In the Garden

The weather for the past few days has been amazing, and most of my time has been spent outside.  Working in the garden puts me in my happy place ... hands in the soil is the best therapy EVER.

Here are some iPhone photos that I took yesterday evening as I finished up for the day.  

The Dogwood tree in our front yard is in full bloom.  I eagerly look forward to this every year.

This is a new Japanese Maple that I planted in front of our pavilion.  It replaces one that was killed by the cold winter two years ago.  Took me this long to find something that I like enough to put into this prominent spot.  (notice that there are no weeds, and fresh mulch, in the bed with the tree.)

This Bleeding Heart is called 'Valentine'.  I got it as a dormant pot last fall, and I'm thrilled to see its first flowers.

The Hellebores have been flowering since mid-winter, and they are still looking good.  This one is a seedling that I planted in this spot in my back yard border two years ago.  

I struggled for years to establish a colony of Lily of the Valley.  A few years ago, I must have hit the magic combination of conditions to make them happy, because now these little spring beauties are multiplying with abandon. 

Finally, let's check in on the Carolina Wrens that are nesting in a flowerpot in the greenhouse.  The eggs hatched late last week.  I still can't tell if there are four or five babies in there ... I need to remember to take a flashlight to get a good look into the shadows in the nest to count them.

The rest of the week is expected to be glorious ... temperatures in the high 70s or low 80s with bright sunshine.  Definitely sunblock-mandatory weather, and perfect for being outside.  Don't worry, this girl isn't all work and no play.  As you can see from the photos, I definitely take time to stay in touch the beauty that's around me. 

Reclamation.

Spring has definitely arrived.  Garden work has become Job One, as I weed and prune and mulch.  It feels wonderful to have my hands in the earth again, after what seemed like a never-ending winter trapped indoors.

Waterlogue image of a clump of heirloom daffodils our the front yard rose border.

The Rose Border in our front yard is the first rose garden that I designed and built after we moved here in 2007.  It contains about forty roses, a mix of Noisettes, Chinas, Hybrid Musks, Hybrid Perpetuals, and a few shrubs thrown in for good measure.  It has never been right, as weeds took over quickly, roses outgrew their spots, and deferred maintenance let little problems turn into big ones.  I tell folks that I have learned a lot about gardening in this old farm soil since I did this garden.

This is an early photo that I took with the roses in full bloom, young and still looking nice.  It wasn't this way for long.

I don't have any true 'Before' photos, before I started this renovation last week.  I was more interested in getting things done, instead of documenting the horror to blog about it.   The best I can do is to show you the mat of weeds and the stumps of seedling trees (that were taller than I am).  The weeds are now pulled, and the tree stumps have been dealt with.  Multiply this by ten or more, and you have an idea of how awful it was.

It was SO much worse than this, as the roses were suffocating with weeds that were taller than they were.

Most of the weeds are pulled at this point.

Just a little clump of crawly weeds left to go in this section.

Much better!

Originally, the front edging of this garden was a single row of bricks laid on the ground, and there was no barrier at the fence line between the garden and the pasture beyond, which let Bermuda Grass and all sorts of other creepy weeds in.  The new front edging is made of concrete paver stones, and I laid the curve of the bed a bit wider than it was before.  The back of the bed is defined with 4x4 timbers from our stash of salvaged fence posts.

Landscape fabric is next.  Landscape fabric underneath the mulch has been VERY successful at keeping weeds at bay in the other places where I have used it.  (See the installation in the front Hybrid Tea garden HERE and the English Garden HERE.)

It takes a while to mark and cut holes for the existing roses and clumps of daffodils.

There are 75 pieces of edging at the front of this garden.  It's going to take a while to trench and set all of them.

With the landscape fabric going down,  the blank background made it easy to see the solution to the problem of the rose spacing.  I am moving the front few roses forward about two feet, and it's looking a lot better already.

The arrows show the patched holes where the roses were, and the dotted lines lead to where the roses are now.

I also see where there are a few places in the back of the garden where I can fill in with some roses out of my pot ghetto.

I'm running new irrigation line, too, because the old one was damaged in too many places.

Even though I still have a long way to go before I can say that I'm finished with this, it feels really good to step back and see the amazing improvement that has already been accomplished.

My husband helped for most of the day on Saturday, clearing weeds and vines and trees to free this Crape Myrtle, on the left.  He also limbed up the oak tree, on the right, to give the garden underneath of it more sunshine.

This is the part that's finished except for mulch.

This shows that's there's still more left to be done ... but it's looking amazing so far!

I took those last two photos before supper this evening, while standing in the yard admiring my work (with a glass of wine in my hand).  I can't wait till May and June ... THAT'S when the real reward will come!

Turning My Attention to the Next Garden

My spring reclamation work in the rose gardens continues with a vengeance.  The current object of my attention is the mixed miniature rose border along the fence behind my greenhouse.  (This garden doesn't have a real name yet.  It seems like too much of an oxymoron to call it the Miniature Garden, when it's 11 feet wide and 150+ feet long.)

Now that I think about it, I may not have ever shown this garden to you.  It's relatively new, laid out and planted last summer.  I designed it to hold a little over a hundred roses that had been living in pots for longer than they should have.  There are Ramblers on the fence, Climbing Miniatures on tripods, classic Floribundas, and Hybrid Teas down the center, and Miniatures in the front.

June 2013.  Landscape fabric laid, potted roses arranged and ready to be planted.

One week later ... timber edging installed, roses planted, irrigation in place, mulch along the fence.

I got off to a great start with this garden, with the landscape fabric and timber edging in place and the roses all planted.  I lost steam, though, after I had it about half mulched.  A garden this large requires a LOT of mulch!  To be honest, I don't remember exactly why I stopped working on it.  

Fast forward to the present ... Just like I did in the English Garden, the first thing to do was deal with the weeds.  Fortunately, the weeds are not as widespread in this garden because most of it is already covered with landscape fabric.  I have a few miniature roses, though, that looked like this:

Let me show you my new favorite tool.  It was an impulse purchase a few weeks ago, catching my eye as I stood in the check-out line in Lowes garden department.  It cost about $10, if I remember correctly.  Worth its weight in gold, I assure you!

To use it, I pull the weeds back with my hand, chopping the soil line with the notched end of the tool, and the weeds come right out.

It only took a few minutes to turn that weedy mess into this:

Next step was to sprinkle some Preen on the bare soil and cover it with newspaper.

Then comes the mulch.  This is Truckload #4 ... brought to me this morning by my dear husband, while I was weeding.

I scooped and toted and spread mulch until mid-afternoon ... laying a thick layer on the bare places on the landscape fabric, and a thin layer to refresh the areas that already had mulch from last year.  Stepping back as I finished for the day, I was very pleased with my progress.

That's about 60 feet of garden finished, 90 feet or so left to go.

I'm gonna need more mulch.