Re: [gardeners] Friday in the garden
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sun, 23 Sep 2001 10:51:07 -0500
Thank you Terry. Sounds like you've got a life time job turning your homestead into the home you
want. We've gone through that a few times and, frankly, we're getting too old for that now. We're
making minor changes to the interior of the house, well, I guess a new kitchen could be major, but
we're hiring most of it done. A finish carpenter I'm not. Pretty good plumber, electrician, and
rough carpenter but too impatient for finish work.
George
Terry King wrote:
>
> 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