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.
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!).
No comments:
Post a Comment