new garden!
Mar. 23rd, 2024 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunnyskywalkerJust in time for spring planting, I suddenly acquired an entire front yard and back yard! Both modestly sized but plenty big enough.
The back yard is currently mostly lawn, which will fall victim to a sod cutter and a layer of wood chips as soon as I can manage it. There's already a mature mandarin orange tree, and I hope to put in a few more small fruit trees and shrubs, some pollinator-magnet underplantings, and maybe some vegetables if I can squeeze them in. The back yard planting may have to wait until fall, though.
The front yard already had no lawn, hooray. I am not wild about the pea gravel, which gets everywhere and can get quite warm despite being light-colored, but it will stay for now. The landscaping fabric underneath will come out in chunks as I plant things; weeds just grow right through it, so all it accomplishes is popping through the gravel to look ugly and leeching plastic into the soil. And probably baking the soil a bit, which is not great for the microlife down there. I will have to be careful planting because of all the pipes and conduits running across the yard. But currently, there are nice safe holes in the spots where I'm digging out the old shrubs which would require me either to constantly hack them back or let them grow into a looming hedge (no thank you). Well, safe-ish holes -- my dad discovered at least one had a bunch of cobbles about a foot down when he helped me dig up a stubborn shrub, like maybe the yard used to be covered in those and someone decided to just put a layer of dirt and gravel on top. Hopefully it was only in select spots...
I've already put in a few plants and will have more soon! My plan is to hand-water them for the first year or two, and then after that they should be fine being watered maybe once or twice per summer, so I won't have to deal with a fiddly irrigation system. One of the new plants (well, two, and I'm getting a third) is 'Pozo Blue' sage, a hybrid of Cleveland and purple sage. It smells amazing. Fingers crossed that the plants will like their new home!
I also dug out two of my herb pots and refilled them with fresh potting soil before sticking the plants back in. The alpine strawberries, chives, and green onions should be fine, and I'm sure the spearmint will bounce back because I'm not sure you can kill spearmint as long as it has at least a smidgen of dirt and water. I added small ollas to the pots, which I think those will be easier to handle than the ceramic watering spikes with wine bottle reservoirs I had before. One more herb pot to do -- more alpine strawberries, plus I'm adding a Vietnamese cilantro, which is a new plant to me. Maybe some basil to each strawberry pot too. Then I just need to re-pot Grandma's jade plant into a bigger pot, which I already have, and get the 'Little Miss Figgy' fig tree into the ground once its spot is prepared...
This is so much fun.
The back yard is currently mostly lawn, which will fall victim to a sod cutter and a layer of wood chips as soon as I can manage it. There's already a mature mandarin orange tree, and I hope to put in a few more small fruit trees and shrubs, some pollinator-magnet underplantings, and maybe some vegetables if I can squeeze them in. The back yard planting may have to wait until fall, though.
The front yard already had no lawn, hooray. I am not wild about the pea gravel, which gets everywhere and can get quite warm despite being light-colored, but it will stay for now. The landscaping fabric underneath will come out in chunks as I plant things; weeds just grow right through it, so all it accomplishes is popping through the gravel to look ugly and leeching plastic into the soil. And probably baking the soil a bit, which is not great for the microlife down there. I will have to be careful planting because of all the pipes and conduits running across the yard. But currently, there are nice safe holes in the spots where I'm digging out the old shrubs which would require me either to constantly hack them back or let them grow into a looming hedge (no thank you). Well, safe-ish holes -- my dad discovered at least one had a bunch of cobbles about a foot down when he helped me dig up a stubborn shrub, like maybe the yard used to be covered in those and someone decided to just put a layer of dirt and gravel on top. Hopefully it was only in select spots...
I've already put in a few plants and will have more soon! My plan is to hand-water them for the first year or two, and then after that they should be fine being watered maybe once or twice per summer, so I won't have to deal with a fiddly irrigation system. One of the new plants (well, two, and I'm getting a third) is 'Pozo Blue' sage, a hybrid of Cleveland and purple sage. It smells amazing. Fingers crossed that the plants will like their new home!
I also dug out two of my herb pots and refilled them with fresh potting soil before sticking the plants back in. The alpine strawberries, chives, and green onions should be fine, and I'm sure the spearmint will bounce back because I'm not sure you can kill spearmint as long as it has at least a smidgen of dirt and water. I added small ollas to the pots, which I think those will be easier to handle than the ceramic watering spikes with wine bottle reservoirs I had before. One more herb pot to do -- more alpine strawberries, plus I'm adding a Vietnamese cilantro, which is a new plant to me. Maybe some basil to each strawberry pot too. Then I just need to re-pot Grandma's jade plant into a bigger pot, which I already have, and get the 'Little Miss Figgy' fig tree into the ground once its spot is prepared...
This is so much fun.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-04-03 10:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-04-08 01:32 am (UTC)Hah, it's wonderful how different climates affect gardening. I don't think I'd even know what to grow in a place that got summer rains! Not that people around here don't grow plants better suited for rainy climates, but they essentially are on permanent life support. I'd rather save my irrigation water for things I'm going to eat :-D