the bark tree

Lawn elimination

 

Way too much lawn.

Waaaaaaay too much.  It has long bothered me, when looking out the window (behind the orange chairs), that all I can see is St. Augustine and my neighbors house. 

In effort to reduce this oversized lawn and blur the view of both neighbors and the street, I've been slowly extending this bed along the edge of my yard, seen here as it looked during the first spring we lived here – 2011.

Last fall, I had the bed stretched out to just beyond my 'Easy Does It,' rose.

In early winter, I plopped in a Mexican Buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa), along with a couple of little companions over to one side where I could see it from the aforemention window.  

The Buckeye is a native that I've been considering for some time since their large winter seed pods grabbed my attention outside Oak Cliff's Belmont Hotel where they are beautifully planted along a walkway.

The idea of this stupid looking isolated planting was to motivate myself to dig out the area in between. Same thing I did when I first began curving this bed around the front of the yard.

You can kind of see the cut lines I made with my edger. 

Doing all the work myself with a shovel and mattock, it did not happen quickly, but the bed is now one long curvy snake, ammended with compost and worm castings, that will be widened and stuffed with plants over time.

Backyard shrubs

In my generally unkempt backyard, a new trio of fall planted shrubs for part sun, part shade.

Semi-evergreen with fuzzy stems, Leatherleaf Viburnum (Viburnum rhytidophyllum) has fragrant blooms in springtime, berries in fall.

Virginia Sweetspire (Itea virginica 'Henry's Garnet') has beautiful fall color and it's spire-like spring blooms attract early-season butterflies.

Moonshadow Wintercreeper (Euonymus fortunei 'Moonshadow') is a low speading evergreen with nice variegation.

Turk's cap 2012

Pink Turk's cap is beautiful again this fall, right by my front door.



In fact, I like it so much that I planted two more last fall.  The first one was just tagged: pink, as opposed to the more common red.  These two were tagged 'Pam's  Pink' and have narrow pointy leaves.



While the plants appear healthy, I am disappointed that these new ones are just beginning to bloom in early November.  The regular ones didn't bloom well during the hot summer this year, but budded up immediately after the cool down.



This is the first and only bloom I've seen on these two.  Oh well, maybe next year.

Border width

A new spring project is underway: widening the narrow long border!

With a nifty new edging tool, I sliced through the surrounding lawn, adding about a foot of width.  This tool will also help keep the edges clean as the season progresses and the grass sneaks into the bed.

The newest wing of the border was made wider by an old fashioned shovel, prompting the purchase of the edge tool, which I've had my eye on anyway.

The remaining grass is then ripped out by hand and dumped into the overloaded compost heap. Organic matter of all sorts will be added later.

Little guy likes to "help" by sitting in my lap while I'm tearing out lawn.

Tulips!

Continue improving.  That's all you can do, right?  Every year at this time I kick myself for not planting tulips when I see them blooming elsewhere.  They are so showy and require little effort.  This year I did plant them (Tulipa 'Passionale') and they are lovely!  

Planting took me roughly ten minutes in December. I dig large, deep holes and dump in a minimum of 7 bulbs to get a bouquet effect. Since they cannot perennialize here with our mild winters and therefore lack of chilling hours, they are a bit of a luxury item. But they are so luxurious that next year I will plant more! All my neighbors have stopped by to appreciate them and that (plus the pleasure they have given me) makes it all worth it.

Welcome readers from Dirt Du Jour!

One gallon gardening continues

According to my loose plan mentioned earlier, this fall I dug out the beds to connect the small shrubs planted in spring, thus extending the long border and ever so slowly reducing the giant lawn.

Both budgetary constraints and summer's high temperatures, which hit just after the first shrubs were planted, delayed this project.  Though still very low and narrow, the connected bed appears more deliberate than the poor little shrubs all alone in the lawn.

One-gallon-gardening has its positive side.  To watch plants grow from small babies into large vigorous shrubs is satisfying.

Though we all love instant gratification, I appreciate the beauty in a small new planting, especially while simultaneously imagining its future glory.

They grow quicker than you think!

A one gallon cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) planted last fall is gorgeous this year.

Our tiny bay laurel (Laurus nobilis) is slow growing, but still useable for cooking at this size.

I'm looking forward to future comparison shots of this beauty berry (Callicarpa americana), which is currently lost in a bed of iris and leaves.

Pittosporum 'Wheeler's Dwarf,' planted early spring, sent out lots of new growth this fall. 

The practice of gardening regularly teaches patience, delayed gratification, and humility.

One gallon gardening

Primarily due to financial constraints, I purchase most of my plants in the least expensive size. Sometimes I start with perennials in a 4-inch pot or shrubs in a little container called a "one gallon."

This creates a landscape design challenge: one must imagine what the tiny plant might look like if it manages to reach full size and of course, patiently wait for it to grow.

Since I began working on this garden last October, I've been slowly extending the long border beside my neighbor's driveway.  I had dug it out to this point (and also moved the dug up pieces of turf to fill in the patchy back yard lawn).

My niece Arden helped me plant the little shrubs in late May: Grayleaf Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster glaucophyllus), Texas Mountain Laurel (Sophora secundiflora), and Texas sage (Leucophyllum frutescens 'Desperado').

Later, I extended the border to include the Texas sage.

The plan is to slowy extend the border in a curve along the edge of the lawn, creating an enclosure with low to medium sized shrubs and perennials which will partially obscure our view of the road.

Backyard progress

After Brandon critiqued my initial flagstone patio attempt, I reworked it a little to achieve a more coherent shape.  Though I don't take too kindly to negative comments, after a little time I was able to admit that I had more or less dropped stone randomly about with the practical goal of covering mud... and it looked, well, incoherent.

Using the line from the cement path which was once a narrow driveway to the garage I rounded a path with the stone.

Then we filled the path with pea gravel and I dragged up an old glider (which no longer glides) that had been hiding in the very back of the yard to serve as a bench. 

Though the area is always littered with toys, August loves to haul the gravel in his trucks, it beats bare soil.

On the other side of this path I've been working on the lawn.

As you can see, there are lots of patches and in this shady area I'm fighting a losing battle trying to grow turf grass. 

However, in the sunny front yard, I've been widening beds and digging out new areas so I've used chunks from that lawn back here and it's slowly filling in as the weather warms and more sun trickles through.

My little hydrangea bed looked very cheerful all spring.

It's still amazing to me that I have all this space to work with and I'm enjoying each little improvement.

 

The dead thang

Did I ever show you this little Cleyera (Ternstroemia gymnanthera 'Jade Tiara') I planted in early spring?  I didn't think so.  It wasn't exactly a significant planting. Being only a little one gallon plant, it barely stuck up above the iris, but I imagined it slowly growing large enough to softly fill this area with shiny evergreen simplicity and tolerating both the sun and shade which this area provides.

Well, it's dead.  Yep.  I killed it.   Not on purpose, of course.  It started looking like this and I carefully clipped off all the dead stuff in hopes of it's recovery, but it just went ahead and croaked.  I'm pretty sure it got overwatered and stayed wet and smothered from lack of oxygen in this mostly shady bed.  Sometimes we tell our customers at NHG that this type of loss is caused by an "inadvertent watering problem."

It's no fun to watch plants die and I'm always hesitant to show my failures, but it's part of gardening. Bleah.

Front yard progress

The front yard is slowly coming along.  The weather has been more or less wonderful since the beginning of March.  We've had lots of warm, beautiful days — perfect for working outside.

The west-side bed has mostly pinks and dark foliaged plants, though, I added orange violas in winter when most everything had gone out of bloom.  Our house faces northwest with a few trees in my neighbor's yard partly blocking the afternoon sun so I've spent the past few months trying to learn how much sun the two front areas receive... it's rather patchy.

A little section of the east-side bed sticks out to receive more sun so I immediately planted my favorite flower — poppies — in that spot.

They bloomed a bit in fall, quietly withstood our harsh winter and were lovely the past two months.  We can see them from inside our bedroom window and they still have new buds.

In the same bed is an overgrown holly which I trimmed up to remove a bunch of dead wood and previously butchered branches.  It's still pretty much a meatball shape and out of scale, but since we are renters, I am hesitant to chop it down just yet. 

Attempting to soften the corner and lower branches, I planted liriope (L. muscari varigata/gigantea) underneath.

Though I certainly could've done a more thorough prep, the sunny front yard border has been cleaned up to the extent that I've been forging ahead with new plantings.

The oldest and therefore largest is Centaurea cineraria 'Colchester White,' which I stuffed into a bare spot last fall before ever removing any weeds.  I like how the silver leaves look with the trunks of the Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus).

Wave Hill has a large collection of salvias and I grew very fond of them while working there.  Beautiful blue Salvia farinacea 'Henry Duelberg' was discovered by Greg Grant in a Texas cemetary thriving without special care.

In the forefront of this photo is another blue mealy cup sage. Salvia farinacea 'Victoria' is a dwarf form staying under twelve inches.  It's sold as a bedding annual, but it returned where I planted it in my mothers garden last spring.  You can also see blue fescue and love in a mist (Nigella damescena).

Salvia. longispicata x farinacea 'Mystic Spires Blue' crosses another favorite salvia of mine from Wave Hill, 'Indigo Spires' with a dwarf form to make a shorter, sturdier plant with a gorgeous deep blue flower.

Lamb's ear (Stachys byzantia 'Helen Von Stein') is planted on the edge of the bed anticipating that it will spread and widen the border.  More to come!

Hydrangea bed

Just outside our back door was a muddy area with no plants.  I covered it with leaves for the winter.

The soil there was compacted and held water so I knew I have some work to do.

Loosening the old soil, I added expanded shale, and acidified compost as preparation for a hydrangea.

The new planting has impatiens, holly ferns (Cyrtomium falcatum), a dwarf pittosporum (P. tobira 'Wheeler's Dwarf), Mahonia fortunii, Hosta 'Summer Music,'  lamium (L. maculatum 'Beacon Silver'), one little painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum)...

... and a lovely silver blue variegated hydrangea (H. macrophylla 'Mariesii Variegata')! 

August says: It looks like broccoli.

Inherited irises

There are many iris rhizomes that I inherited with this house.  They are in every area that one could consider a flower bed.  I love iris and I happily anticipated what might bloom from this seemingly large collection — perhaps another wonderful gift from the previous gardener?

The first group bloomed in the backyard.  White.  Not my favorite color, but certainly pretty especially with ivy as a backdrop.

I began to worry that they might all be white.  Or not bloom at all!

Then another backyard group budded.  Surely, they'll be a different color, I thought, since they have a different bloom time.  Nope.  More white.

Apparently over time, if an iris bed is not maintained, the stronger white flowers can dominate and choke out other colors.  From my understanding, it has been many years since my landlord's gardening mother lived in the house so the white clumps seem to have taken over.  Or perhaps she loved white... ?

A big group bloomed a little later in a front yard bed.  Arg!  More white!

Finally a large separate group in the front yard long border bloomed — yellow! 

Two more, which I neglected to photograph, bloomed purple in the backyard.  This fall I'm going to move them to a sunnier spot in hopes that they will become more vigorous.  Some of the whites might get moved to my mother's garden.

Flagstone project

Using flagstone that was left over from the nice walk in front of our house, I'm attempting to cover some muddy, shaded areas in the back yard extending from our small porch.

After visiting my wonderful hairdresser, Annette, a gardener who told me she built (and later rebuilt) her own flagstone patio, I figured I would give it a whirl with the available materials.

As with most of the garden, it's still a work in progress.  I'm planning to use pea gravel in the path area along the edge which leads to the front yard gate.  Though perhaps not completely professional, it will help keep us from tracking so much mud and dirt into the house.

Filling the gaps

 

While we are staying with my mother in the house I grew up in, I've been working on the yard.  The first thing I did was trim up these two crepe myrtles that I planted back in the early 90s.  They were supposed to be dwarfs and stay somewhat shrubby, but they appear to be headed toward full size trees.  One was moved when they added wheelchair accessible sidewalk corners and I'm not particularly happy with the placement.  Not sure what exactly, but I'm considering adding some shrubs near them.

 

Next I planted a little oak leaf hydrangea in a bare spot near the garage where a hackberry tree once stood.  My dad laid out this brick patio himself back in the 70s. 
 

 

We used to have a wood fence behind where I planted this little fig tree — a cultivar called 'Celeste.'  When the fence got terribly old and rotten, Mom just had it taken down, which made our backyard visible from the street.  It's a surprising improvement and eventually the fig will provide a little natural screening.

 

It already has several fruits on it!

 

Next I began to work on gaps in the flower beds.

 

Mother has a weird way of expressing dislike towards her shrubs.  She decided this cherry laurel (Prunus caroliniana) was "out of bounds" and started hacking it up leaving stumps protruding from all sides.  Every time she passes she rips off another small section by hand.  Looks weird, doesn't it?

 

I cleaned it up a little and put in artemisia 'Powis Castle,'  lemon balm, golden sage, blackfoot daisies, moss rose and sedum 'Autumn Joy' below.  Later, thinking it looked too sparse and green, I added gomphrena 'Strawberry fields,' which I remember fondly from when my friend Gelene grew it from seed at Wave Hill. Along with plenty of organic fertilizer, I also dumped in a big bag of cotton burr compost to amend her cement-like clay soil.

  

There are two other cherry laurel shrubs which have also been hacked to heck.  I'm planning on removing this one here on the left.  Our friend Carlos works for a Dallas landscaping company and has plenty of experience tearing out old shrubs so he offered to assist me.  Then I'll have a whole corner to fill in next to her Ligustrum hedge.

 

Below the hedge there is a strip of lovely yellow Iris which bloomed beautifully this spring.  I decided to fill the gaps with some other perennials using a color scheme of yellow, white and a little blue.

'Stella D' Oro' daylilies and Mexican Mint Marigold (Tagetes lucida).

Candytuft (Iberis sempervirens), yellow columbine (Aquilegia hinckleyana), and Salvia farinacea 'Victoria Blue.'

My nephew Ray helped me plant three large elephant ear bulbs which are coming up nicely.

Near the front sidewalk corner there is a large patch of various ground covers.  I added three variegated liriope and some star zinnias to brighten up the edge.

In this shaded corner near the hose, I added some caladiums.  I probably should've gone with white and green to better match the varigated pittosporum, but I couldn't resist the cultivar called 'Carolyn Wharton.'  I have plans to place another dwarf pittosporum called 'Mojo' in the corner in front of the boxwood.

Another gap gets some hot afternoon sun so I used Salvia greggi 'Violet,' Nepeta 'Walker's Low,' mexican heather and lavender periwinkles.

 

Had to have a few containers on the porch.  Obviously I'm staying busy here and making good use of my employee discount at North Haven Gardens where I am a garden advisor. 

 

Here's my little garden helper, August who loves to be outside and eat dirt.

A big winter storm left a large tree leaning against the house so we had it taken down just after we arrived in Texas.  I'm pleased that they left this lovely stump.

Living far away in NYC, I longed for some time to do these kind of small improvements on the yards of my family. Soon I'll be working on my father's and sisters'.

Blog-iversary

February 18 was the two year anniversary of my very first post on The Bark Tree. Many thanks everyone who has visited this blog.  I have really enjoyed documenting and sharing my garden progress and I've learned a lot in the process.

 

My garden is more or less dormant at this time of year and I hesitate to post photos of this messy state of affairs, but I guess down time is part of gardening.  The gloomy nature of these images provides contrast and appreciation of the colorful delights of the warm seasons.

 

This year will be interesting since we have a baby on the way and I'm completely unsure of how much time or energy I will have to dedicate to the garden.

My official due date is in 3 weeks and lately I've been fantasizing about strapping the baby into a carrier on my chest and tending to the garden in late April or May, but we'll see how realistic this idea is.  Anyway, I will return when I can.

 

Compost sifting

Compost hasn't been discussed here in a while.  I've been procrastinating the big, messy, daunting project of sifting through my multiple bins, all of which are completely stuffed and sprouting new plants of their own.  There are even a few arbitrary containers holding more overload.

From one bin I got 5 tubs worth of nice chocolate-y compost which I spread immediately around the whole garden with a little help from Brandon.

One down and two to go. We shall see when I muster the energy to tackle the other bins. For now I have some free space and everything is relatively clean and organized.

Tree stump undermines garden beauty

When you look at my garden, you don't especially notice the ugly, dead stump in the upper right corner of this overview photo. 

But there it stands in plain view, undermining my efforts to distract from it. A battle scar in the sometimes ruthless process that is gardening, the stump, which straddles the fence between mine and our neighbor's gardens was brutally dead-headed several summers ago with the idea of eliminating the encroaching shade it was unhappily providing.

Without success, I have tried last year and again this year to treat the stump as a trellis for growing annual vines.  The little scraggly mess in the photo on the left, is the miserable attempt I made this spring to grow sweet peas (Lathrus sps.) in several spots at the base of the stump.  Though surprisingly still alive with a few pathetic blooms, this hardly counts as coverage.

On the right I have just planted a little brown eyed susan vine (Thunbergia 'Blushing Susie') on my neighbor's side of the fence, since my side is mostly stump.  We'll see if it manages to provide any interest.  Next year I must find a rampant clematis to smother this garden nuisance.

East side progress

The east side of my garden is coming along slowly, but it's showing definite improvement from the early spring when I got the idea to redesign it.

There are quite a few new plantings on this side, along with some annuals coming in from seed, but all are quite small.  We've had a chilly May which slowed everything, but now with the weather warming, we should see some good growth in the next month.  Here are close ups of several things I've planted recently:

Dark leafed Spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides 'Efanthia') left, gets bright yellow blooms. I've already shown you my Leycesteria formosa 'Golden Lanterns' which I would love to see bloom this year.

Creeping juniper stays low in front and Salvia guarantica 'Costa Rican Blue' gets tall in autumn.

This Asiatic lily called 'Orange Pixie' is lovely up close, but like the other items, if you step back and see it next to the fading Crown Imperial, it's just another new planting waiting to grow in and make sense in the larger picture.

Castor Bean plant (Ricinus communis) just emerging from seed, was a tall, dramatic favorite in another area last year and sedum 'Matrona' is reliable filler.

My friend, Gelene gave me this little Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis 'Globosa').  Another salvia, 'Swan's Magenta' matches the sweet alyssum along the edge of the path.

Neighborly project

My neighbor, Paul and I have begun taking care of another neighbor's yard.  As you can see, it's quite overgrown and filled with weeds like mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), spiderwort (Tradescantia sp.),  wild onions (Allium sp.), and some opposite-leaved thing I don't know, which spreads by runners and drips a milky sap when broken.

Paul, who lives next door to this yard, asked Bobby, the owner, if we might try and improve his place this year. He has been doing all the work so far, since I just finished a long stint at Wave Hill over the Memorial day weekend.  I'll update soon with some current photos.

Spring plant orders

Finally made my spring orders...

I decided to avoid the trademarked offering I mentioned in an earlier post which turned out to be grown by the ubiquitous Monrovia - the Starbucks of the garden world. I've been trying to support small businesses instead of big conglomerates.

Forest Farm Nursery had another lovely variegated ilex aquifolium. I chose that along with a Hypericum (St. John's Wort) with orange foliage, a variegated leafed Lily-of-the-Valley and one of those new Echinacea hybrids called 'Sunset.'

I'm sure I have over-ordered for the vegetable side since the area is roughly the size of a tablecloth, but I always think I can just sow a few of each thing here and there and somehow it will all fit.

My favorite edible to grow is lettuce greens. They are wonderfully easy and can be started early and enjoyed in your salad bowl in a matter of weeks.

Along with Arugula and a delicious mesclun mix which we liked last year, I chose Red Star, a head-lettuce that is supposed to be well suited for growing as "mini-heads." This irresistible concept involves harvesting the little lettuce heads early "for tender flavor and visual appeal." In other words, when they're still cute!

We always grow herbs for cooking and my favorite is basil. Last year I purchased a 4-inch from the Union square farmer's market and planted it along with the seeds I sowed so we could enjoy homemade pesto right away. That worked out well and I'll try that again. The photo below shows last year's encore mix with the basil seeds just germinating farther back.

New items for me this year include Fava beans which I am excited about since they're wonderful when fresh and another early crop. I also ordered black-eyed peas which I imagined growing along the fence in place of the morning glories that usually take over.

The poppy, my favorite flower, will be better represented this year since I've ordered 3 plants and two packs of seed to add to the two I grew last year:

Papaver orientalis 'Pizzicato Mix'
Papaver nudicaule 'Champagne bubbles'
Papaver orientalis 'Brilliant'
Eschscholzia californica
Papaver rhoeas

Cant wait to see everything!