RE: [gardeners] Friday in the garden
Terry King (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sun, 23 Sep 2001 08:39:06 -0700
Happy Birthday George!
This week has been our annual get together. Didn't do any major
construction projects before this years event. We cleaned out and pulled
down our old pole garage/shed building and people are having fun
disassembling it, the old 1x roof boards are in surprisingly good shape so
we are saving them to reincorporate them in my garden shed. The garage
blocked a large part of the view of the house from the road. I sort of
feels exposed but passersby can now see my foundation perennial beds. We're
not sure how or what we will replace the garage with but the old building
had to come down or a heavy snowfall would have brought it down. We where
very lucky that the snow last year was so dry.
Yesterday I turned the kid's old sand box into a sedum bed. (The sand box
is just visible in the upper left hand corner of the photo of my dry shade
bed) I added manure and a local product called compeat (a mix of aged
sawdust, local peat, lime and fertilizer) to the old sand in the 8'x8' box.
Placed some large rocks dug up when we installed the septic tank last fall
and planted the collection of sedums I had purchased for a rock garden for
my DH's office. He wants to build a small deck in front of his office with
a rock garden around it but didn't get it done this year. So, I had all
these sedums I had to make a place for. I guess I will have to take starts
for his rock garden next year.
Today I will cover a path we made along the west side of the house with
sawdust. Its a temporary path so we don't have to walk through the weeds,
rocks and dust left from installing the above mentioned septic. We hope to
expand the house in that direction so will have to change it all around when
we finally get the building done, if ever.
I will also get started on the last flower bed of the year along the NW side
of the area were the septic tank is. This will be an old fashioned mixed
perennial bed with oriental poppies, foxglove, rudbeckia and whatever else I
have left over from other plantings. I think I will also try my new hardy
mums there, I think it gets enough sun. Next spring I will hopefully have
found some topsoil to bring up the grade over the top of the septic tank so
we can plant a lawn. I would love to do sod but until we get the
construction finished I'm afraid it will get damaged so will probably just
throw out some lawn seed and hope for the best.
Besides getting garlic planted and maybe moving the strawberries the other
project that needs to get done is to finish before winter closes in is
installing the mow strips around the new beds in the lawn on the east side
of the house.
The Orange Perfection Phlox I planted in my shade bed is blooming, as the
sun moved south they are getting a lot more sun. I'm not sure I would call
it orange unless you compare it to pink. The color is similar to the
Gartenmeister fuchsia's flowers. Sort of a very dark salmon pink. Very
pretty but not overwhelmingly fragrant. I'll take a photo to put up on my
web page when I get it redone this winter.
Terry
E. WA. zone 4