I've been MIA for a few days because I've been involved in a gardening frenzy. I have a huge outdoor project just beginning and this one will keep me busy for a long time. For Years, I have sorely neglected the guest house gardens and they are in need of a lot of help. I've decided to turn them into a cottage garden but it is going to be very difficult because of the vast root system I have from all of the trees I planted 25 years ago. I also planned a container garden for the side of the house next to the outdoor sink. These pots will be filled with dwarf hydrangeas, hakone grass, apricot roses, hostas and ferns.
The plan is that everywhere you are seeing brown right now, yu eventually will be seeing green along with assorted other colors. I dug every single root of 'creeping jenny' out of this raised bed and transplanted them all over the garden. I learned a really good lesson from creepy jenny!
I had some brown pea gravel which I put down between some patio stone just to see if I like it and I do! I will be placing the gray version of it throughout the entire patio. I am also planting around the base of each pillar.
I have made many trips to nurseries and right now I have plants sitting everywhere waiting to go into the ground. If only I could plant as fast as I can shop.
This is an area that is so dense with roots that it is impossible to use a shovel. You can see some happy creeping jenny that I am hoping will spread the way it did in the raised bed. It could cover a lot of ugly brown.
I am going to plant lettuce pots this year instead of planting them in the ground. They will give me a quick and easy salad garden that I can move around to follow the sun as the trees leaf out and shade most areas.
I did plant Russian red kale and lacinato kale along with collards in the raised bed so we shall see if they grow. This entire area is very shady.
My new outdoor sink is piled with pants. I use old milk jugs for watering at this time of year. The plants are small and I like to be able to control just how much water I am giving them. It takes a lot longer to water but it is a good time investment in the long run.
I've been working on this area which is located under a large perrotia tree. I am using a Japanese hori hori knife to dig here and it takes forever. Eventually, I am hoping that this will be a wonderful perennial bed.
This is one of my more ambitious projects, I am planting climbing hydrangeas at the base of many of my trees that have ugly trunks. I dig inch by inch and squeeze the plant in between the trees roots. I really won't see the results of this for several years because climbing hydrangeas come from the group of plants that old gardeners call...sleep, creep and leap. The first year they will do nothing except fight for root space. The next year they will show bit of growth. The third year they should put out a lot of growth. They better hurry up because I'm not getting any younger!
So, this is what I've been up to! If I go missing, you can find me in the garden.
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