Ok, so this being my gardening diary of record for the year, here is the current progress. First of all, here is a recent visitor—considerably more interesting and welcome than the usual slug and snail population:
He’s (she’s?) pretty cute.
Which brings me to the subject at hand. The semicircle outside the back door is completed!! Yay!! Another total greenwaste container, about a ton of rosemary, crappy old dirt and old lame bulbs (why the hell do people plant things that never, ever, flower?) later, I have a decent little kitchen garden to kill. I put in 3 tomatoes, two sage plants (love me some butter-fried sage), 8 lambs ears around the edge; basil, mint and oregano in the blue pots on the far side (the pots are very deep with no drainage, so the mint is trapped, bWa ha ha ha). I put in seeds for cilantro (yum!!) and thyme over by the step. I also finally planted some mystery thing that I got from SpringHill last year but totally forget what it is. Oops. I hope it likes sun. SysGuy has been keeping it alive on the windowsill since then.
Not sure if you can see it, but the knob between the two rose stalks (standards, whatevs) is what is left of the rosemary. I didn’t want to dig it up, I think that would kill the roses, so if it comes back, it needs to behave. The roses, I know, I have whacked them mercilessly. Apparently they respond well to sadism, they’re fine, or at least as fine as they were before. I predict blooms by May. I don’t know why that one is leaning over so far. Maybe you can see the rebar I drove into the ground to tether them a few years ago. Yeah, that didn’t work, but digging up the rebar will be a lot of fun someday!!
I forgot to take a picture of the horrible mess that went along with this, there really was a lot of foliage to dispose of, not to mention a bunch of old roots, etc. I found some corms from the nile lilies I got rid of years ago still in there and alive. Yuk, those things (agapanthus) are vile, and the corms look like big wet slugs.
While I was working up enthusiasm for the semicircle, I was doing fill-in planting on the front garden in the south corner by the end of the driveway. There is a flowering plum tree on this spot, so some of it does get shade, but on the south/driveway side, it gets constant blistering sun. I'm installing all succulent/deserty things there. On the balance, I’m planting things that have purple flowers, like lots of sun, and don’t need much attention. A few indian hawthorne bushes (pink flowers), several statice, some purple alyssum against my better judgment (that stuff stinks, literally) and a few other bits of things that actually lived through last year. The darker green patches are some kind of low water ground cover I found last year. Can’t remember what its called. It lived though!
I also updated the plants in my front patio. Its a bit challenging, as the area wants shade plants that can deal with a lot of heat. Its practically impossible to find something that will do that with low water, so I caved and got the usual suspects. I planted bulbs for a blue geranium kind of thing in the grayish pots over a year ago. The resulting plant was pretty underwhelming, so I planted coleus around the sides, to hedge my bet this year. Coleus usually do well in this spot. I dug up the 3 unhappy fern from between the pots and stuck them in the blue pot on the end, and stuck in some incredibly boring and predictable white impatiens, with a couple coral bells between. The spindly, pitiful looking “trees” on the end are white abutilon on standards (a kind of flowering japanese maple). I just pruned them; they leaf out pretty quickly—their natural habit is leggy and unkempt, so they needed some attention. The middle is an azalea on a standard, which I inherited from a neighbor who moved. I haven’t killed it yet, I’m pretty proud of that.
Last, but not least, the next area up for renovation:
This bit gets a lot of strong hot sun all day long. I’ve killed more plants than I can count here, its a bit of a graveyard. I have attempted a kitchen garden here, with little success. Last year was tomatoes. Just as they were gaining some speed, we had the house reroofed, and this was where they dumped the old shingles. Oh well. I’ve decided to give up and just do desert here. I’m going to dig out everything but the bush against the window, including that lovely looking but truly evil swath of green at the base of the chimney. Some lunatic apparently planted wandering jew (Tradescantia fluminensis) in this yard on purpose. Its horribly, horribly invasive, sprouts from every. single. node. and is the bane of my existence. Its even wedged its way into the fireplace through the cleanout door before. I’ve thought I totally eradicated it several times, and yet, here it is again. Roundup, you are my friend. Once all is cleaned up, I will be putting in a couple helichrysum, which has furry white leaves and spreads 4', an agave which will spread 3', and the rock rose from another spot where its overgrown, it gets about 4' as well. Of course, there are always the giant bird of paradise to look forward to….
I’ll keep you posted on the progress!
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