 10/31/2007
Today I dug up my cannas and dahlias that were
frostbitten over the weekend and I actually did find one begonia bulb that survived the
summer. Sadly, only one of my cannas survived it never matured enough to bloom this year
though. Now I just have to figure out how and where to store them for the winter.
 10/30/2007
This year was the first year I was able to
earnestly pursue gardening. I’ve been dabbling with perennials and vegetable gardening on
and off for the past 15 years. When I was at home with my parents I had a pretty good
sized plot that they let me take care of and I loved it. My sophomore year that I home
schooled the vegetable garden was one of my prized projects. The garden provided us with
some great corn, beans, peppers, zucchini, and pumpkins and helped me to lose 25
pounds.Â
Now in a new place that we can call our own it was my desire to make the
land burst with color. The summer was extremely dry and hot so the extent of my revamping
of the land had to be limited. My husband encouraged me to take up container gardening.Â
That worked out well since the containers were close to the house and were large enough to
keep flowers, small shrubs, and some tomato and pepper plants.Â
In expectation of
getting an early start next spring (2008) I dug up 4 x8 foot plots in our back yard for
vegetable gardening. I’ve sought out every potential place for flower beds for a couple
reasons. One is to gussy up the place a bit and the other is to try and eliminate the need
to trim with the weed whacker.
In the front of our house near the end of our driveway
I made two 6 x 6 pie shaped flower beds. At first I didn’t have a clear idea of what to
plant in them. My friend Bobbie invited me over one day to take some plants from her
catch-all flower beds and my plan was set. She gave me white yucca, pink garden phlox,
pink wild geranium, yellow daylily, hollyhock, some small variegated hostas and lily of the
valley. The hostas and lily of the valley had to go to the shade bed at the back of the
house and the hollyhocks went back to a sunny spot there, but all the other items found a
home in those front plots. I had some dahlia and canna tubers and some asiatic lily bulbs
that I also planted there. Near the end of the season after a whole summer of looking I
finally found some very pretty “Spangled Star” and “Neon Pink” dianthus and artemisia that
lined the peak, front border, of the beds.
Craigslist and FreeCycle were also great
sources for plants this year. I got to connect with people from all around the area that
love gardening and want to make sure their extras don’t go to waste. Hostas, irises,
hibiscus, coneflower and giant daylily were among the plants that came from the resulting ad
leads. The same day that I followed up on those ads my father in law offered some Elegans
hosta which I gladly accepted and gave him some iris corms from my earlier score. Another
friend of mine saw my ad on FreeCycle and mentioned that her parents, with whom I’m also
friends, had hostas they wanted divided. As I have become a sucker for hostas and anything
that will grow in the shade I made arrangements to go and get them. When I got there,
Margaret, my acquaintance’s mother, dug up daisies, irises, dianthus, liatris, coneflower,
coral bells and more daylilies.Â
After a bit I had more than I could reasonably
handle in such a short period of time. Just days before we went on our “50th Anniversary
Celebrating-Family Reunion-Vacation” to Georgia my mom was kind enough to come over and help
watch my little girl while I tried to find a place for all the plants. Many had to go in
containers, though next spring they will find a home under some trees in our front yard. I
can’t wait to see what the flower bed at the back of the house is going to look like when
it fills out in the spring. I planted four varieties of hosta, coral bells, and ferns near
the north side of the house. It was never easy to mow there and is fairly sheltered from
the wind.Â
Around the same time I got up the guts to ask a neighbor in town about
her hostas. Thankfully she was very friendly and even agreed to share pieces of them with
me. They are very beautiful variegated hostas that seem to glow in the
moonlight.Â
The past three nights we have had some pretty nasty killing frosts so
it’s time to wrap things up for the season. Dig out my bulbs and tubers, bring in my
potted plants and pull out the remainders of the vegetable garden that bit the frost over
the past few nights.
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Today was a cold, rainy, yucky day. Mom called me early in the morning asking
for help planting some boxwood and yew in the backyard. She hopes that in time they will
grow to conceal the large natural gas tank that is in the back. She worked for a long
time and designed a layout that would work and finally found some bushes on clearance at
Lowe’s and Wal-Mart. So my baby girl and I went to visit and help digging holes and
setting up her design even though it was crappy out. She would never have gotten it done
by herself (the guys don’t seem to want to help her either).
It was fun. The whole
design is about 25 feet long and 8 feet wide. On the east and west ends of the tank she
placed the spreading yews that have a mature height of 5 feet and a spread of 10 feet. In
front of those and near the south corners of the layout are 2 standard yews that have a
mature height and spread of 6 feet. On the south side and in between the standard yews are
3 dwarf boxwood bushes (buxus koreana) that have a mature height and spread of 4 feet spaced
as evenly as possible given there is also a small pathway where another bush would have
fit. The pathway is purposely off center to allow the maintenance person from the gas
company access to the lid and valves on the tank. It isn’t the most ideal placement, but
necessary given the location of the plantings. Mom wants to put pavers in the opening to
keep it clean and nice.Â
Underneath the whole area she placed a layer 8 pages thick
of newsprint. This will act as a weed barrier and naturally as a mulch as it decays.Â
What a way to recycle 
. To build up the area to allow enough depth for the plantings
and a visually attractive height we backfilled with topsoil and dirt from her garden. The
dirt from her garden was originally mounds and mounds of decaying corn remains that my
father had brought to the property back in the mid-80s. For years the stench in the summer
was almost unbearable. The compost though has proven to be a wonderful medium for planting
bumper crops of tomatoes, zucchini, beans, etc. The majority of the mixture though was
eventually worked into the ground in the back yard to level it out and fill in a number of
holes.Â
It was funny to watch my little girl outside with us trying to help. Mom
found my old plastic garden rake and gave it to her to play with. For a while she wanted
to be right in the mud with us, but she kept knocking over the plants and throwing the dirt
out of the landscaping. Then she found the sand pile. It’s a pile of sand that my dad
uses whenever he needs to mix a batch of cement. After we checked to make sure there was
no animal scat we let her play to her hearts content. She dug holes, pretended to make
food, made a “throne” for herself among other things. You can imagine she was covered from
head to toe with sand by the time she was done. Then when she came back to “help” us she
moved the bucket that was keeping the newspaper from flying away in the wind. Next thing
you know here we all are trying to keep all the newspapers from going into the neighbors
field. Finally, she discovered the “hill” that covers the leach field for the septic
tank. She’d run up it and then roll or pretend to slide down.  She was just happy to
be outside helping us garden!
