More Fall Plantings

The rest of my fall planting order has arrived! Woo hoo! Here's what I've got:

Moon River Peony
California Hard Neck Garlic
Naturalizing Daffodils
Apricot Beauty Tulips

With that, and the fall season, comes some to-do's:

1. Find spots for and plant my new goodies!
2. Plant bulbs given to me by my voice teacher and his wife (I have a giant tray full of bulbs! Mostly daffodil...they think)
3. Plant more green onions, lettuce and mustard greens
4. Clean out pots. I have some iris and daylilies in containers from the apartment that I have been waiting to plant in the ground. Others are just past their prime and are looking scraggly or need to be brought inside before it gets too cold.
5. Stir compost and add leaves as they fall and are raked up

What does your fall clean-up/to-do list look like?

Re-Establishing Flower beds

It's been a little chaotic around here the past couple weeks, but in between the chaos (and the heat....and the mosquitoes that try to eat my face every time I step out the door), I have been hard at work trying to re-establish the flower beds in front of the house. So far, I've got one down (thankfully, the larger of the two), one to go.

If you will recall, the left flower bed looked something like this when we moved in (after I added some gifted plants)

Giant mass of weeds. Yikes. I have to admit, I was really dreading pulling all of them, so I started looking for other ways to get rid of them.

I read somewhere that you could use newspaper as a temporary, cheaper, biodegradable weed cloth under mulch, so I decided to give it a try.

I did pull the worst of the weeds, just so it was easier to lay the newspaper down, and laid down a couple layers of newspaper, soaking them with water as I went so they didn't fly off in any unexpected breezes. Once I got a reasonable-sized area covered, I used pine bark mulch (the cheap stuff....not Scotts brand or anything...that would have gotten expensive in a hurry!!) to cover the newspaper so my neighbors wouldn't talk bad about me haha.

Here's an in-process picture.

When I ran out of newspaper, I decided to take a break. That break turned into a two-week break. Oops. That was about the time the mosquitoes got really bad and started trying to eat us every time we stepped out the door.


This morning I resolved to get back on it. I tried to go to Kroger (which is supposed to open round the clock) to by more newspaper, but they were closed for some reason or another, so on to Home Depot I went for more mulch and to see if they had some kind of paper that might be serviceable. Man, am I glad. Here's what I found.

I'm hoping this stuff will actually work better than newspaper, since it's thicker. Plus, I can use the leftovers on other projects instead of just tossing/recycling whatever is left.

Scissors and giant roll of paper in hand, I got down to business, again, soaking the paper as I went to avoid shifting.

This paper went much faster than newspaper since I didn't have to put down multiple layers or deal with flimsiness.

Then, I mulched, and stood back to admire my handiwork.

The plants that are already here should grow together some. I also have an order in for things like tulip and daffodil bulbs...and a peony!

So now that I've gotten to show off a little, now comes the part where I hang my head in shame and promise to fix this....like tomorrow...

Again. Yikes. Oh, and see E.T. peeking out the basement window? That would be my husband's sense of humor at work.

Any major gardening projects you've been tackling? Any you are dreading/putting off?

News, News, News

I hinted a few weeks ago here that I had some pending news to share. Well, it took a little longer than I expected, but here it is....

WE'RE BUYING A HOUSE!!!!!

Just in case you couldn't tell, I'm a little bit excited about it. The property is still in Inglewood, so we're not going far, but now I have to figure out how and what to move from the garden. I have purposely put off transplanting my started seeds into the ground, but what about stuff from the flower bed?

I am considering digging up the still tiny boxwoods and putting them into containers to put by the front door.

As for all the bulbs planted in this bed, should I dig them up? Just get new ones? The same neighbors that gave me these offered to let me dig up more from their overcrowded beds.

What about the daffodils that bloomed for the first time this spring? Should I dig those up and take them with me? Is it worth it?

I definitely want to take this hosta with me. I think it needs to be divided, but I'm not sure that would be a good idea while it's in the middle of it's growth cycle. Any thoughts on this?

Have you undertaken a garden move before? Did you take everything with you, or did you decide that some things would be too much trouble to move? HELP!!!

Latest Update and Pictures from the Flower Garden

Ok, so I've been a little MIA lately....things have been a tiny bit crazy in my neck of the woods and I hope I'll have some good news to share SOON!

In the mean time, here's some pictures from around the flower garden to tide you over. I'll cover the rest in another post!

 

Ok, here's a full shot of the right flower garden. Look how giant the hosta is getting! I think it's bigger than the boxwoods.

 Also, here's a closer look at the Roman Chamomile (it doesn't make blooms for tea, but it smells nice when you walk on it!) that's going gangbusters around the ornamental grass that has yet to show anything but dead straw. I'm not worried yet....it did this last year too.

Even though I didn't dig up my dahlia bulbs last year, they're still growing back...who knew? Maybe it was just the crazy mild winter. Also, you can see that the busyness of late has kept me from keeping my flower bed completely weed-free.

Said dahlias are in this left flower bed. There are lots of irises in here, but they haven't bloomed yet. I'm thinking they aren't getting enough sun.

However, the hydrangea and geraniums seem to be lovin' their spot on the side of the house. It's an east-facing wall, so they get plenty of sunshine.

And if you look closely, you can see that I'm starting to get some buds on the hydrangea! Hooray!!

This handsome fella decided he needed to get in on the picture taking...and I couldn't resist showing him off!

What's going on in your garden these days? Any fun happenings?

Sunshine on a rainy day

Ok, I promised pictures when the daffodils started blooming.

Aren't they lovely? It was a nice surprise to see them blooming because it's rainy and gross in Nashville today.

And speaking of gross.....my garden "helper", Seger had a very smelly end to his (and my) day yesterday. One of the neighbors behind us has a large garden, and I'm thinking it was just mulched with cow manure. Well, Seger apparently decided said cow manure mulch was a good place for a good roll on the ground.....needless to say, he was not on my good list! One bath didn't get the stink out.....it took two....gross!

So I guess lesson learned, right? Don't let your dog roll around in cow manure? Not sure there was any letting to it!!

Update: seed starting and ranunculus

It's a gorgeous day here for some gardening. It seems spring has officially begun, whether the calendar says so or not. I even spotted a few yellow butterflies flitting around the backyard.

After one more trip to Home Depot for more Jiffy Pots (we don't use enough tp to ONLY use the tube cups...I'll have to start saving them earlier next year!), I have got seeds started for each variety that needed an indoor start. My poor little green house is stuffed to capacity!!

Also, exciting news.....I have one teeny tiny ranunculus sprout!

I'm very excited. I bought a few tubers a while back knowing that they aren't really hardy in zone 6B, but hoping I could get them to grow in a greenhouse. I've had to clear out a few of the pots of ranunculus and relocate them to my windowsill while the food seeds are going, but I think I'll be able to put them back in there in a few weeks!

I also spotted a couple pea sprouts as I was walking around the garden.

And this friendly little bit of sunshine.

I'll take another picture when it opens up all the way.

About to Bloom

I'm pretty excited to report that I have a couple plants that are about to burst into bloom!

My daffodils are one.

Look at the big old bud on there! Looks like I'll have some sunny flowers in a few days.

Also, the blueberry is about to flower. The buds on this one are pretty tiny, but you can make out their pink-tipped buds if you look real close.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to make my camera take a true close up photo without getting blurry on me! Any suggestions??

I have some more seed starting to do today (some more tomatoes, dill and red-leaved perilla), along with a greenhouse cover to fix (the one storm casualty), I've put grommets on it, but need to redo some of the zip ties so it will close all the way.

Sprouting Daffodils and other Bulbs

My grandmother and I used to plant daffodil, tulip and iris bulbs together when I was a little girl. Not sure how much help I really was since as a very young child, I would often plant the bulbs upside down and my grandmother would have to dig them up and replant them right side up (oops), but we always had a good time gardening together. Some of those same bulbs were blooming last year at my wedding, held at my grandparent's house in South Carolina (my mother now tends the garden there, now that both of my grandparents have passed). To this day, bulb flowers are some of my absolute favorites, so seeing my own daffodil, tulip and iris bulbs begin to grow this spring is very exciting.

One of the flower beds in front of the house is currently filled with bulbs that are beginning to grow. No flowers yet (though I have seen many blooming daffodils in my neighborhood), but the foliage is definitely coming along nicely. Here's some of what I've got so far...

I've even got a daffodil sprouting on the side of the house...

Is there anything growing or blooming in your garden?

Unplanted Tulip Bulbs

Last fall, I ordered some tulip and daffodil bulbs. The daffodils got planted, but the tulips never made it into the ground. I was going through my utility closet yesterday and noticed that they were starting to sprout anyway! So after my war with the Bermuda grass, I took a few minutes and potted my tulip bulbs.

I know that tulips have to have a certain number of hours where it's cold. Hopefully they'll get what they need outside in their pots and I will have some pretty red tulips come spring!

2012 Planting List

I just ordered my seeds for the year! Here is my planting list for this year:

Vegetables

1. Green Beans (Blue Lake, bush type)
2. Peas (Sugar Lace)
3. Tomato (Costoluto Genovese and a container hybrid)
4. Jalapenos
5. Bell Peppers
6. Yellow Squash (Enterprise Hybrid)
7. Lettuce
8. Mustard Greens

Herbs

1. Basil (Mrs. Burn's Lemon)
2. Red Leaved Perilla
3. Dill
4. Rosemary (this is last year's plant that I've - so far - successfully overwintered in the living room!)

I will probably also grow some type of mint and sage.

Flowers

1. Sunflowers (my mother-in-law gave me about half a pound of seeds last fall....I have plenty to share!!)
2. Nasturtium (Whirlybird Mix)
3. Daffodils (these are already in the ground and beginning to sprout)
4. Cleomi
5. Marigold (Inca II Hybrid Mix)

Lastly, I found a self-pollinating, dwarf blueberry bush that can be grown in a container called Sunshine Blue. My plan is to plant it in a large container and sink said container into the ground. That way, when my husband and I decide it's time to move, I can pull up the pot and go!

In other news, my landlord approved my request to put in an in-ground garden/more garden boxes! Hooray!!

What are you planting this year?