Re: [gardeners] typhoon in the garden
lepowsky@telerama.com (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sat, 27 Jul 2002 11:10:14 -0400 (EDT)
Lucinda,
Your Enchanted Forest sounds marvelious! How exciting to inherit a garden!
I also inherited a garden from an avid gardener - its in a community garden
rather than in my own yard. I even got some seeds from my predecessor. I've
been out of town for a month now, unfortunately, so I don't know how it's doing
and I'm scared to ask. Hopefully I'll be back mid august; I'm sure I'll have
lots to do there, but at least my tomatoes will still be going strong - I hope!
Jeanne in SoCal z9b
Quoting lneuru@watarts.uwaterloo.ca:
> Deathly hot, humid weather gave way to a 'typhoon' here: high winds,
> torrential downpours, instant flooded streets, and in Toronto 17 hydro
> poles
> knocked over onto 18 cars, miraculously no one was hurt, just trapped
> (or
> was it 18 poles on 17 cars??oh well). And we have tornado warnings. At
>
> least the garden got watered, but I bet it knocked down a fair amount.
> We
> are busy renovating our new (old) house. We have refinished the floors
>
> upstairs and painted and await the plumber to fix the shower and the
> electrician to add some sockets before we start moving stuff in. This
> week
> we are doing the downstairs floors. I may never stop vibrating.
>
> House is boring to repair, garden is fun. The place belonged to a
> little old
> Transylvanian (have narrowed geographic locale since last report) lady
> for
> about 60 years and it is beautifully laid out. There was an idiot pair
> here for
> about 18 months and the garden was let go to rack and ruin. We hacked
> our
> way through the Amazon and two weed-eaters, 25 yard bags of debris later
>
> we reached and are still working on the Enchanted Forest. We unearthed a
>
> raspberry patch which Len cleaned up and organized into a neat rectangle
>
> and will trellis later. This is the dessert patch. Somewhere back in
> the forest
> there is the bebop-a-rebop rhubarb patch (anyone listen to Garrison
> Keilor?).
> I have another 10 debris bags loaded and there will be many more. I
> quit
> throwing out branches but will use them for rustic trellis and a stair
> rail down
> the steps in the garden.
>
> The garden is on two levels terraced naturally. We are about 1K south
> of our
> old house which stands on the edge of an old lake bed --more often a
> swamp
> until it was properly drained and turned into a good body of water with
> dry
> land around it, although the flood plains are pretty obvious and are not
>
> allowed for buildings. Our old house was close enough to the ancient
> swamp
> that it stands on clay beds. It required much soil amending and the
> occasional bout with a jackhammer :)) to dig it. The new place is
> higher up,
> several gentle slopes and we are, I think, on the beach. The soil is
> really
> very sandy. At about midway in the backyard it drops and the soil is
> slightly
> less sandy, more humus-y and maybe with a touch of clay---haven't
> investigated completely yet. It makes for a very interesting shape.
> The old
> lady had a peach tree and a pear tree, still standing and a cherry and
> apple
> were cut down. Columbine, peonies, old-fashioned phlox and roses
> abound.....also lily of the valley, which is going. There are ferns and
> lilies,
> hosta, chysanthemum and periwinkle (going) and a few herbs still left
> from
> what was her herb garden. I have stripped the fence of overgrown bridal
>
> wreath spirea and mock orange and given them away. The fence row will
>
> have roses. I am adding stone to the terraced bit - it's currently held
> by l-of-
> valley which I don't like. Creeping phlox and thyme and pineapple mint
> goes
> there, with the gallica roses and assorted bulbs. The upper level now
> has
> assorted bits from the old house, iris, wormwood, blue salvia, Russian
> sage,
> autumn joy sedum, and 2 tea roses; I am not big on tea roses but they
> were
> on sale and I had to buy a plant; I couldn't stop! - what's worse, my
> husband
> encouraged me! I also bought a piece of garden statuary - never have
> done
> that either, was egged on by husband. I got a statue of St. Fiacre,
> patron of
> gardens which I have temporarily renamed St. Fiasco until I get the
> garden
> organized. I am trying to make up my mind about new bulbs, roses etc.;
> the
> catalogues are rolling in.
>
> The massive (goes up over driveway and onto 2nd storey balcony the width
> of
> the house) grape vine is full of grapes. The old lady made wine from
> them.
>
> One of the brightest things the old girl did was to have an old cast
> iron stack
> (vent) dug into the garden from the top to the lower level. It carries
> the
> rainwater of one downspout to the lower level, while another empties on
> the
> toplevel. Absolutely brilliant.
>
> I hope the old Transylvanian likes what I am going to do with her
> garden; the
> neighbours are much relieved. The last folk were kind of nutty. This
> is a very
> garden-oriented block. The street is only one block long, in the
> downtown and
> is a world apart from surrounding streets, also largely residential.
> People
> even have gardens on the formerly grassed curbs.
>
> Has anyone had any experience with northern kiwi? I want to put back
> one
> fruit tree/bush but not anything so large as was here before. What about
>
> cultivated raspberry bushes (ours are native & wild) for this region
> (Great
> Lakes) which will bear profusely? Any suggestions?
>
> All for now from the edge of the enchanted forest.
>
> Lucinda
>