Front Landscaping Boxes 3

I expected to finish planting the 2nd 100 daffodils today, but only got 2/3 the way through.  And here, I thought it was going to go EASIER today!  It's hard to get used to it getting dark at 5 PM...

I thought it would be easier today because there were fewer landscaping flags in the way, and I thought I had the procedure down pat.   I had been using a spade entirely, but I also used a post hole digger today.  It made it easier, but (oddly) longer).  I think mostly it was because I was digging better and deeper holes, plus I was having a hard time avoiding stepping on yesterday's planted spots.

Today, I was getting the holes deeper (10" with the post hole digger) so that I could refill a few inches with the better surface soil.  More work now, but the bulbs will appreciate it for years to come.  Avoiding the previous plantings was REALLY awkward.  2 feet and 2 knees and I wanted all of them on undug soil!  It wasn't as bad as playing Twister, but close.  I suppose the bulbs don't really care if the soil is a bit stepped on above them (all the soil is fairly friable) but I made the effort.

Thankfully, tomorrow will be as nice as today (sunny, light breeze, mid-60s).  It hasn't rained for over a week, so the soil is not destroyed by walking on it.  I hate to walk on garden soil anytime, but there is no avoiding it in this project.

So I will be finishing this project tomorrow, at least.  The right landscaping box will be beautiful next Spring.

I say the right box because I made a major OOPS!  I had planned for both boxes to have the same 2 daffodils, but when I set out the 100 flags to plant 50 bulbs of each type, I went and planted 2 bulbs in each hole.  So that leaves none for the left box.

It may have been a subconcious correction.  I had been concerned that the left box (not only on the north side of the house but also shaded for the small amount of western sunlight by the 5' raised front steps walls).  Even daffodils need some sunlight...  I'll just have to think of something else for Spring color there (or simply live without it on that side).  I'm thinking Primrose, Trillium, and Hepatica for deep shade Spring color.  But I'll have to buy them next Spring.

Front Landscaping Boxes 2

Today I planted half of the daffodils.  Took 3 hours and it nearly killed me.

First, the daffodils...  As I said yesterday, I selected i Early Spring bloomer and 1 Late Spring bloomer.  That was so the appearance of the boxes would change over several months but still show flowers.

The Early Spring bloom is Monal...

The Late Spring bloom is Fragrant Rose...

Between the two, it should make the front look different over the course of 8 weeks and by that time, the hostas shiould be growing out big leaves.  Yeah, I'm trying to get fancy.  Why not?

I ordered 100 each of both.  I decided to plant some in both front landscaping boxes.  One thing I have learned is that most people plant their Spring bulbs too shallowly.   Daffodils like 6-8" and if you look at the standard bulb-planter tool, they don't go that deep.  So I wanted to get them down where they really wanted to be.

I tried a post-hole-digger first, but I had too many rocks in the soil.  And I wanted to plant 2 in each hole 4" apart, and the post-hole-digger wasn't that big.  I should mention that the bulbs I received from
http://www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com/ are both large, firm, and almost always doubles!  So I had to use the spade to dig a 6"w x 8" deep trench with a flat bottom.  That took time.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  The first thing I did was take landscaping flags and stick them all around the right landscaping box.  200 bulbs, 2 per hole, 100 flags...  I had exactly 100 orange landscape flags!

Yeah, I know they say plant 4-5 per square foot, but also 4" apart.  Daffs multiply where they are happy.  I'll spread them out 2 bulbs per spot (though remember they are all doubles) and wait.  Next year will be good; the following year will be better.

Here's where it got tricky.  First, I had to spread 100 spots around the right bed evenly but randomly.  I was thrilled to hit the last corner with the last flag.  Perfect! Nice random positions throughout the entire box!

The digging was the tricky part.  About every 18" in all directions, there were landscaping flags.  Awkward to walk through, awkward to dig around.  And worse, I needed to plant one variety in "every other flag/spot".  And how do you plant in "every other spot" when the flags are basically in triangles?

THe simple answer is that you can't.  So I tried to dig up the spots for the Monal daffs as alternately as possible until I hit 45 of them.  Then I looked at the remaining flags and chose the closest ones and finished the 50.

How did I do the planting you ask?  "Carefully"...

I used the spade to dig a trench 8" long x 3" wide x 8" deep.  I put the soil in 2 buckets with the best top soil in one and the lower worse soil in the other.  I had a small bowl of 2-5-6 slow release organic fertilizer at the side.  In each trench, I added back some of the best soil from the top and mixed some fertilizer.  Then added 2 bulbs pressed firmly in, covered them with more good top soil (as opposed to the more clayey soil 8" deep) sprinkled on a little more 2-5-6, then piled the remaining soil back ontop.

Meanwhile, between the digging, soil piling, fertilizing, planting and covering, I was having to avoid stepping on other flags, existing hostas, and previously-planted spots!  I dug up 100 rocks the size of golf balls or larger...

By the time I planted the Monal half (50 holes), I was exhausted and developing muscle cramps from the awkward positions of digging, planting, covering, bending over, etc and avoiding plants and other flags.  It took 3 hours! 

And tomorrow, I need to do it all over again to plant the Fragrant Rose daffodils. The future flowering display better be worth it!  I would show more pictures, but there is little to see in a dug-up planted, and covered hole.  LOL!  I'll show the results next Spring...

But I'm staying busy...  After THIS is done, I have 100' of flowerbed border that I want to plant with blue fescue grass 1' apart I have been raising in flats, with yellow and purple crocuses in between.  The fun never ends...

Front Landscaping Boxes

Well, it's the time of year for transplanting and planting Spring bulbs.  I have had a right front landscaping box for many years (north side of the house).  2 years ago, I added a left box.  The right side was overgrown and I cleared it almost entirely to plant hostas.  The left side got Caladiums the first year, and then I added transplanted Snow-On-The-Mountain (SOTM) there this Spring from the right box.

THE PROBLEMS:

The results were uneven.  The Caladiums required too much maintenance (60+ soil temperature, digging up and saving for the Winter, so I gave them up).  The hostas on the right were too crowded and the SOTM were too sparse.  The SOTM on the right came from my parents' place in NH and they survive but never look happy.  They brown and curl in Summer and look horrible.  I've managed to coddle them along for 20 years and they haven't looked good in any year.  So I will just pull them next year and be done with them.  I like the way they look in Spring, but it is just asking too much of them to thrive here in MD.  The hostas only foliage in Summer and Fall.

THE PLAN:

Thin the right box hostas to stand as individual plants, move extras to the left box, and add Spring color to both boxes.  For Spring bloom, add Early and Late flowering daffodils (I have completely given up on tulips and hyacinths - they just don't last more than a few years).

THE DAFFODILS:

I examined dozens of varieties.  Most are mid-Spring bloomers.  I found 1 Early Spring and 1 Late Spring that I liked.  I wanted them to be of very different colors, so that the Spring bloom would appear to change from the street viewpoint.  More about them next time.  Today I want to show some of the hosta transplanting.

THE HOSTAS:

Here is the Summer view of the right box...

It is just TOO crowded.  And here is the dying (for the year) view...

So I was a good time to transplant..  There were rows (from the back) of 4, 5, 6, and 7.  I reduced each by 1 plant and moved a few others so they were evenly spaced at 3, 4, 5, and 7 (didn't change the smalls row in the front.  I don't want to complicate things, but 2 of the rows had alternating different varieties, so I will actually be adding a few new ones back next year.

This is what the left box looked like...

 The light green is SOTM, the medium green is moss, and the dark green are weeds.  Thoroughly unsatisfactory!  So I planted flags where I wanted the displaced hostas to go (as individual specimens).  I will say that the SOTM did spread well from 12 lonely sprigs to several dozens this year.  I am hoping they will survive under the hostas next year.  Covered in mid summer while they are browning from the heat, but showy in Spring and Fall).  The flags are where I moved some hostas to.

Again, I am short a few of specific varieties, but I will get those in Spring.  They don't look good now because they are going dormant and I clipped some dead leaves to make the digging-up easier, but next Spring they will wake up and hardly know they were moved.  Hostas are good tough plants!

Here is the thinned right bed...BTW, the green bush on the left is a mature Nandina (the only original shrub of the box remaining in place, nice and neat at 5' high an 2' wide with lovely red berries.  The one on the right is a rooted cutting from that and it should catch up in 2 years.  There is a small azalea in the back center.  I think I may replace it; it isn't recovering from being severely pruned and transplanted last year...

Now that the hostas are rearranged, I will be planting the daffodils tomorrow.  I am tired from digging and weeding today.  Tomorrow while be a lot harder...

Veterans Day

Blog Blast For Peace 2010

I had a bad dream the other night.  It went like this...

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I'm Watching All Of You and I Am Not Thrilled...

There is too much senseless fighting going on.  Please stop that now...  I don't want to have to say it loud by throwing lightning and stuff around.  Or asteroids.  The dinosaurs got me ticked off and look where they are now.  It shouldn't be necessary for me to repeat myself.  I'm not ready to do that again just yet, but keep in mind that I always have a few in orbit aimed at you that I deflect when I'm feeling happy.

And I'm not feeling my happiest lately...

I'm not upset that you have different religions; I can deal with that.  To Me, that's just different songs on the same theme.  Go enjoy the different songs.   Hey, I don't even mind the non-believers; their songs are good too.  A few humanists aren't going to upset MY applecart.

What bothers ME is the way you have been murdering each other in more and more efficient and cruel ways lately.  That is NOT what I intended.  In fact, it makes me very sad.  And when I'm sad, I tend to flick asteroids at the planet.  I DON'T like people who murder others.

I'd hate to have to start again.  The primates were the best new possibilities, and look at you all!  Shame!  I might have to give herbivores another try.  Rabbits maybe.  Or Squirrels.  I do have a fondness for things that jump in trees.  Like you primates once did.

I think the mistake was to let you go from flint tools to nuclear weapons.  I was busy elsewhere and I should have eliminated radioactive stuff from the planet.  I don't know, you would have found it elsewhere anyway, so maybe it is best now.  Still, you are doing all the wrong things with it.  It's an ENERGY source people!

It is supposed to get you from oil to solar, and you went and made a WEAPON of it.  Even I didn't think you would do THAT.  I mean really, who is THAT stupid?  Well, you are...

So, here's what I suggest. 

1.  Stop the religious warfare.  You are all the same to me, so just get along more peacefully.  You are all talking to the same Being and I really don't care about the details.  Just get along.  And stop hassling the atheists.  THEY are MY children too. 

2.  Disassemble all the nuclear weapons.  Your only going to hurt yourselves eventually, and I wont promise to stop you.  I have no objection to personal or collective suicide.  You have more free will than you think.  I've bailed you people out a couple of times and sometimes my attention is elsewhere.

3.  Fix up your food supply.  You are all getting careless about it and nothing is more important than safe food.

4.  Except water.  The oceans are vast, but not infinite.  I arranged it so the oceans were undrinkable for a reason.  There is plenty of fresh water if you stop polluting it. 

5.  And stop getting down on Darwin.  Who do you think arranged for Natural Selection in the first place?  ME.  And yes, the Earth is billions of years old.  I know; I caused it.  I caused Natural Selection the same way I caused gravity.  Darwin (and Wallace) among you all merely noticed it first.  If they hadn't, someone else would have.  I love it when you people figure out some of my original rules...

6.  I think you know the rest of the rules for peaceful living.  Enough of you have done a good job elucidating them through the centuries.  I didn't even have to help them.  Don't steal, don't murder, don't covet, etc.  That's why I like you creatures; you're the first ones on Earth who figured those things out.  I have other favorites on other planets who have done the same or are about to, but don't get jealous.  MY love is infinite.  Few of them look anything like you do, but don't worry, you are all lovable in MY eyes.  And they worry about that too. 

But I've flicked another asteroid in your direction, just in case you fail.  You won't see it coming in time; I'LL make sure of that.  But I'LL send it into the Sun if you improve.  I'M not into local floods and fires any more.  There are too many of you for that.  Asteroids are the way to go for now.  And if you solve that problem, I have gamma ray bursts on the way...

So get together and STOP FIGHTING!

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That was one scary dream.  But maybe we should try to help each other out and stop fighting.  Hmmm?

Election Day!

Forgive a mixture of humor and seriousness...

Tomorrow is Election Day!  Vote!  If there is not someone you are thrilled with, there is surely someone you would regret to see in office.  So go vote for someone other than that person!  It is worth standing in line for an hour to do it once every couple of years.  You stood in line longer than that for the new tech gadget or concert ticket.

It matters that you go out and vote because some important elections come down to very small differences in votes.  A few hundred votes in FL and Al Gore would have been president. Our recent history would have been very different had that decision come out differently!  But it matters in smaller elections too.

Senate and House elections matter.  So do Governor elections where they are being held.  But so do School Board elections.  They determine what our children will be taught!  Read about those in the local newspaper or League of Women Voters.

I will admit that I am an unabashed Progressive Republican.  That means I an socially progressive and fiscally moderate.  There aren't many around like me anymore.  WE were driven out of the Republican party by the Goldwater people in 1964, and it has only gotten worse over the decades.  And, sadly, it means I have to vote Democrat most of the time.  Because what is good for ALL PEOPLE is more important to me than what is good for ME personally.

I'll pay more tax to improve schools.  I'll pay more tax to make prisons a place to get a second chance rather than a small room for life.  I support Workfare.  If someone gets a free check from me, then they can damn well earn it doing whatever they CAN do.  We have enough litterred streets and schools needing monitors and elder parents needing assistance, to employ every person getting a welfare check.  And if they have young children, let's set up day-care centers for them (and employ qualified day-care people).  Lets put people to work for what they get from US.  It seems fair to me.

So, if you want the US to get better?  VOTE!

VOTE for the Democrat of your choice, but VOTE!  ;)

OJ The Cat

I want to bring a shelter cat (OJ) into the house. 

Please email LoisLHT@yahoo.com and tell her I am the right Bein to give OJ the Forever home he has been dreaming of...

The Big Thing

Garden Renovation

There are parts of the flowerbeds that I have always disliked.  I ordered flowers for one part that just never worked out.  And the flowerbed lacks some consistent design elements to tie the various parts together.

The flowers I didn't like are the Knautia.  They looked good in the catalog pictures...

They perform badly in my garden.  They are floppy, invasive, sparse-flowered and look like a pile of weeds most of the Summer and Fall.  Its probably my fault.  I've since read that they want poor soil and full sun.  I have good soil and partial shade.

So it was time to give up and remove them.  Here is what they looked like...

I scraped along under the soil with my nice sharp metal spade through the entire bed of them (about 6'x10').  That left a nice pile of compostable material...

That offerred me the chance to start bringing some consistency to the flowerbed design.  I have 2 paths through the flowerbed.  One has Stella D' Oro along one edge.  I would like to have them on both sides of both paths.  I had 3 of them in a corner that has become shaded, so I transplanted them to the cleared space.  I also divided 2 of the other Stella and moved the divided half.  I expect the remaining halves will recover quickly.  I mixed some organic 2-6-5 into the soil I replaced.

Now I have a nice 2nd row along a path edge.  The space between the paths has Stella on both inside edges...

When I can divide all those again (or buy some new), I will place them on the outside edges of both paths to define the paths better.  That will give some good structure!

The other interesting thing was that I collected some orphaned Columbines.  I have one patch of 7 of them.  I noticed a single one where there used to be a patch.  I also discovered 2 that somehow were growing in the woods.  So I dug those 3 up and added them to the existing patch.

There are more there than it appears.  Some are hidden by old spreading butterfly bushes. I may order another 6 next Spring to increase the patch

The next step in the flowerbed renovation is to remove some of the shrubs at the back.  The 5 butterfly bushes are 15 years old and getting clumpy with deadwood at the base to the point where they resprout new growth poorly.  The colors (alternating purple and white) never quite looked right.  I think I will replace them with new red ones.  That should tie the color scheme together better.

I also have 2 variegated Euonymous shrubs that I like for the all-season color, but they simply grow too large (advertised 5' tall x 3' wide, but in reality are 6' tall and wide).  I am going to try and find places to relocate them as large specimen shrubs, but they have to be moved out of the flowerbed.  They may not survive cutting back and transplanting, but I will try.

There are 2 flowering almond shrubs.  And 2 Nandina, nice polite shrubs which I like for the colors and berries.  They should be moved.  I have good spots for the Nandina against the front foundation.  I'm not sure what to do with the almonds.  They are nice shrubs in Spring (rare for a shrub) but the fence line is too crowded.  Well, with the Euonymous and Nandina removed, maybe they can be between the new Butterfly bushes.  I'll have to see how much space there is.

Aside from renovated areas for structure, and reducing shrub clutter along the fence, my goal is to increase the size of patches of plants that are doing well.  This past Spring, I did some of that, combining 2 patches into one or buying more to increase a single patch.  Over the past few years, I've gone from 3'x4' patches to 6'x8' patches.  It is starting to look better.


More to come over the next couple of weeks...

Been Busy, But Not Anything To Show

Sorry I haven't been posting with new projects lately, but the stuff I've been doing lately hasn't been exciting or photogenic.

Laying down limestone to increase the lawn pH doesn't show up in pictures.  Taking down the cages with the dead tomatoes isn't much to brag about.  Washing the windows outside and in is nice, but you can't tell anything from a photo of them.  I spent a hour cleaning fallen leaves out of the boat before I "shrink-wrap" it for the Winter (whoopee).   I even spent time scraping 20 year old paint off the garage door glass panes!  Talk about a task put off too long!  LOL!

On the other hand, some of the non-visual time has been spent considering what to do with the decks.  I have an upper and a lower deck.  It seemed a good idea at the time, but quite frankly, the larger lower deck was a complete waste of time.  I have never had any use for it.  Well, OK, its a convenient landing for the stairs from the upper deck and then to the lawn.

So I'm going to take it apart and use the well-weathered-but-still-sound 2x6x12' decking boards to rebuild my framed garden beds.  The deck boards (not in ground contact) are in much better condition than the 2x4 garden boards after 20 years.

After the lower deck is removed, I will renovate the upper deck.  The frame is sturdy (but not to "code"), and the deck boards and rails are wearing out gradually and finally warping a bit.  The 2x6 boards are fine to frame garden beds, but they will soon be a question to walk on.  And the rails were always ugly.  Rail fence style.  So I will redo the top.

I plan to rebuild the top of the deck in the same style as current.  Except, the spaces between the upper posts will have a sunburst design I can easily make myself.  What can I say, the deck needs an artistic touch.

And I want to make the patio below the deck rainproof.  Well, at least "mostly" dry in a storm.  I know a serious rain can get in at the sides no matter what I do, but I (or the cats) don't plan to be out there in THAT kind of storm.  I just want to be able to sit on the patio under the deck in a normal drizzle and not have the rain falling through the deck above.

I initially thought of removing the deck boards above, covering the joists with pressure-treated plywood, roof felt, and 5/4" deck boards.  Reading a few DIY sites convinced me that was a bad idea!  So I am going with an under-the-deck system.  I've figured out I can attach a sloped wood frame topped with ribbed plastic panels UNDER the deck!

I have been standing on the patio figuring out how to attach the wood support frame in a way I can slide the plastic panels onto it.  It will be awkward to do alone, but I'm kind of used to that.  When I initially built the deck, I had 2 friends to help.  One moved away, and the other has a bad back now.  And I can't do what I used to do either.  Getting old is hard...

But I think that is all for next Spring.  For a temporary thing, I am going to hang a tarp under the deck to see how that works.  I can do that in a day.  And I'll take pictures of that.

The laugh is I'm only trying to make the patio dry so I can put vinyl fencing around the patio and let the cats out there...

Thanks for coming by to read...  :)

Family Art

I meant to show this before.  I inherited these things because my Dad is selling the NH house.

He and his dad made some very nice items that he wanted me to have:

Did they have talent or what?

I am so proud to have this stuff!

I am merely the caretaker.  It will go from me to the 3rd generation when I die.