom to come home from Home Depot.

Tomorrow I have to work all day, so maybe we can work on hanging some pictures in the evening when I get home.

The plan for Sunday is going to be to try to get all the plants at my house in the ground. The 3 hostas, Rose of Sharon, 3 remaining camellias, the hydrangea and the Lenten Rose. Then I am done planing for a little bit, except that I want to plant something along the fenceline on the air conditioner side to keep the dogs back from the fence...

We'll see how far I get the rest of this weekend.