Some New Updates...

Some views of the front beds. Everything that I've purchased, begged, borrowed, or stole so far. Also no mulch yet. That always makes such a difference.

Full front 2 beds looking from north to south.


Full front 2 beds looking from south to north.


A few detail photos:

Front:
Cercis Canadensis 'Forest Pansy'. The leaves will stay red and not turn green with growth.


Picea Orientalis, Oriental Spruce showing lots of new growth. The needles will always have those yellow tips. Very showy.


Acer griseum, Paperbark Maple with baby leaves. It will have more and more peeling bark as it grows.


And sadly, Betula niger, River Birch, top half is dead.


In the back yard:
Cercis Canadensis, Eastern Redbud


And a close-up.


I've also been busy planting and (with help from Hubby D) hauling dirt to fill one of the raised beds in the back yard. Time to be thinking about planting early crop veggies.

I've actually started this part of the project already with cool season plants.

Here's a few updates from the back veggie yard. One bed done and planting begun with Walla Walla onion sets (wonder what they'll do in Ohio?) and cabbage plants that I grew from seed myself. Several rows of seeds, Peas Blondie (light yellowish leaves and yellow peas), Sugar Snap Peas, cilantro, lettuce, and dill. I figure by the time they surface, it will be far enough into May to be safe.


Here's another showing a second prepped but unfilled and unfinished bed.

Lots of Fun!

Hello Friends, I'm way behind in my updates, AGAIN, but here goes. These will not be in chronological order but it all happened in the last week and a half.

BACK YARD BEDS (veggie)
We had 2 cu yds of garden bed soil delivered plus the cement half blocks.


We staked, stringed and otherwise marked the three raised veggie beds in the back yard. David mowed the areas VERY short and then we laid the weed barrier cloth. We will start (as soon as it stops raining) to pile 6" of soil on top of the barrier cloth. That should stop weeds and grass coming through. You can sort of get an idea of how I'm using the cement blocks as edging to hold the soil in place.

I know it looks as though the blocks may tip over with the soil pushing on them, but we've had a talk (the blocks and me) and they understand they need to stay upright.

By the way, the backyard redbud is ready to burst into bloom.


FRONT YARD BEDS
I've been shopping for and finding a lot of my old perennial friends: Heuchera, lavendar, Acanthus-Spiney Bear's Britches, Coreopsis, Scotch Broom-Moonlight, Lupine-blue and red, Purple Fountain Grass, Geum and Artemesia-Silver Mound. Also you can see how big my tomato seedlings have gotten. (proud mother....) :-)


I've begun to place them and plant some of them. Here's the north bed. Notice the tulips planted last fall? They're in bud. Yippee!


And the south bed...


Notice the fence is much shorter now. It had been too tall to see the flowers from the sidewalk which is down a small grade. Also too overpowering. I will probably change it again. LOL

My second batch of daffodils are white with golden centers.


The Artemesia Silver Mound should do well here. It likes really bad soil and if fertilized will flop apart losing its mounded shape.

I love the new Heucheras. The hybridizers have been going crazy to develop new leaf colors. I hear they are not as hardy as the original few.


I usually don't have very good luck with Geum so haven't haven't tried any for maybe 15 years. But I saw this salmon colored one and couldn't resist.


Oh, yes, remember our little squirrel friend? Well, he/she has decided it likes sugar water. It's been feeding from the hummingbird feeders!! The water has been in there for over a week. No hummers. I hope the little furry guy doesn't get drunk on the old sugar water....


And so, that's my story so far. I am having so much fun it must be illegal. The mystery of plants from dried seeds, of plants and bulbs dying in the fall and coming alive in the spring again and the power in plants to grow and grow and develop leaves me in utter joy and with a great feeling of humility.

First Flower

The first flower from my front yard garden, just for you.

More News----TREES!!!

I guess our biggest news is that our totally treeless, shrubless, flowerless yard now has bulbs about to bloom and TREES !!!

We now have 5 trees! A couple weeks ago I bought a Picea orientalis 'Sunlands'. The tips of the needles are yellow (properly so) so it's a bright spot in the north front garden.


Also an Acer griseum, Paperbark Maple, with peeling bark and cinnamon under color. Small tree with awesome autumn color.


#3 In the back yard we planted a Cercis canadensis, Eastern Redbud. We have always been very fond of this small understory tree which puts out flowers all over the branches and trunk...not only on the tips. It has green heart-shaped leaves.


Yesterday, they delivered two more trees for us.
#4 Another Redbud. This one is Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy'. The blooms are similar but the heart-shaped leaves are maroon color.


And finally #5. Betula nigra, River Birch. It is a three stem (in this case) with peeling bark that is slightly cinnamony. It's not so susceptible to birch borrer as the Paper Birch is. It grows rapidly and is absolutely lovely.


All are now planted except the birch, we'll do it tomorrow. I have a friend who says no gardener is worth his/her salt who doesn't move plants around. Well, today we moved the little spruce into the north front lawn and put the Forest Pansy inside the fency near the deck.

Can't wait to drink an iced tea in the shade they'll cast. LOL

Lessons Learned....from Tomatoes

My tomato seedlings were getting huge so I decided it was time to transplant them into bigger containers.

The first question: Where to set up to do it?
Now you know we live in a very small house. The basement is totally taken up with workshop for our Irish bagpipe making business. The half-story upstairs is taken up with my portion of our business plus my seedling setup. That leaves two small bedrooms which are full, the kitchen (not a good idea), the living room (also not a good idea) and THE BATHROOM which is complete with water available. Eureka! So that's where I did my transplanting.

Two photos crudely spliced to give you the idea of what lengths I will go to to get my transplanting done...


So I worked for a good 5 hours on my knees transplanting tomato seedlings into hand rolled newspaper pots the size of a coca cola can. The pots worked well. My knees nearly died.

LESSON LEARNED: Don't try to transplant unless you have a good, comfortable place to do it in that won't disrupt your entire household. LOL But it worked and they are hale and hearty in their new bigger pots.


I only did half of the tray. The smaller typed of tomato didn't have enough root built yet. And my knees couldn't take any more.

So Much Has Happened....

I think I told you all that I was going to give the idea of Square Foot Gardening a try for my new veggie garden. Of course I won't hold exactly true to it because I always have to add my own touch to things. LOL But it will be the basis for my bed.

I finally decided on the edging around the raised beds that I will use. The bed boxes are supposed to be 4'x4'x8" with no floor. Just sitting down on the ground. Space the beds (as many as you want) so there's enough room to mow the grass in between or walk easily without having to do a balancing act to not fall into one of them. The idea is that you can move around the bed and keep it maintained without having to step into it. The square foot part comes in by putting up suspended dividers that will divide the box into 16 foot square sections. You plant one thing (or several if they're small) in each section. I will put down a sheet of weed block cloth under the soil. I can't trust that the grass will not come up through even 6" of soil.

Fill the beds with the perfect soil combination and DON'T till it in. Just build the retainer sides for the box, fill it and start planting. Doesn't that sound fantastic? The recommended perfect soil is 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 peat moss which sounds fantastic. I will use something similar but I also have to use up about 15 bags of garden soil that I bought last fall and didn't use.

So, back to the edging... I considered the following:
**railroad ties---too heavy and may have contaminates
**treated 2x8x10' boards---expensive per foot
**untreated 2x8x10' boards---still too expensive per foot
**cement block with 2 big holes 8x8x16 --- $1.41 per block...getting more reasonable per foot
**landscape timbers---8'x4"x 6" with two rounded sides. Pretty, stackable, I used them as fence around the front beds but would need at least two layers so still pricey
**solid cement block 4"x8"x12" --- They were miss marked at the store so I got them for $.63 each.

I settled on the latter. Too good a price to resist. They will be delivered by Home Depot tomorrow. Now all I have to do is buy the soil.

CONCLUSION: These veggies will be the most expensive we've ever eaten, but I'm having a wonderful time. Next year will be more cost effective.

Also went to the nursery and bought a small Acer griseum, Paperbark Maple, one of my favorites. Hmmmmmm. I may be repeating myself from last post. Sorry.

Here's a picture of my tomato and pepper seedlings from today.


They are nearly 7" tall and have as many as four true leaves.


Tomorrow I'll start transplanting them into 2 1/2" newspaper pots. That's another story that I'll tell after I've gotten them transplanted.

I also started a whole new tray of seeds, squash, cucumber, basil, more tomatoes, oregano, thyme and parsley.

The long planter with the chives, lettuce and cilantro is now to the stage where I can carry it outside in the daylight but I'm still bringing it inside at night because dips too close to low 30's at night still.

Well, that's enough of the gardening escapades of Coneflower for tonight. Talk to you all again soon.

One more thing. Today I finally planted bulbs for my tiny early iris. I'm only 5 months late. It will be interesting to see what they do. Keeping fingers crossed.

A Wonderful Day

We had 65 degrees and sunshine all day here in NE Ohio! I went to a garden/home store and bought 4 genuine plastic chairs and two genuine plastic tables and we had a picnic on our deck for dinner tonight!

I also finished my little rustic fence around the front flower beds.


And now sitting just inside the litte fence is our new "Welcome" greeter dog.

It looks so much like our little Geordie who crossed the Rainbow Bridge last September that I knew it was the perfect addition to our front garden.

There are zillions of tulips that I planted last fall screeching up out of the soil. I must have checked them 20 times today. Last time, I had to jump aside so the growing tulip wouldn't knock me over. LOL.

I planted poppy and purple coneflower seeds in a strip along the south side of our house (on the right in the picture). I've never grown either from seed but I decided to try it. I'm simply desperate to be planting growy things. No stores have any perennials for sale yet. I'd be happy with the dry stumps from last year but stores won't sell them until they're up and blooming. Trouble with moving to a new place... you don't know anyone to bum plants from.

I do have a bunch of Bearded or German Iris in the ground that my cousin gave me last fall and most of them have survived showing new little green tips. I'm also going to toss some zinnia seeds that the same cousin gave me in with the poppies and coneflowers.

Another friend last fall gave me Corydalis lutea and a Halcyon Hosta and a very interesting sounding grass called Molinia caerulea subsp. arundinacea 'Skyracer'. You can check them out on Google. There are some good pictures there. I now have all of them planted as well. So I have LOTS more things to watch growing.

With my seedlings, tulips, daffodils, flower bed mish-mash, and dormant hosta, ornamental grass and Corydalis, I have LOTS of watching to do. I am a happy camper!!!