Experimental Gardening & Problem Solving

Things have finally slowed down a bit, work-wise, so I took advantage this weekend and decided to tackle an area that has been bugging the heck out of me.

While I appreciate the privacy that the concrete block wall between our garden and the road behind our house gives us, let's face it -- it's ugly to look at!  It's an eyesore!

I've tried various tactics to hide it, with varying success.  Towards the east end of the wall, things are growing well.  The Rose of Sharon and Vitex trees took off like gangbusters and are now higher than the wall.  The Southern Wax Myrtle in the middle of the bed is doing well too and is about four feet tall and wide at this point. 

On the west end of the wall though, nothing can grow.  As I showed you back in August, I solved the problem in one spot by creating a little vignette with two containers and some iron trellis.

However, the area next to that, behind the big pine tree as we look at the border from the house, was still just a waste land of concrete block and mulch.

My enthusiam to get working on the area was tempered somewhat as I got my trowel out and started to examine the bed to see if there were any plantable areas. The answer to that question turned out to be a firm "no."  The problem?  Pine roots - lots of them, and under that, clay - ugh!

After scratching my head to stimulate my thinking cells, I remembered that last time I blogged about the area, someone suggested making a raised bed.  Since part of it is already planted, making a full raised bed didn't seem to be an option, so I went for a compromise which may or may not work.

I decided to plant on top of the existing soil and roots, building little "berms" of good garden soil around each plant and then filling in around them with mulch. The idea being that hopefully the new plants have a chance to establish a root system before the pine trees get the idea to extend their roots up in to the new soil.

I opted for simple plantings (read: "cheap"), probably not the most desirable plants, but since the experiement may not work I didn't want to spend $30 on something that I really wanted, only to have it fail.

These little Creeping Fig plants have a rather large blank canvas to fill.  I hope they are up to the task.  It will be lovely to see green growing up the wall for a change. I only got five of them -- if they look like they might take hold I'll splash out for some more!

I'd never heard of Cleyera, but it should make a decent sized shrub, if it wins the battle with the tree roots. In the front of the bed, I put three Liriope, just for a different color and shape.

Here's the finished bed.  It doesn't look too bad, now if those creeping figs would just start creeping and cover that wall!!

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Back Yard Project Part One, or Back on the Chain Gang

Back in January, I wrote a post called So Here's the Plan which outlined my plans for our, as yet, blank canvas of a back yard.


Naturally, almost as soon as we put the back border in last year, I was dissatisfied with it and wanted to enlarge it.  However, we knew there was an easement there and weren't sure where the utilities actually lay.  A call to 811 quickly resolved that issue and we came home one day to find bright little red and yellow flags across the lawn, marking the phone and gas lines.


The other thing that needed to be done was that Eric had to replace the backflow valve (I think that's what it's called) on  the sprinkler system, which froze over the winter.  So he replaced the valve last weekend (and now we just have to pray we don't get another hard freeze) and we were able to run the sprinklers to see where the spray heads are.

At last! I had a clear idea of the amount of room we had to work with.

Now to move the rocks! 

 My poor husband had visions of moving 25 tons of rock with his bare hands, and we giggled together when I found this amusing cartoon by British cartoonist, Norman Thelwell.  

I'm not sure if Eric found it so amusing when I dug up an mp3 of The Pretenders' Back on the Chain Gang to play for him, lol.

 

But as you can see, we're really only expanding it a foot and a half at the most and it really wasn't much of a chore to move them.  

Even though we didn't expand it much, I think that will give us the room we need to create a pleasant border, with some taller shrubs against the wall and shorter plants in the front.  Who know, I may be able to hide that ugly wall eventually.

When I first started on the border, I realized very quickly that trying to remove all the sod would be a huge chore.  So I decided to take the easy route.  What I did was to plant some base shrubs where I wanted them and then lay down a layer of Weed Block around them, and then finish with a thick layer of mulch on top of that. After several months, all the sod underneath had died off and I've been digging it back in to the soil a bit at a time.

Much easier than trying to remove all that sod at one go. 

So when we were expanding the border, I decided to use the same approach.  Basically just covered all the sod with a layer of weed block and covered it with mulch.  When I'm ready to plant in it, I can work the soil a bit at a time and in the meantime, with mulch over the whole thing, it sort of looks done.

You can see, in the center of the photo, one of the flags marking the AT&T cable. We laid the rocks just to the inside of that line, so we can dig in the bed without worrying about cutting the phone line.

I love it when things come together right :-)

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Working on the Weekend

Remember this image from a  couple of weeks ago?  I was laying the stepping stones in the foundation border at the front of the house and was lamenting the sad performance of the holly bushes up against the house.

 

I had been torn between seeing if they fared better if I tried improving the soil around them or just ripping them out and starting over.

Well -- I decided with the latter course of action and this morning headed out to pick up some dwarf Burford hollies to replace the unknown variety that were there, as well as organic compost and top soil to mix in with the existing soil.

As soon as I got the first holly out of the ground, I could see what had caused their demise...
 

  

 As soon as I pulled it out, I could see water sitting in the bottom of the hole and the bush had hardly spread any roots in the 18 months it has been in the ground.

  

And so, I spent a pleasant few hours, digging out the existing shrubs, enlarging the holes (hauling off a lot of clay in the process) and playing in the dirt, mixing and planting, making sure that the new bushes would have a better chance than the last ones did. I won't be up to doing this kind of heavy work in the heat of a Houston summer because the heat really gets to me, so I was really glad to get the chance to do it today.

 

 

As I worked, I was serenaded by a chorus of mockingbirds in the trees. It made me smile almost as much as when one was on the roof near the chimney, singing his heart out, and we could hear him clearly indoors because the flue was still open from the previous night's fire.
 

 

Et voila! All six planted and mulched in a few hours.

For lovers of color, fear not, I have plans for some more perennials to go in between the shrubs, along with the daylilies that are already there and coming up.

Today was a good day -- I'm tired, but I have a great sense of achievement.  And to top it off, my non-gardening husband took me out to dinner. It doesn't get much better :-)


Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

The Little Path to Nowhere

When our new house was landscaped, one of the main features was a large foundation bed, containing a row of hollies, some African Lily, some Indian Hawthorne and some Dwarf Yaupon.

Since we moved in, I've noticed two things -- the row of holly closest to the house just isn't doing well at all and the bed is too wide to work in without trampling all over it.

I was in bed sick this weekend, but last weekend I was able to take advantage of some nice weather and get outside to work in that foundation bed.

It didn't cost much either.  A trip to Lowe's with a vague idea of what I wanted netted me some decently priced paving stones, and since I wasn't really building a path but some literal "stepping stones" to stand on while I weeded and mulched etc, I didn't have to buy many of them.

A short hour or so, leveling and laying, and I was done...

And while I was out there in the middle of the bed, I noticed that some of the daylilies are putting out new growth.

And that's not all - I spent a few minutes trimming back the garden mums  and discovered a crown of healthy green growth underneath last year's dead stalks.

Now I just have to figure out what to do about the holly up against the house. I'm debating whether to amend the soil around the existing, sickly, plants, or to rip the whole lot out, dig bigger holes and amend the soil in them before planting new, healthy, plants.

I suppose it depends how much energy I have once I get over my cold.


Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.