Perennial Day!

I usually order some new perennial seedlings from Bluestone Perennials (a wonderful supplier) each year.  In the past, I've ordered 3 of this, 6 of that...  But the flowerbed always looks disorganized.  And I have a difficult "partly shady" bed.  This year, I decided to order more of the plants that have been successful here and enlarge the individual groups.  I want larger areas of successful flowers.

The Salvia Purple Rain have done well and expanded to 8x8 feet and looked great last year.  They're what got me changing my mind on the design.  So the 6 Stokesia were good and I ordered 15 more.  The 6 Veronica Royal Candles did well, so I added 9 more.  And the Trollius thrived, so I added 9 more of them too.  My Goldenrod are spreading politely, so I will let them expand in the 2 spots they occupy.  The asters always do well here and they are spreading, so I will leave them some room.  I intend to end up with about 8x8 foot areas for all of them.

Some have not done so well.  I had a large are of Columbine ans one adjacent of coreopsis.  They all died after 3 nice years.  Maybe they are short-lived perennials...  But I won't be getting more of them.  For whatever reason they didn't like my soil or watering habits or sunlight.  I love Columbine, but if they won't thrive here, I won't keep trying.  I had them in 4 different places and they just don't like my yard.  Oh well!

The coreopsis thrive in the planters, but not in the ground.  Lovely as they are, they are "out" of the main flowerbeds.

The coneflowers do well, and I divide them every few years to spread around.  They don't seem to mind being divided and return beautifully.

All my Black Eyed Susans did great in one place for 4 years then almost all died last year.  Well, more accurately, they just didn't return this year.  I have no idea why.  I'm growing some from seed and will try to replant at a different location.

In the places where perennials died, I am planting annuals this year.  Grown from seed, there is less of an investment, and if they grow well, I will know it is not the soil.  In the Fall, if the annuals do well, I will dig the soil deeply and add more compost etc.  Then try perennials again.

So, I got to work in the garden today planting some of the additional perennials!

First, I scraped the soil with the scuffle hoe to undercut as many weeds as possible.  I doubled the number of Trollius.  I wish I had ordered 3 more.  That would have JUST filled the spot.

Before...

After...

I added 9 more Veronica Royal Candles.  That was about the right number.  I had 9 before.

Before...

After...

The Stokesia Asters Professor Jellito (or something like that) were great last year.  I am increasing them for 9 plants to 24.  But that means moving 2 groups of a few surviving plants not doing very well.  I have a spot to move them to.  Sunnier, so maybe they will be happier (and a source for more plants of their kind next year if they do well).

But I haven't planted them yet.  First, the area is covered with mock strawberries (the bane of my garden) and I had to go though and dig them out individually first.  And it is also covered with a a very invasive Salvia called Purple Knockout. that I originally planted 40' away.

Warning, don't ever buy Salvia Purple Knockout!  It self-seeds into the lawn, the apple bed, the other flowers, etc.  It is evil!  It spreads EVERYWHERE!  If I hated a neighbor, I would give him cell packs of this perennial nightmare.  If my property was to lay abandoned for 20 years, the only growth would be mock strawberry, salvia purple knockout, virginia creeper vines, and poison ivy.  ARGHHH!

And I spent 2 hours pulling mock strawberry plants out of the area where I want to remove the Salvia purple knockout and plant more of the stokesia.  It isn't easy easy!  They don't up by the roots easily.  You have to pinch down a bit and get ahold of the knobby crown.  They are so hard to eliminate.  If you don't get the knobby crown out, they return and send out runners.

And then there are all the wild onions!  I've learned there are only 2 times you can pull then out.  When the soil is very dry, or when the soil is very wet!

I collected quite a pile of weeds pulled out one by one today...

It may not look like much, but that's 1' high and 3' across.  And it's compacted because I raked it up across the lawn.  Each weed was carefully dug up with a dandelion fork to make sure the roots were out.  Those damned mock strawberries love to grow right up close to plants I want to save, so it take almost surgical skills to remove them.

I got almost 200 square feet cleaned of those mock strawberries today, and that was a big deal.  If it was a farm, I could just undercut the entire area and leave the weeds to dry and die.  But it is a perennial bed, so I have to go through the 100' x 10' bed picking through the desirable plants like going after hair lice nits.

Storm Drain and Drainage Easement

The Drainage Easement has been the mild bane of my existence.  A constant itch I can never solve.  If you ever read the phrase "drainage easement" in a house you want to buy, go elsewhere! 

When I moved here, 25 years ago, there was a drainage easement on one side of the property.  It divided the 2 properties.  That makes it joint responsibility.  You DON'T WANT THAT.  Your neighbor will NEVER want to do what you want to.

In my case, my yard is lower than the neighbor's.  So when it floods, it is only MY problem.

Well, I woke up this morning and heard heavy equipment running outside.  It was county people cleaning the storm drain at the bottom of the drainage easement!  I got dressed fast and ran outside to see what they were doing. 

Some background...  A storm last Winter washed down tree branches that got so interwoven over the storm drain that I could not pull them apart.  Then leaves and dirt piled on top and made a dam.  Half my front lawn is sodden.  I mean squishy to walk on like a bog.

Coincidence:  I wrote up a list of things to do this week and the 1st item was to contact an excavator to dredge the easement.  The storm drain itself is untouchable county property.  But I was going to contact them about that.

My neighbor beat me to that.  He is selling his house and called the county to clear the storm drain.  Yay!

I noticed that they had shoveled the drainage path 5' upstream, so I asked if they could use their bucket dredge to deepen it.  No go.  They only own that 5' upstream.  The rest is mine and the neighbor.  I've looked at the drainage easment.  It is silted up almost 2' because the (idiot) neighbor planted willow trees along it.  Willow tree roots LOVE water and grow thick and trap dirt.


When I saw him planting the willows 15 years ago, I begged him not to for that reason.  He ignored me.  Why not?  The problem would all be mine. 

Now, they are trying to sell their house.  I'm a good neighbor.  If the county cleared the storm drain, I can clean up my corner of the yard.  I spent 2 hours clearing the brush from the boggy corner. 

Before:

After:

Here's the view from the street. best in at least 10 years!

Since I had the pruning saw and loppers out, I took out several saplings that had chosen to grow up through some shrubs.  But no pictures of that.  Just happy to have gotten THOSE spots off my list.

Next, the "ugly corner of the yard where I used to stack firewood and has grown all brushy"...

Flowerbed Problem

Sometimes, perennial flowerbeds just DIE.  Oh sure, there are often 2 of 12 plants that don't return and need to be replaced.  But I mean a place where, for no known reason, an entire area just DIES...

Last year, this spot was filled with columbines and coreopsis.  They seemed healthy at the end of the year!  They are are up and 6" tall in other spots in the garden.  But they are just completely gone here.

What you see there are winter weeds.  Purple deadnettle or something like that.  I've pulled them up relentlessly before they flower in years past, but they seem unstoppable.  Yet, they shouldn't make any difference.  I mean, they shouldn't be stopping any perennials from growing back in Spring.

I'll give them several weeks to show up, then I'm scraping the surface a few inch deep with the spade and then planting annuals (hmmm, maybe tomatoes) this year.  This coming winter, I'll cover the hole area with black plastic and kill all the winter weeds.

Sometimes bad things happen and you just have to start again...

Oops, Been Away...

I can't believe I haven't posted for 3 weeks!  I've been busy, just not with stuff worth taking pictures of.

I planted 400 crocus bulbs.  200 at a friend's place, 200 in my yard.

My parents visited.  That took 3 days of attention and cooking, and 2 days before to clean house and 1 day of downtime afterwards!  I had to watch Science TV for 2 days to get over having to listen to Fox News while they were here...  (Shudder)

I cleared out all the dead tomato vines.  Carefully.  There were disease problems and I tried hard not to leave any vine debris behind.  After I collected all the debris on the lawn and bagged it for disposal. I stacked all the cages far away from the garden.  I don't think fungal diseases do well on rusty metal exposed to cold Winter temperatures.

I raked all the leaves out onto the lawn.  That's right, ONTO the lawn.  I shred them with the mower until there is nothing left but leaf dust among the grass.  It really works well!  Free fertilizer and organic bulk for the soil.  My surface soil was clay when I moved here; now I have 6" of topsoil.  You don't get that by applying commercial fertilizer...

I chopped down most of the spent flowers.  That was quite an effort.  I have a lot of asters, coneflowers, monarda, sedums, etc that are 3' tall.  I had to haul a lot of flowerstalks to the slow compost pile.   And I made sure to leave the seedheads sticking up in the compost pile so the birds can get at them.

The tricky thing was the thistle seedheads I discovered.  They were hidden among the asters.  I cut one and a few seeds fell off.  So I covered the rest with plastic bags and taped them shut, THEN cut them.  I sure don't want those damn things next year.

Related weed subject:  Bindweed.  I was after them ferociously all year.  I don't think a single one got more than a few inches long before I pulled them up.  I know they are perennial and have deep roots, but if they can't grow above soil for long, they will die.

It has been raining for almost 4 days.  Leftover from Tropical Storm Ida.  That has kept me inside.

My cat LC had her annual shots and exam.  But I didn't have a stool sample.  With 3 cats, it can be hard to tell who's is who's.  I closed LC in the guest bedroom Friday (with food, water, and a litterbox of course).  No luck.  Tried it Sunday.  No luck.  LC really likes to "do her business" outside.  I finally had to leave her there Tuesday and Wednesday until I got a poop sample!    I went to the vet Thursday morning, but they were closed.  I had to wait til Friday.  Doing shopping and errands with cat scat in a plastic bag in the front seat is not my favorite thing to do.

But I got it delivered earlier today and the results were negative (she is as clean of scat-identifyable problems).  For multiple cats who like to be outside a lot, that was great news.  And, as LC is approaching 17 years, she might be expected to have some problems.  None there, anyway. 

So things are going well and I have been active.  I should learn to post about things even when I don't have pictures to show!

Back on track tomorrow, I hope.

Poison Ivy Update

Most of the poison ivy I sprayed last week is dying nicely. But that damn big shrubby one over the fence is reluctant to die. I'll have to give it another spraying (or two). But it is supposed to rain later today, so I'll have to wait.

That tall weed with the purple berries I couldn't remember the name of is "Pokeweed". It isn't the worst weed around here, but it is very large so it stands out. And it is hard to dig up because it has a large swollen root about a foot deep.

The worst one I have is mock strawberry. It grows EVERYWHERE. It isn't hard to kill individually because it depends on a surface stem-knot, but when there are 1,000s it is a real pain. And the birds love the fruits so there is always a new supply of them scatterred everywhere. They get into the thick groundcovers so well that they are nearly impossible to pick out.

I had to finally dig out a large area of ground-cover sedums and dianthus becuase I simply could not get all the mock strawberries out and they just kept growing back (I was able to carefully pick a dozen sedum clean of the "mocks" and replant them. They are spreading again well.

Among the poison ivy, the mock strawberry, the honeysuckle, and the pokeweed, I could go crazy. At least I don't have kudzu!