I think I’ve mentioned before how much I love peonies. They start off small, weird and purpley-red. Almost like alien asparagus. I think the cracked earth shows how hearty these plants can be. (Ignore the leftover leaves.)
Then they grow…
…and grow…
…and grow. (I need to wash that window!)
I buy plants. Just how I roll. Sometimes I’m trying to fill a specific spot. Other times, I’m just shopping for pretty flowers and hoping that I have somewhere to plant it. This was an impulse buy but luckily I had a semi-shady spot to put it. It also hadn’t bloomed when I bought it so I was lucky that it wasn’t ugly. I usually don’t like surprises but this one was pleasantly purple.
Sometimes life gets in the way and you just don’t have the time, energy or desire to weed (or blog about why you aren’t weeding). I’m much better at buying plants (& tweeting pics). Anyway, I’ve bought a few more plants and most of the stuff from last year seems to be in good shape. (You’ll also notice a nice big weed in that slideshow.)
I’ve been reading Feed and it is almost Easter, thus I have resurrection on my mind. I figured now is as good a time as any to go through the list and see what made it through the winter.
Let us begin in the backyard. So far, I have confirmed sightings of:
Gaura siskiyou pink (lindheimeri)
pink fountain lindheimeri walgaupf
baptisia australis (false blue indigo)
geranium cantabrigiense biokovo
penstemon ‘prairie twilight’ / beard tongue
peony, Lactiflora ‘pillow talk’
hardy hydrangea (little lime) (hydrangea paniculata ‘jane”)
chrysanthemum
I have not yet seen the Ballerina Red Armeria (Armeria pseudarmeria ‘ballerina red’), the Bees Ruby Armeria (arenaria ‘bees’ ruby) or the Cotton Tail Thrift. I really like them so I hope they spout soon.
And now for the front yard. Here it is from the left and the right.
All of the hostas seem to have returned
Dicentra, Luxuriant, Cutleaf Bleeding Heart
I almost thought the Toad Lillies (Sinonome and Samurai) we’re weeds.
Both azaleas are hanging on but I’m not sure for how much longer.
Sedum, Autumn Joy
rhododendron catawbiense
I don’t think the guara lindheimeri siskiyou pink out in front made it.
On the other side of the front steps, we have:
euphorbia (amygdaloides var. robbiae)
columbine red (aquilegia)
And two of these things my neighbor gave me. Nandina — thanks, Maggie!
A few of the columbine plants and the speedwell didn’t make it.
I really don’t know much about gardening. This means I have to buy books, Google or ask my neighbor. Remember what I said about kids and pictures?
Below are a few of my books.
Gardening 101: Learn how to plan, plant, and maintain a garden by Martha Stewart Living/Omnimedia
The Complete Shade Gardener by George Schenk
The Natural Shade Garden by Ken Druse
So it seems that some of my work last fall is paying off at last. We have tulips!!! And lots of weeds to pull and some random leftover leaves to rake.
Every morning as we rush out the door to school and work, I realize that our yard is bigger than I think and needs a lot of love. So this weekend I decided to spruce it up a little. I did some weeding and raking of the leaves from last Fall. Pathetic, right? Before going to the store, I decided I would plant some things along the brick wall of the basement steps. Of course on my return, my husband kindly reminded me that we are planning on redoing the steps so I might want to rethink that plan. Once again, he was right.
So, I decided that the other perfect spot would actually be around the forsythia bush. I must say I really like it. This little corner, from the gate to the air conditioning unit, is my current project. In the past I’ve had a little bit of trouble in terms of layering plants–foreground, middle ground and background–in a meaningful way. The plants I bought today are the lower level and the forsythia the higher. Now I’ll just need to fill in behind and above the Mary Flemming, along the fence and into the corner next to the unit. This will make the walk to car in the mornings a little more bearable. I think I might be getting better at this.
New plants, left to right:
After a not so long or hard winter, I’ve turned my attention once again to the state of our yard. First of all, things are actually coming back. This is shocking to me.
Back in October I did finally get around to planting some bulbs. Five months later, I don’t remember exactly what I planted nor where I planted it. This Spring will be full of surprises.
I think I’ve mentioned before that the goal is to have things blooming all spring and summer long. And to have the colors change as well. Pink in early spring then orange and purple in the early summer to blue in the late summer. In order to accomplish this, I’ll need to be way more organized than I actually am.
The other part of this is that this is weird. I mean only on reality diy shows do people plan a garden or do landscaping all at once, right? In real life, do (non-millionaire) people build landscaping plans over time? Or do people really sit down and plan it all out?
Maintaining a yard is a lot of work and money. Don’t let anyone fool you, you will spend a hunk of change trying to make your landscaping look inviting. Ours doesn’t even look inviting and I’ve still spent a few hundred dollars over the last five months. But what really kills me is the constant upkeep. The raking, the weeding, the watering are time consuming. The raking is out of our control. Our house is surrounded by oak trees. The leaves from the neighbor’s trees all seem to fall in our yard. Sometimes I feel like it is nature’s equivalent of throwing trash on our yard. It also seems like the weeds have created a hostile work environment for our purchased plants by stealing the good soil and water. Mother nature is a Mother #%!?*%.
my yard hates me... 