I put that azalea in the hole we took the bradford pear tree out of. I planted it twice and it was heavy both times.
Lost my phone in the yard, thought maybe it had fallen into the hole so I uprooted the azalea and dug around in the mud to no avail. Wouldn't have worked if I'd found it in that hole under the azalea since I had filled the hole to the brim with water after setting the azalea into it. lol
I found the phone quite by accident when I was trying to put up the water hose. It got caught on something and when I stepped back off the deck-in-progress to fetch it, I saw the phone lying there with the tangle of waterhose--working as intended, thankfully.
It was after dark; I was working by the light of the tractor headlights. What can I say?
Tractor came in handy to move those last 10 bags of quikrete to the utility shed fm the drive. Now I want a little wagon to pull behind it since moving them one at a time was a chore. I tried two at a time twice. Both times one bag fell off; one busted open. :(
Now that you've cleared this bed, I can recommend a planting combination for you that would be lovely there and not too expensive since you have a lot of it.
I would plant the spring bulbs (iris, crocus, daffodils, and hyacinths) with and beneath the canopy of massed hostas and ferns.
Get some day lilies from Anthony to scatter through the mix--clumped here and there (clumps of 3-5). You won't need too many since the bed isn't that large. You could also move yr calla to here if it needs to be relocated fm the patio bed, and add a few of yr caladiums when you are ready to set them out in the spring. Not many though, because I think the upright foliage of the lilies would be a better complement esp with their blooms rising above the most of the plantings. More of these so they dominate any calla or caladiums, is what I'm trying to express.
Purchase a flat of golden creeping jenny as soon as wmart or one of the nurseries stocks it in early spring (I got mine fm wmart last year) and use it for the edger where you pulled all that liriope--two six packs might be enough. It is a perennial so you only have to buy it once. It will stay flat and never dominate the space like the liriope tried to. It will provide a low-growing carpet for the front of the bed and look nice where it spills over the edge onto the sidewalk. Its foliage is golden-yellow; its cup-shaped summer blooms are bright yellow.
I'd also add some interest with a few blue fescues or silk tassel sedges up front just behind the creeping jenny. The silk tassel sedge is also blue, like the blue fescue, but its mounded grasses are softer. You won't want too many of either as these would just be to complement the yellow of the creeping jenny and provide a transitional height to the hostas and ferns, as well as hide some of the spring bulbs dying foliage since they die back so early, but need to be left for their full life-cycle if they are to make offset bulbs for the following spring.
Dwarf mondo (Ophiopogon japonicus) is expensive. $90 for 24 of them or 500 for $190) Didn't know this. I should grow a bed of it and sell on ebay for 3/4 price. Walmart had nothing on the shelves, They had a few sedge, but it said it grew to 5 feet. Live oak has 1.59 per flat of dianthis, pansies, or one other choice, I can't remember. I have in the bed the holly fern, ferns, hosta, and moved a little of what I think is a sedge family: http://www.nzplantpics.com/pics_grasses/carex_morrowii_evergold_small_01.jpg so we must be thinking alike.
Ridiculous. I got a flat for free fm Live Oaks. I already have some in the ground from before before. I got my original start fm under the tree at that empty house on the corner of the hwy and Ferriday Dr as soon as you turn into Ridgecrest. They have tons and tons more where that came from. In fact, just yesterday as I passed I was thinking I should go back and nab another couple of shovels of it. It will never be missed since there is so much and the house is vacant.
It is a slow grower, but I will give you a few anyway to get you started fm what I have here.
Stines has plants. You can chk out what is on their shelves. They gave me collards and purple cabbage and strawberries when I was there the last time. The orange stickers are all half price. They had grasses when I was there. I'm going back after a sampling, probably this weekend. You don't want a 5' tall one.
Remember that things grow shorter and more open in the shade so always think abt where you are planting. For sun-loving plants, full sun in zone 9 and 10 is likely to get to the full height. Full sun here is likely to get nigh the full height. Morning sun only will not get it there for sun lovers. Don't ocunt on more than 2/3 height if planting in mostly shady position.
If you are going to build up the new bed by the drive with soil and mulch, then don't turn it over at all--and definitely don't till. You can suppress the weeds better if you just smother them with a layer of newspapers (7-10 sheets and don't leave any cracks where they overlap) covered with your new soil and mulch. Plant in the build up. By the time the newspaper decomposes (with the earth worms help--they love it), the new plants will have taken root and the weeds will be smothered. This is the recommended planting method by organic growers and many others. They say that tilling and turning over upturns a lot of weed seed that will sprout faster than all-get-out. It also kills a lot of beneficial insects that keep yr plants healthy.
The Lasagna garden encompasses thick layers of organic mulch as well as other ingredients. You can utilize chopped up leaves (done with a lawn mower), grass clippings, hay, straw as pictured here, sawdust, a little wood ash, compost, humus, animal manure, newspaper, cardboard, peat moss, bonemeal, and bloodmeal. This of course in no way implies that all of these materials need be used in your lasagna layering garden. I would presume that the use of ingredients would vary with the availability of materials in your locale.
The bonemeal provides phosphorus which should be sprinkled on top of your finished lasagna garden. The blood meal would make an excellent substitute for ether manure or grass clippings. Googling no dig gardening turns up tons of resources, but the above is probably all you need.
This is the perfect method for the bed you want to put in.
The one layer you cannot leave out, regardless of which soil or mulching ingredient you use, is the paper on the bottom to smother the grass and weeds. Let me recommend the newspapers over the cardboard method. It is actually stronger. I've used both methods. The cardboard is quicker to go down, but it breaks down sooner and doesn't suppress as well as the newspapers. Also, bonemeal may seem a bit expensive to you--available at wmart & stines with their organic products in gardening--but you are only going to sprinkle it. I buy it every year and use a tsp more or less for new plantings--in the hole with the plant--to encourage a strong root system. It's going to cost abt $6-$8 for the bag, but you'll only need one bag. Just be frugal with it, as recommended. Also, put it in the BOTTOM of the hole in which you plant each plant and do NOT sprinkle it on top of the bed or at the base of yr plants. All the dogs and cats in the neighborhood will try to dig up yr bed if they get one whiff of it. GirlKitty loves it and rubs all over the bag while I'm trying to work. I have to run her off constantly.
Whew! I think it's better to throw the azalea away and start over with a new one. Quote from your link: "They may take a few years to fill out" I only have so many years to enjoy life, and there is nothing uglier than a dead stick azalea, not even mountain women.
I'm newly convinced double that for bradford pear since trying to dig yours up. They are not coming up without a backhoe.
Well, I am only going to plant the one I got fm you until after new years; then I'm going to hard prune it back to dead stick level. I don't care if it blooms the first year or not, I just want to give it a fresh start. lol
Can you get a close-up of those blooms? This looks like these don't have the hummingbird nectar pocket, but the image is of the back of the blooms, so I can't really tell.
I know the leaves. I will think of the name. Clip each stem and make three cuttings. Use yr scissors so the cut is clean. Plant each of them. You can actually make two cuttings out of that long stem, giving you four total. Make sure you take the leaves off the stem that you plant--no leaves below soil level.
The leaves look like evening primrose, which comes in various colors. The one I have grows wild (it's actually a wildflower with a nursery market) and is pink. But those shouldn't bloom until spring.
34 comments:
Nothing to worry about though, I have no plan.
i guess she'll know better than to leave the baby alone from now on.
You could dig up two of them and just swap them back and forth.
Wow! It looked more thought out than that when I was by late this evening!
Have you reached the age where she can trust you to be alone?Just
wondering!
Very funny.
I guess so, but the way you say it it doesn't seem like an attribute :)
Forgot to send an oleander home with you!
LOL
I put that azalea in the hole we took the bradford pear tree out of. I planted it twice and it was heavy both times.
Lost my phone in the yard, thought maybe it had fallen into the hole so I uprooted the azalea and dug around in the mud to no avail. Wouldn't have worked if I'd found it in that hole under the azalea since I had filled the hole to the brim with water after setting the azalea into it. lol
I found the phone quite by accident when I was trying to put up the water hose. It got caught on something and when I stepped back off the deck-in-progress to fetch it, I saw the phone lying there with the tangle of waterhose--working as intended, thankfully.
It was after dark; I was working by the light of the tractor headlights. What can I say?
Tractor came in handy to move those last 10 bags of quikrete to the utility shed fm the drive. Now I want a little wagon to pull behind it since moving them one at a time was a chore. I tried two at a time twice. Both times one bag fell off; one busted open. :(
Now that you've cleared this bed, I can recommend a planting combination for you that would be lovely there and not too expensive since you have a lot of it.
I would plant the spring bulbs (iris, crocus, daffodils, and hyacinths) with and beneath the canopy of massed hostas and ferns.
Get some day lilies from Anthony to scatter through the mix--clumped here and there (clumps of 3-5). You won't need too many since the bed isn't that large. You could also move yr calla to here if it needs to be relocated fm the patio bed, and add a few of yr caladiums when you are ready to set them out in the spring. Not many though, because I think the upright foliage of the lilies would be a better complement esp with their blooms rising above the most of the plantings. More of these so they dominate any calla or caladiums, is what I'm trying to express.
Purchase a flat of golden creeping jenny as soon as wmart or one of the nurseries stocks it in early spring (I got mine fm wmart last year) and use it for the edger where you pulled all that liriope--two six packs might be enough. It is a perennial so you only have to buy it once. It will stay flat and never dominate the space like the liriope tried to. It will provide a low-growing carpet for the front of the bed and look nice where it spills over the edge onto the sidewalk. Its foliage is golden-yellow; its cup-shaped summer blooms are bright yellow.
I'd also add some interest with a few blue fescues or silk tassel sedges up front just behind the creeping jenny. The silk tassel sedge is also blue, like the blue fescue, but its mounded grasses are softer. You won't want too many of either as these would just be to complement the yellow of the creeping jenny and provide a transitional height to the hostas and ferns, as well as hide some of the spring bulbs dying foliage since they die back so early, but need to be left for their full life-cycle if they are to make offset bulbs for the following spring.
Just something to think abt.
While I contemplate these suggestions, some of which I've already started, I added some scenery.
Ok, I moved stuff back & forth.
Good for you.
Dwarf mondo (Ophiopogon japonicus) is expensive. $90 for 24 of them or 500 for $190) Didn't know this. I should grow a bed of it and sell on ebay for 3/4 price. Walmart had nothing on the shelves, They had a few sedge, but it said it grew to 5 feet.
Live oak has 1.59 per flat of dianthis, pansies, or one other choice, I can't remember.
I have in the bed the holly fern, ferns, hosta, and moved a little of what I think is a sedge family: http://www.nzplantpics.com/pics_grasses/carex_morrowii_evergold_small_01.jpg so we must be thinking alike.
Ridiculous. I got a flat for free fm Live Oaks. I already have some in the ground from before before. I got my original start fm under the tree at that empty house on the corner of the hwy and Ferriday Dr as soon as you turn into Ridgecrest. They have tons and tons more where that came from. In fact, just yesterday as I passed I was thinking I should go back and nab another couple of shovels of it. It will never be missed since there is so much and the house is vacant.
It is a slow grower, but I will give you a few anyway to get you started fm what I have here.
Stines has plants. You can chk out what is on their shelves. They gave me collards and purple cabbage and strawberries when I was there the last time. The orange stickers are all half price. They had grasses when I was there. I'm going back after a sampling, probably this weekend. You don't want a 5' tall one.
Remember that things grow shorter and more open in the shade so always think abt where you are planting. For sun-loving plants, full sun in zone 9 and 10 is likely to get to the full height. Full sun here is likely to get nigh the full height. Morning sun only will not get it there for sun lovers. Don't ocunt on more than 2/3 height if planting in mostly shady position.
If you are going to build up the new bed by the drive with soil and mulch, then don't turn it over at all--and definitely don't till. You can suppress the weeds better if you just smother them with a layer of newspapers (7-10 sheets and don't leave any cracks where they overlap) covered with your new soil and mulch. Plant in the build up. By the time the newspaper decomposes (with the earth worms help--they love it), the new plants will have taken root and the weeds will be smothered. This is the recommended planting method by organic growers and many others. They say that tilling and turning over upturns a lot of weed seed that will sprout faster than all-get-out. It also kills a lot of beneficial insects that keep yr plants healthy.
No dig gardening:
http://communitygarden.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/no-dig-brochure.pdf
http://barefeetandafreespirit.blogspot.com/2009/08/no-dig-garden-bed-tutorial.html
http://www.gardening-at-the-crossroads.com/no-dig-gardening.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-dig_gardening
The Lasagna garden encompasses thick layers of organic mulch as well as other ingredients. You can utilize chopped up leaves (done with a lawn mower), grass clippings, hay, straw as pictured here, sawdust, a little wood ash, compost, humus, animal manure, newspaper, cardboard, peat moss, bonemeal, and bloodmeal. This of course in no way implies that all of these materials need be used in your lasagna layering garden. I would presume that the use of ingredients would vary with the availability of materials in your locale.
The bonemeal provides phosphorus which should be sprinkled on top of your finished lasagna garden. The blood meal would make an excellent substitute for ether manure or grass clippings.
Googling no dig gardening turns up tons of resources, but the above is probably all you need.
This is the perfect method for the bed you want to put in.
The one layer you cannot leave out, regardless of which soil or mulching ingredient you use, is the paper on the bottom to smother the grass and weeds. Let me recommend the newspapers over the cardboard method. It is actually stronger. I've used both methods. The cardboard is quicker to go down, but it breaks down sooner and doesn't suppress as well as the newspapers. Also, bonemeal may seem a bit expensive to you--available at wmart & stines with their organic products in gardening--but you are only going to sprinkle it. I buy it every year and use a tsp more or less for new plantings--in the hole with the plant--to encourage a strong root system. It's going to cost abt $6-$8 for the bag, but you'll only need one bag. Just be frugal with it, as recommended. Also, put it in the BOTTOM of the hole in which you plant each plant and do NOT sprinkle it on top of the bed or at the base of yr plants. All the dogs and cats in the neighborhood will try to dig up yr bed if they get one whiff of it. GirlKitty loves it and rubs all over the bag while I'm trying to work. I have to run her off constantly.
When you guys get it all designed and done send me some photos so I can do it.
Whew! I think it's better to throw the azalea away and start over with a new one.
Quote from your link: "They may take a few years to fill out"
I only have so many years to enjoy life, and there is nothing uglier than a dead stick azalea, not even mountain women.
I'm newly convinced double that for bradford pear since trying to dig yours up. They are not coming up without a backhoe.
rofl. that's pretty mean, byron!
Well, I am only going to plant the one I got fm you until after new years; then I'm going to hard prune it back to dead stick level. I don't care if it blooms the first year or not, I just want to give it a fresh start. lol
I have to pick and choose my experts. I'm going with southern living's ,akpr cutback advice, and I'm doing it before easter--prolly in february: http://www.southernliving.com/home-garden/gardens/azalea-pruning-tips-00400000009526/
I tried to save a couple. Threw them away eventually.
Smiling you have been busy there working with all the things around the house Byron. I can see your little helper there...
Can you get a close-up of those blooms? This looks like these don't have the hummingbird nectar pocket, but the image is of the back of the blooms, so I can't really tell.
I think my camera will blur anything any closer
http://tejasmidget.multiply.com/photos/hi-res/241/12?xurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftejasmidget.multiply.com%2Fphotos%2Falbum%2F241%2FSurpriseSurpriseSurprise%23photo%3D12
click on the image
I know the leaves. I will think of the name. Clip each stem and make three cuttings. Use yr scissors so the cut is clean. Plant each of them. You can actually make two cuttings out of that long stem, giving you four total. Make sure you take the leaves off the stem that you plant--no leaves below soil level.
mine would have been blurry already. If you can just turn the flower over so I can see the front of the bloom instead of the stem side, it might help.
The leaves look like evening primrose, which comes in various colors. The one I have grows wild (it's actually a wildflower with a nursery market) and is pink. But those shouldn't bloom until spring.
Is this it?
http://www.birdperch.com/blog/uploaded_images/Berlandier_Lobelia-01.jpg
This one is the pink evening primrose that I mentioned the leaves look like it:
http://www.birdperch.com/blog/uploaded_images/Pink_Evening_Primrose-01.jpg
Here's a yellow one:
http://www.all-creatures.org/picb/wfshl-eveningprimrose.html
It certainly looks like. I think this must be it.
It blooms from August to October It is a short lived perennial (with each plant living for only a few years)
Byron, you should do this:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2m3wGnWBkAk/Sva3MJvLU_I/AAAAAAAACt4/1lcAmJQrdqo/s1600-h/san+1.jpg
I can swap you a start of the giant taro for a start of the philodendron.
http://wwwrockrose.blogspot.com/
A Happy Thanks Giving to you Byron and all within your family...
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