Sunday, January 21, 2007

rainy, nasty day

Another full weekend off from work and still not making near the progress I would have liked to have made. I still have one camellia that needs to be planted.

Yesterday was one of those days when finding the things you need to get the tasks you want accomplished seems to take up most of your time. I went out to Home Depot in the AM to get some more mulch, some garden soil and some composted manure. My local Home Depot was out of my mulch, but ended up getting Scott's Garden soil and some sort of compost with manure in it. Well, both of those purchases turned out to be total disappointments. Both are a sort of greyish color and the Scott's soil has a slight odor to it. I don't it NEARLY as well as I like the Miracle Grow garden soil, so it will be back to using that for me in the future. Ended up going to another Home Depot to get my mulch.

One major project for yesterday was running an additional piece of fence from the shack out to the exisiting fenceline. This needed to be done as there is a small area beside the shack where the fence is partially down, I thought I pretty much had access to that area blocked off but after having one dog escape three times this week... Of course, this task required a trip out as I needed to buy some wire cutters to cut the fencing. Did get the fence cut and also managed to scratch my face when the fencing sprang out at me. Just what everyone wants, a big scratch on their cheek from a rusty fence...

Working with the fencing has given me some more confidence and I think that in the next month or so I will just buy a few additional post and a 50' roll of the narrower holed field fencing and work at repairing the damaged fenceline between my house and my neighbor's house. This should eliminate the need for the need for the fences between the shack and the exisiting fence and clear the way for me to have the shack torn down (whenever I have a spare few hundred dollars...).

I also priced driveway gates and the gates are $67 at Home Depot, so I think I could probably get the driveway fencing done for less than $200, I hope. So maybe that is something that could get done next month.

As far as yard work yesterday, I did manage to get the large holly straightened up and staked so it will remain straight. It does look a lot better. I also took the small holly that appeared dead out of the ground and called it dead. Finally I did get the creeping phlox I had recently purchased planted by the gas meter. I did ammend the ground around it a little bit and would love to get something else planted in there before it is taken over with chickweed.

My major surprise in the yard is that the native creeping phlox I planted last year is starting to bloom. This plant has definitely done well in my yard so far. All three have increased in size and now I am getting my first blooms. I weeded around them some more to give them an easier time as they grow. I will need to contiune to weed out this area and might actually get it looking pretty good.

Today I only succeeded in moving the rhodie. It was getting sunburned where I originally planted it and I finally decided it was time to move it. I recently moved the azalea from the shrub border into the woodland garden as it was getting run over by the dogs fence fighting. I decided to move the rhodie into the woodland garden over by the azalea. Currently the shack and the nut tree provide pretty constant shade for that location. I ended up burying it in a volcano made out of the Scott's garden soil, some other commerical topsoil I have (that I have also decided I'm not wild about and will use the remainder just to partially fill containers) and the compost with manure. The resulting mixture was pretty greyish and seemed kind of wet and heavy to me. I was really wishing I had the Miracle Grow soil. I did see small bags of peat moss somewhere, so I think I will buy one of those and some of the Miracle Grow soil and mix that to fill in around the azalea and the rhodie. Maybe I will get to that this week.

I did get one bag of mulch spread by the three Toms. I need to spread the rest of the mulch at some point but that can wait until I plant the remaining camellia.

I hoping to get the Margaret Davis camellia planted on Wednesday AM, guess I can use the compost and the Scott's soil and ammendments and it should work okay for the camellia.

Bare root perennials and spring bulbs are starting to appear in the stores. I don't think I can plant any of these things until after March 15th, so not sure when to buy them as I don't want them to get ruined in the house. Saw some good stuff as Sams today, 100 glads for $14 and 50 caladiums at the same price, also bare root hostas and bleeding hearts. I would like to get all of them. The hostas aren't too exciting but for about $1 per plant I can plant them under the yucky trees on the street side of the fence in my side yard. If they thrive that will be great and help keep down the weeds, if not I won't be out a ton of money.

Did measure several of my plants today so I can maybe tell if they grow this spring and summer:
Mountain Fire Pieris- 2' 5"
Valley Rose Pieris- 1'
tea olive- 2'

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

winter again

We are back to winter weather, down in the mid 30s. It is too cold to work in the yard before work today and I just didn't get organized early enough to do any work in the house before work either. Hopefully this weekend I can get some planting done and borrow Bobbie's drill and get my blinds hung.

No progress on anything right now.

Monday, January 15, 2007

yard work continues


Again it has been a long time since I've posted it seems. I haven't done really anything around the house lately, but as the mild weather in SC has been continuing, I have been working in the yard.

With one additional dog now at the house, the yard is doing okay. I think my shrub border along the one fenceline will work very well, though one part I had planned to plant with annuals or perennials will definately have to be shrubs instead as the whole area is totally dug up from having dogs running in it. I have pretty much abandoned the idea of flowers along this fenceline except for in little bed I already dug in front of the telephone pole and maybe some containers. I also think that if I do add some shrubs to the area that is all torn up by the dogs, I will have to spend a little extra money at get at least 3 gallon plants so they will be big enough to make the dogs go around, not through, the plants.

My major problem recently has been that their is clover coming up through the mulch in my foundation plantings. It took me 2 days, but I got almost all of the clover dug out of the foundation beds, hopefully no additional clover will sprout up from any of the bulb things I may have missed. We shall see...

As far as bulbs go, our mild winter means that the paperwhites have already come up not only in pots but also under the tree. Most of the bulbs that sent up foliage under the tree have now bloomed and so have most of the bulbs in the pot up on the porch. The bulbs in the pot in the bed are just beginning to bloom. The white pot has some sort of foliage that came up quite a while ago, but no blooms. I think this might be muscari???

I am continuing to have problems with the dogs running into the small pieris. I have been using a lawn chair to protect it on one side but today hit on the idea of using two containers, one on each side of the plant. So, it was off the nurseries today to look for plants. I got some really pretty snapdragons with burgandy foliage, who cares if they even bloom, just the foliage looks great! I also got a licorice plant, with really pretty silver foliage and an English thyme, also with some lovely foliage. I picked up another rosemary at Home Depot and it was very fragrant. At some point I also bought an upright vinca plant. I topped all this off with a few more pansies. I ended up planting 3 snapdragons and the licorice plant in one container and the thyme, rosemary and vinca in another pot. The remaining snapdragon and all the pansies when into the little annual bed in front of the telephone pole. I have a trailing vinca that I bought for the pots, but ran out of room for (guess I could always buy another pot and some more pansies...) so it is hanging out in its container in the annual bed for right now. Home Depot also had some creeping phlox out that was even starting to bloom. I got a really pretty kind of light purple and white one that I am planning on planting on the side of the house by the gas meter.

I did not get my new camellia planted today as I battled sinus pressure headaches off and on all day and just didn't feel up to all the work of digging. Maybe on Wednesday I can get these few other plants dug in.

After several days in the low 70s we are supposed to be going back down to highs in the 50s this week. So, Wednesday AM may or may not be good weather to garden in. I just can't stand being out there when it is only in the 30s.

Monday, January 01, 2007

planting not painting

My plan for the day had been to buy more painter's tape, finish taping the laundry room and get the trim painted. The weather report had been calling for rain, just like yesterday so I figured it would be a good day to stay inside. We did have some drizzles this AM, but even by 11 AM the sun was out and it was starting to warm up.

The day ended up being really mild and sunny, so we decided that it would be best to let the dogs enjoy the yard for the afternoon, which meant that I would be in the yard all afternoon as well. The cabbage in a pot on the front porch has been looking less and less excited about life, so I decided that today was the day to transplant it into the back yard and put something else in its pot on the porch. I had some mushroom compost and garden soil left, so I decided to really dig a patch of ground by the telephone pole that I am planning to use as an annual garden this spring and summer. I ended up digging about a 3' square area and then tossed some leftover ammended dirt on top of about another 2' square area. I planted the cabbage and also some pansies my mom bought. The cabbage pot now has pansies in it as well and is back on the front porch. I had a big surprise when I was watering my porch plants today... some of the paperwhite bulbs that have had foliage coming up for a while now have buds on them. I guess my paperwhites will either get nailed by a frost or bloom really early this year due to the mild weather.

Back to work for 4 days, so the only chance I'll have to really get another done around the house is Wednesday morning. Since the laundry room does not have a light, it is too dark to work in there when it is dark outside. I'm off the coming weekend, so if I don't get the laundry room done before then, I should be able to get it done then.