garden projects « sorta like suburbia

To be honest these photos are about a week old, and when I say “about” you could probably add another week on to that if you’re really dotting all your i’s and crossing your t’s but… *edit* Okay so still trying to be honest (which becomes rarer each day that AI creeps further and further into our lives) just editing a few pictures and writing one sentence appears to add another week onto the timeline, so now rather than an update on the autumn garden this is probably closer to a retrospective. Let’s call it a retrospective on fall and hope the next post doesn’t become a retrospective on winter.

The autumn porch decorations. A little more than usual this year with three purchased mums and a couple pumpkins and squash to boost the home-grown display.

As usual no excuses for the delays. The only one I can really put a finger on is the morning when a child asked if anyone was coming with her to a college visit she had set up. Oh really? As the parent who drew the short straw I had fifteen minutes to prepare for a day on campus rather than a day bringing in houseplants and that’s probably sounding worse than it really was since much of my life involves fifteen minutes to prepare for something I either put off too long or forgot about, but it’s an excuse for one of the days at least.

With the return of rainfall the potager is at least green even if it’s not lush and productive. Perhaps it’s time for some potager-love, and next year this area will hopefully get some well deserved attention to weeding, watering, and planting.

Maybe it’s time for a what-you-did last summer retrospective since a true update might need to go back that far. Going all the way back to June the summer was off to a ‘let me just quickly build a shade structure for the deck it will only take a weekend’ start, and news flash *it did not take only a weekend* but it did start off a tropical revival on the deck. Some corner braces for a 4×4 frame with a shade cloth hung between them and voila! an excuse to spend the next two weeks re-painting porch furniture, repotting tropicals for the planters, dragging tables and furniture and a tv out to the covered porch, mosquito netting… way too much, but it was all because I saw the corner braces online and between that and two $15 palms which were too amazing to leave at the store things escalated.

The deck was more foliage than flowers this year and now I’m faced with how to overwinter a pair of palms which were probably cheap enough to leave outside, but I could never do that.

So the deck was an innocent start but then as you may recall there was the bulldozing of the daylily farm which happened as June rolled into July. Things were set into motion. Rather than replant a few daylilies, three unearthed stones became a rock garden and you know about that, but the rock garden needed a coating of sand and of course I got too much because sand is always useful around here. Some of the extra sand was used to level out an area where the kid’s old playhouse, aka ‘spider house’, could be placed. We have no use for a kid’s playhouse currently yet no one to give it to but what if it was repainted and accessorized? Enter a rebranding of spider house to ‘Begonia House’ since perhaps this area provides just the right filtered shade which the begonias seem to enjoy, and “I think pink would be nice for my house” became the color theme. A green roof? We shall try. The results straddle the line between garish, spray-painted plastic garden trash and elite garden whimsy but I like to pretend that it’s whimsy. Several great gardening estates have whimsical garden playhouses for children so there you are. Whimsy in the garden, except my visitors like to over-pronounce the ‘Wh’ as in Cool Whip and I guess referring to it as whhhhhimmmmsy is as classy as we will ever get.

Begonia House’s first year in the Northern corner of the estate. I’m sure the nearby coldframe and leftover lumber pile only add to the ambiance, but the begonias appreciate the new setting. I was able to easily gather multiple large overwintered begonias from around the estate but I’m sure that’s not a problem.

So with some of the sand taken care of it was time to address another bit of daylily farm repercussions. When it happened I lost a lot of plants. I was angry. No I didn’t want the town to replace them but here’s a deal which I could get behind. I have concrete blocks as steps going up the berm which separates us from the industrial park. They’re kind of ugly but they save me from many a twisted ankle and tumble down the bank as I weed wack or do other maintenance. If you can get me stone steps to go up the berm I will stop complaining about the lost daylily farm and even worse, the snowdrops which were destroyed. So there I was for another couple weeks manhandling 300 pound stone treads into the yard and up the slope and then why not add a bunch more stones to the berm and then mulch it all. Extra stones? How about some more square stacks of rocks at the base to put potted succulents on.

I think it looks better. Eventually new plantings should tie the steps into the berm a little better but for now I’m waiting to see all the weeds which return before I go putting too many things in there.

Seems like we’re covering a lot of ground here and I guess we are but remember this is the whole summer we’re looking at so don’t be too impressed. Plenty of time was spent sitting around and doing nothing which is more par for the course, but one more thing before I get back to that. A course of concrete blocks was pulled off the berm steps in order to put in the stone steps so why not make a little sitting area in the ‘waste area’ with the extra blocks. It looks raised but that’s only because the fill here has settled and the area needs just a little more soil to level it up before I’ll be happy with it, so I tried to look ahead a little and prep for that. I’m probably sharing more than you care to hear but the blocks just add on to the leftover soil and mulch from the daylily farm re-do which also ended up in the ‘waste area’. Actually the ‘waste area’ isn’t really much of a thing any more but I’m not ready to post the pictures which prove it so you’ll just have to trust me that daylilies are being rowed out and hopefully it will look nice by next summer…

It doesn’t look like much but the last of the sand was just enough to bring the blocks up to a level which I like. A few more blocks cut in half to square off the patio, some more dirt to level the lawn, dirt to create beds on the sides, mulch, plants…. ok it’s a start at least.

Now it’s autumn though. We had a touch of frost a few days ago and that was just what this gardener needed to remind him that a bunch of stuff needs to come inside and under shelter before the cold becomes more serious. He tried for one night to claim he didn’t care and maybe a serious frost could save him from a bunch of work, but that proved to be false and now we’re at the two hundred pots and counting phase of winter protection. It sounds excessive but most of them are tiny little things which shouldn’t even count but for dramatic effect they were counted and it’s really the one or two or ten bigger things which should come with a warning label. I can’t even speak coherently when I talk about the two most exciting bigger things which I had to go back for since there wasn’t enough room in the car when I first saw them. The might be Kentia palms and they’re too big for my house but I don’t care and have them now anyway.

I love my new palms and they’re totally unreasonable and unnecessary but for $7 each they had to come home with me. I will rearrange my life to make them happy.

As you can see all my projects and decisions are entirely reasonable and well thought out. I hope you’re having the same luck and not wondering how three potted ferns turned into seven even though you gave a couple away in spite of the fear that you might “need” them all after all. I did give a few away and we should highlight these successes as progress and be glad over it rather than worry about some weird fern obsession developing. Actually the speed at which the gardener killed a new maidenhair fern probably did more to nip this possible obsession in the frond than any call for self-control could, but again let me claim it as a success. January is when we splurge on houseplants and I shall wait for that.

Enjoy your autumn! I am days away from the first snowdrop in bloom and any plants not under protection by then might have to fend for themselves since reasonable decisions become even more unlikely once snowdrop season starts. Today I can still search for a windowsill for the new lemon, next week I will probably just lose myself to complaining about needing MORE fall blooming snowdrops 😉

If you like a long drawn out spring, this one is for you. So far this season I only complained once about weather that was too warm, and even that was only ‘outdoor gardening without breaking a sweat warm’, which is much cooler than ‘sitting on the porch doing nothing but sipping a cold drink’ warm. There have been no windy blasts of 80-90F weather which wilt the daffodils in hours and skip the garden straight to summer… followed by a freeze which has the gardener throwing his hands in the air… and for that I’m grateful. There was snow though. I started edging and weeding the front border and had to cut it short because of all the snow showers. Not so much for me or the plants, but the neighbors already talk, and as I went in to get a hat I thought I better just call it quits instead.

Making my way down the border. No leaf mulch was drug out of the woods this spring, and holy crap are there a lot of seedlings coming up. It might be easiest to just go with a fennel/verbena bonariensis theme this year.

I didn’t really mind the precipitation, but working out there in the chilly wet and mud makes me think I might as well garden in the UK or Pacific Northwest, and that’s weather for plants and not what a gardener needs. The upcoming forecast shows better weather on the way, so I’m sure the weeds can wait another day or two.

Here’s a question. Dead or alive? The pots for the front walk were dragged back into position and one still contains a bit of one of those trendy brown sedges from New Zealand. ‘Red Rooster’ I think. I didn’t think it would be hardy so assume it died over the winter, but maybe not? It only looks marginally more dead than it did last year, so I’ve left it in place and added some of the extra tulips which I shouldn’t have bought last fall, said I wouldn’t buy, didn’t need, but got anyway.

Dead sedge? Who knows.

After weeks at home, my daughter must be pretty bored since she offered to help with the planting. I was glad for the company. The tulips we planted were supposed to be gifts, but since travel to NY is off for the foreseeable future, these were planted, two were dropped off on local porches, and the rest were dug in by the driveway. It will work out.

The most amazing grape hyacinths (muscari) I’ve ever grown. They look just like any other dime a dozen muscari, but since they were grown from seed (intentionally), they’re super amazing.

For my daughter digging and planting were entertaining, but trying to explain why the seed grown muscari were so much better than the nearly identical muscari which I deadhead and weed out, was pushing the garden thing too far. Even she must know that muscari are cheap and easy to buy and come in nicer forms than these, but c’mon! How cool is it that one of them even has a little white top!?

Maybe I’ll divide out this clump, they seem to have a little more variety, and I’d like to see how the one with the white does on its own.

Of course grape hyacinth from seed is easy, in fact many people complain they’re weedy, but as I go through the garden and divide and transplant I do find a few more special things. My seedlings of the Asian spicebush (Lindera glauca v. salicifolia) are doing well. I’d like to use them as a hedge, but need a few more, and in the meantime have potted these up while they wait for their planting site to happen. They’re still holding onto the dried foliage from last year, a plant habit which I used to hate, but on this plant it just all seems more excellent.

Lindera glauca v. salicifolia seedlings potted up and hopefully ready to spend at least a year under my questionable care.

Transplanting has happened, pruning has happened, bed building has happened, but not much weeding yet. Still in spite of the weedy mess, I just have to show some of my favorite spring iris foliage.

I’ve shown the purple spring foliage of iris x robusta ‘Gerald Darby’ before, but some of the pseudata iris can also put on a show, in this case a bright springtime yellow flush of new leaves. I think the cool weather helps.

I’ve moved on to weeding not because the potager is finished, but because my better half has banned me from running to the store to get the lumber I think I need to finish. The first veggies can still be planted, but I’ll wait until it looks slightly better before sharing another photo. In the meantime if you remember I mentioned one slightly warmer day. That one day encouraged me to sit around in the shade, and while sitting around, the guilt of laziness encouraged me to weed and clean the little moss bed I’m trying to grow. Yes it doesn’t look like much, in fact this is what other people end up when they do nothing, but I of course am pleased.

A bit of moss in a shady corner. Ruined terra cotta and a few tree trimmings to camouflage the drainpipe and I think it looks ok. I wonder if tiny hepaticas could survive here. hmmmmm.

So that’s it from here. I think the cloudy gloom will lift in another few hours and although it’s still a little wet to do anything serious, I’m sure I can find something interesting to “think about” outside. I hope your spring is also going well.

sorta like suburbia

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October.

Sorta Spring