Work in the Shade Garden

I raked all the paths in the Shade Garden this weekend, shredded all the leaves and used the leaves to mulch various flowerbeds.  I haven't raked the beds yet.  I will wait until the end of February to do that.  The fallen leaves protect the dormant plants underneath.  I will also wait to clean out the dead plant material until the end of February.  Summer is this garden's time to shine.  It is full of elephant ears, gingers, caladiums, and ferns.  Very tropical and verdant.

Expanding - Now and Later

I added these two beds - one last weekend and one this weekend.  These beds get filtered sunlight.  I'm planning to plant Aesculus Parviflora Serotina (Late Blooming Bottlebrush Buckeyes) and Spigelia Marilandica (Indian Pink) in these beds.  And I will bring some gingers from my home in Houston.  Winter is the best time to order plants on line because they are dormant.  They can withstand the travel better and they don't get so hot in the boxes.

The big project I plan to begin at the end of winter / early spring is to extend the gardens around my cute little Greenhouse.  We've lost so many trees due to the drought that the area around the Greenhouse is becoming pretty sunny.  I'm going to make a path that circles the Greenhouse with beds along the path and extending out on either side of the Greenhouse and behind it.  $350 of crushed granite for the paths, $200 of landscaping strips, $300 of dirt, and $20 of new hose and water set-up should get it built.  That's $870 - let's call it $900.  All that money, and I'm doing all the labor myself plus I will not have put a single plant in the ground!  Expensive.

A Weekend at the Farm January 27, 2012

These are my busy garden companions, the vociferous defenders of my territory, my loyal fan club.

• My husband laid out another flowerbed in the Star Garden, and I filled it with mulch, soil, and compost.
• I shredded lots of leaves on Saturday that I raked up in the Shade Garden.  I dumped them in several beds in the Circle Drive, the ginger bed in the Star Garden, over the Spanish Bluebells in the Shade Garden, the ginger bed in the Shade Garden, and the La Marne Rose bed I'm extending in the Star Garden.
• Put some mulch around one of the peach trees in the Orchard.
• Laid some mulch in a path.  
• Put some mulch around the Snowball Viburnum and the Harlequin Glorybower.
• Put some mulch in the Bulb Bed.
• Watered the roses I transplanted last week.
• Watered the Olive Tree I planted last week and the shrubs in the dry parts of the yard.
• Raked the Infinity Garden.
• Weeded, weeded, weeded.
• Adjusted the sprinklers.
• Made suet for the birds:  sugar, bacon grease, peanut butter, nuts and dried fruit, cornmeal.
• The neighbors came over for dinner Saturday evening.
• Fertilized the camellias and banana shrub with Ammonium Sulphate.
• The plum trees are already starting to bloom because of the warm weather.  If it freezes again, I'll lose everything.  And it surely will freeze again since we haven't even gotten into February yet.

A Day at the Farm January 20, 2013

This is the first sweetie of the season.  This bulb was dug up from the yard of the deserted house that I am so fascinated by.  My husband dug it up last January, and I planted it in one of my flowerbeds.  I am wondering if it is a Grand Primo because of the sweet little yellow cups.  I guess I will never know.

• Arrived at the farm on Saturday evening.  My mother in law came with me.
• Dug up the Fringe Tree and planted it in a sunnier spot in the back yard.  I was going to plant it in the back yard in a different spot, but when I dug the hole I ran into a rock.  I tried to uproot the rock by digging around it.  I dug and dug and dug trying the find the end of the rock.  I tried to wedge the shovel under the rock.  No way was this rock going to to beat me!  I had quite a ditch dug through the yard trying to find the end of this massive rock.  Then I realized the rock was the septic tank.  A rock might not be able to beat me but a septic tank will win every time.  Needless to say, I planted the tree in another spot.
• I pulled my Clementine Honey Mandarin tree out of a pot and planted it in the Blueberry bed in the Orchard.  
• I dug up a Brightwell Blueberry and planted it in the pot from which I pulled the orange tree.  I'm hoping that I can control the acidity of the soil if the Blueberries are in pots.  They aren't thriving at all in the ground.  There are two more Blueberry shrubs that I'm going to dig up and plant in pots.
• Mulched my Lady Hillingdon and Living Easy roses.
• Mulched one of my George Tabor azaleas in the Shade Garden.
• Pruned my Muscadine Grape Vines.
• Pruned my Eversweet Pomegranate.
• Pruned the apple trees.
• Cut away dead debris of Tuber Vervain in a flowerbed in the Orchard so that the larkspur seedlings underneath can get some sun.
• The neighboring rancher's cows came through the barbed wire fence and wandered around our place for awhile.  My husband repaired the fence.  And I gathered all the manure they left behind and put it in my compost pile.
• I added one wheelbarrow of soil to the flowerbed that I expanded last weekend.  But that's all I had the strength to do.
• I cut away all the dead debris of the asparagus in the Vegetable Garden and covered both raised beds with compost.  I turned the soil in one of the raised beds that has nothing growing in it (in preparation for spring planting).  Raked up fallen leaves.
• Listened to the birds singing. 

A Day at the Farm Jan 13, 2013

Friday and part of Saturday at the hospital for my dad's surgery - fell and broke his femur.  Saturday evening to the farm then back to Houston and the hospital for a visit Sunday evening.

• Cut away water sprouts and growth below the graft of my peach trees.
• Shredded leaves to fill the expansion of the La Marne hedge flower bed.  I widened that flower bed in order to make the path more narrow.  Covered some of it with mulch.  I will fill the rest with soil.  I didn't get very far with that project because I didn't stay long on Sunday.
• Watered the two roses that I transplanted last weekend.  It rained on Saturday night, but I wanted to make sure they got a good, deep watering.
• I watered the olive tree I planted last weekend.

Weekend at the Farm January 5-6, 2013

Ehrlicheer Daffodils and Ox Eye Daisies - some of the only green growth in the January landscape.

Drizzly and cold on Saturday, but it ended on a high note on Sunday - sunny and cool.

• I moved my Bailey Red rose.  It was being engulfed by Bermuda's Kathleen.  I moved the Bailey Red to a box in the Rose Garden that has been empty for several years.  Roses should be dug up and moved in the winter months.  Cut the canes back to about 18 inches long.  The plant  shouldn't expend any energy on trying to keep its long canes alive in the midst of the shock of being dug up.
• I moved my Sombreuil rose from the entrance to the Orchard to the entrance to the Star Garden.  I am going to train it over the arbor at the front of the house.  It has never prospered in its previous location due to being crowded by cannas and blackberry vines.
• My husband and I cleaned up a lot of dead trees that had fallen across the trails.  There were some strong winds last week and 6 dead pine trees fell across the paths.   We also cut down some dead cedars for flower bed borders.
• I used the cedar logs to build a new flower bed in a shady part of the Star Garden.  I dug up all the grass, filled it with a layer of shredded oak leaves, and filled it with soil.  My husband, step son, son, and mother-in-law chipped in and bought me a load of soil and mulch for Christmas.  I'm happy about that!  You'll always find the way to my heart with dirt.
• Sprayed herbicide around the outside of the new bed and in the Orchard.  It was cold, but I sprayed anyway.  Herbicides aren't very effective in cold weather.
• Cut away some dead branches on a few rose shrubs in the Rose Garden.
• Shredded leaves for my new bed and for the compost pile.
• Planted a Manzanillo Olive tree that my niece gave me for Christmas.  I already have an olive tree that my sister in law gave me many years ago (before I started writing down plant names).  I'm hoping that with two of them I will get the cross-pollination needed in order to produce olives.  Olive trees like alkaline, sandy, dry soil.  I have that in spades.  Other than that, I don't know much about olives, but it seems that people want me to learn because they keep buying them for me.
• Lots of deer tracks in the Star Garden.  All my Sweet Peas have been nibbled to the nubbins. 

Winter in the Shade Garden January 6, 2013

 Winter has completely set in.  All the leaves have fallen.  I haven't raked them up yet.  This is the first time I've been to the farm in several weeks.  Leaves are covering all the beds.  The only green in the Shade Garden is coming from the Columbine, the Holly Fern. the Mahonia, and the Ligularia.  Next weekend I will rake.  I won't cut away the dead debris until the end of February because it helps the plants get through the winter by insulating them from the cold and the wind.