Gardening entries; long.

I am really proud of the garden. It took time, but I’ve finally got the beginnings of a nice garden, maybe even a show-off garden someday. I know it’s probably weird for a 58 year old guy to think his Mom would be proud of him — but you have to understand what gardening meant to Libby McGeary. She was kind of a legendary gardener around here, and I think she always thought I was the most likely child to really pick up the gardening bug.

Well, it took a long time, but I think I have. I didn’t own my own property until about 7 years ago, and we had to do some of the physical changes to the house — like the porches and patios and the new roof, before we could do much more. I was able to transplant some of the plants from our previous residence, and buy some plants each year and do some gardening, but meanwhile, I had a big huge pile of dirt in the backyard and a lawn in front that was mostly weeds.

Last year, we finally put the new lawns in, and the automatic sprinkler system, and I suddenly I felt free to go for it.

Each gardening session starts off with a few easy tasks, like weeding, and then get more ambitious as the day goes on, and after 3 or 4 hours, I’m amazed by how much I’ve done.
I hate to say it, but it also helps that I can actually afford to garden. And that I’m getting time off. Both would seem to be prerequisites….

I planted the two lilacs against the back fence, and in a few years they should be tall enough to give us some privacy.

The guy who put in the lawn and sprinkler came by to fix it today, (loose wires and such), and all is working. He had the great idea of my putting arboreums on the OUTSIDE of the fence. Linda had vetoed evergreens, and I sort of agreed, but I wouldn’t mind getting the privacy shield and still keeping the gardening space inside.

So one final major purchase this year.

I admit, I’ve spent a bunch of money, but I’m really having fun with it. I’m putting in the physical labor, which would probably the most expensive part of the process, and once in place, I’ll just keep transplanting these plants in different combinations, and maybe try a couple of new things every year.. I could even start going to seed. I mean, use seeds. And like I said, I’m amazed by how much has gotten done now that I’m actually doing it.

It really doesn’t take as long as all that. I’ve probably had about ten 3 hour sessions this spring and summer, and I got a heck of a lot accomplished. I think my Mom probably did 30 hours a week in the garden, if not more. During the growing season, she was probably out there from dawn to dusk.

I have a full third of an acre, and good bones. Rock piles and juniper. The junipers are a problem, maybe, but I’ve worked around them, and tried to incorporate them. There is a natural boundary right now between the settled garden and what Linda calls “the wild side.” (She even has a sign that says, “A Walk On The Wild Side.” (Which our son, Todd, created.)

Right now, I have to beginnings of three paths that will lead into the wild side. I have the rest of my life, knock wood, to extend the paths and colonize. I’m intending to save some of the bitter brush and natural plants. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a garden that does that, but if you can’t do that in Bend, where can you?

I’ve got a magnificent rock pile at the end of the patio, and I’m going to colonize all the nocks and crannies with hens and chicks and other succulents.

I’ve used up most of the compost — I think I have enough to plant the boxwoods at the base of the patio, and fill in some holes here and there. Besides, I think I’m mostly through for the year as far as the big stuff. I’m going to clear away a bunch of grass tomorrow and follow the rock ridge that naturally follows the contour of the yard and garden.

Then I’m going to throw a packet of “wild flower seeds” around and see what happens.


From June 1, 2011:

My garden has been moving forward at a glacial pace.

But now that I have all the garden beds cleared, and I have my dumpload of soil to add in, I'm ready to start planting.

When we bought the house in early 2004, we knew that we were going to need to redo the patio, taking away a giant stairway and adding a wraparound porch to our bedroom. That was going to completely reshape the gardening space, so I held off on the gardening.

The backyard was basically a weed infested dirtpile.

I started working at eliminating the weeds, yard by yard. Going down a couple of feet and pulling every little bit of it out. About two years in, we accomplished our new porch and patio. I kept working on the backyard.

When we first moved in, I cleared enough gardening space on the left of the backyard to transplant the flowers from the garden I'd planted at our rental.

Then, over the years, we bought a few plants from nurseries and chainstores. (The chainstore plants didn't do well -- my bad.)

So we have had a garden all along, and it seems to be doing O.K. It was very Darwinian at first -- some plants really didn't do well at all under the Juniper trees, others didn't seem affected, still others suffered for awhile then rebounded.

On our sixth year, we had our roof done. And most importantly, we had new lawns put in back and in front. With a sprinkler system.

So I spent most of the rest of last year and this spring clearing away all the potential garden beds.

In building the front porch and the back patio's -- we had cut away a fair amount of shrubbery; overgrown and clotted potentilla's and juniper evergreens. So we have quite a bit of empty space.

I have all but about 10 sq. ft. of the backyard cleared; and all but about 10 sq. ft. of the front yard.

Last year we bought a drooping tree for the front of the steps -- I don't remember the name (Linda says it's a weeping pear -- no fruit). We put a bright yellow Dart's Gold Eastern Ninebark next to it. (Too close -- a constant problem with me, that I'm trying hard to correct.) That took care of the side of the stairs facing the street.

Along the side of the steps, we have an apple tree (very colorful this time of year) but otherwise it is bare. So this season, I chose Yellowtwig Dogwood, mostly because I liked the variegated leaves.

I bought some bright yellow Lydia Broom shrubs to plant in front of the Dogwood, but realized that -- along with the Dart's Gold-- it was WAY too much yellow. I moved them to the other side of the yard.

In fact, when I laid out the plants, I realized that I had too much yellow altogether; not enough red or whites, and hardly any blue (except for the forget me nots).

"Honey, we have to got back and buy some more colors. Let's stick to small plants..."

So off we went, and Linda saw some Bleeding Hearts, so we grabbed a couple of those, and then a really cool owl statue....

Once again, we went way, way over budget.

Went back and started planting. About half way through, I decided to only plant about 60% of the flowers I'd intended to use. I decided to give each plant plenty of space, so that in about 2 years, everything will fill in nicely. Plus, I decided that I'd plant each species of perennial in both the front and back yards,