Weekend update

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Merridee

Feels like every time I turn around something else amazingly cute is happening in the yard. I managed to get all of the plants that Mom gave me finally in and have been thrilled with how great things look.

The lupin are beginning to bloom. I can’t believe how big they got. Looks like the iris are going to bloom this year too — surprise considering the hacking I did to them!

The bed under the front window is being fantastic! The hostas are a recent addition from Mom. Aphids gave the lupin a ravaging but I think they are gone. Gets better every day!

With the hyacinth and tulips done, I moved the calendula around and moved some asters.

Columbine have always been one of my favorite flowers. There was a meadow in Colorado, where if you hit it at the exact right time was a blanket of blue columbine — so wonderful! This white one has been a real treat this year.

I was hoping to rip the satellite pole out but it was too expensive. So I made lemonade out of it. Should be a good spot for cooler veggies. Found that bench for free on the side of the road!

The Thaw

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Merridee

Still a little shell-shocked from the snow storm and with the melting came a muddy mess. Then suddenly, Spring is on its way! It felt like almost overnight my whole yard was ready to wake up and get growing.

Hellebore are blooming and the daffodils burst out of the ground and grew 4 inches in a matter of days! And the pulmonaria are setting out new growth!

Things are growing again!

If I had more time in my life, I would be getting a seriously itchy green thumb! Eager for spring but there are a few things I need to get off of my docket first.

Spring Staging

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Merridee

The storm at the end of September put a full stop on summer. Week before it was hot sultry summer; the week after the air had that crisp autumn bite. Suddenly it was foggy in the mornings burning off to golden afternoons and darn right cold nights. Like I said, the yard was starting to wind down for the year. Especially the garden. The tomatoes all split and the bean vines turned soggy. Time to rip out the garden. And try a winter garden for the first time. So after working 10 days in a row, I finally had a weekend (no one to blame but myself since I AM the person who does the scheduling now.)

Everything got ripped out except the carrots (which have been long, big and delicious), arugula, late august planted peas and radishes.

I threw in some brussels sprouts, leeks, onions, a winter lettuces, just to see. However, the next morning I discovered that bare dirt equals neighborhood cat litter box — Lily was in heaven. So not sure if anything is going to grow or I will be just smelling cat-poop breath this winter.

After sorting the garden, I wanted to get some bulbs in. So last spring, I toured the awesome tulip fields up by Mom and Dad’s and the master plan was to order some bulbs from those farms and have the folks bring them down. But the timing and my vacation lazy foiled that plan. Plus I was nervous about the squirrel epidemic we seem to have going on in this neighborhood. Seriously, there are about a bazillion of them — much to Lily’s delight. She has biffed it on the garden beds and fences numerous times trying to get one. Thankfully she gracefully pretends it didn’t happen and jauntily returns to smile at me. She really isn’t serious about catching them, she enjoys the chase. But the nasty little rodents can be mayhem on bulbs. And, swear on my soul, the more I spend on bulbs the more likely they are to find them delicious! So instead of the fancy Skaggit County tulips, I went the Fred Meyer route. But what I lack in pedigree, I am making up for in volume! So I planted a 152 bulbs in the front yard this weekend (and destroyed my bulb digger in the process). If the squirrels don’t eat them all, I should have a colorful spring.

60 tulip, 60 crocus, 24 hyacinth, 8 paperwhites. There are already some daphs under the window and grape hyacinth by the drive way, otherwise those would have been included in the mix.

Stewing Over the Herb Garden

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Merridee

When I came up with my master plan for the herb garden, I wanted everything in that bed to be either edible (but not vegetables) or flowers that had a medicinal uses — basically not just another flower garden. I was hoping to plant all kinds of herby things that I had never grown before. Part of my inspiration for this was from one of my former tenants — Kaitlyn, who was really into herbs and making tinctures, etc. When we lived together she was volunteering at a farm garden and was always bringing home stuff I had never heard of. So I thought it would cool to start growing some of these things too.

Off to the happiest place in the world — Portland Nursery — I went with a shopping list of the fun I wanted to get. Of course they had all of the basics — basil (6 kinds), sage (4 kinds), oregano, thyme, blueberries (4 kinds!), strawberries, lavender, mondara, etc. But I wanted new things too. However when I started browsing around, they didn’t really have anything that I would consider special. Sad. So I came home and started planting away, including all of the herby things I had brought with me.

I plopped my bounty in the ground but things looked pretty bare.

The blueberries are between the long walk and the patio, with chamomile and callengula. Transplanted a chive, but still not enough to fill things out. So the compromises began, starting with a trellis of morning glory that can up from seed.

I moved some lilies from a pot and put in some more monarda and Hyssop (from Kaitlyn). The pots will have herbs that are notorious for getting overgrown — lemon balm, oregano, mints.

After planting everything I had on hand, I was frustrated and didn’t want to run all over town finding plants that fit the plan. So it has kind of become a free-for-all. But it is finally looking less sparse. I think this will be a work in progress bed and I will move the plants out to other places when I find things that are more inline with the original goal.

It will do for now. Doesn’t look terrible and I know that things will grow.

Oats and Beans and Barley Grow

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Merridee

OK, so I’m not growing oats or barley, however, I am growing beans. But I always sing that Raffy song in my head whenever I plant a garden. We used to listen to Raffy as a family when we were on road trips and it reminds me of happy family times and of home with veggies from my mom’s garden and makes me believe that by singing that song, my garden will be as prosperous as my mom’s always was. Hopefully with this lovely new soil, I’ll have bumper crops this year!

I followed my original plan. Hoping for a great bounty.

The count: 5 tomatoes, 6 peppers, radishes, 2 eggplant, carrots, zucchini, yellow summer squash, patty pans, acorn squash, delicata squash, peas, green beans, arugula, 2 kinds of mix lettuces, 2 kinds of beets.

Signing Bonues

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Merridee

When I moved into this house, as I have mentioned, there was basically no landscaping to speak of. That is, except 3 roses, some iris, the tropical lily thing, a yuca (why anyone would ever in Portland!) and some basic annuals along the front porch. Most of the annuals died in the frost last fall except for some snap dragons, which wintered-over and are doing great. Score! The yuca is doing its thing and hasn’t made me angry enough to rip out. But the real surprise has been the roses and the iris.

I know most people adore roses, but I find them too high-maintenance and fiddley to be worth it. And I don’t like plants that can stab me. However, after a good pruning these are all doing great and already have blooms. The one at the back of the house is particularly lovely.

A lovely surprise

Like roses, Iris don’t really do much for me. This is especially surprising considering I have a great aunt or second cousin or something that actually bred iris and named a variety after me — DeAnna’s Daughter. I assume it was named for me since I did meet her when I was 12 or something and I am the only one of my mother’s daughters that cares a fig about gardening. Long after she named the plant after me (:-?) and I was taking care of my parent’s house in Loveland, Colo., she called looking for my mom and we chatted for over an hour. She called back several times and I found her to be a delightful, if overly chatty woman. Sadly, I don’t think I know of anyone who has a DeAnna’s Daughter iris and I have no idea what it looks like. Second cousin/great aunt has since died and her business was liquidated. Google has failed me. Sad.

Not sad is the showy display of the iris in my new front yard.

Lovely iris in the front yard

Shopping Spree

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Merridee

I inherited my love of gardening from my mom (and my love of overalls from my dad). In fact most of my phone calls with my mom consist of: “How are you?” “Fine.” “How are you?” “Fine.” “But the deer and slugs are wrecking the south bed.” “I know, slugs are trashing my hostas. But my lilies are being fantastic.” Etc. It can go on for hours. My siblings think we are both weird.

So digging all of these new flower beds, I knew it was going to be crazy expensive to get plants to fill them. But my parents have an lovely 5-acre spread up on Whidbey Island and I knew that Mom would have a ton of stuff that she could give me that would just end up in her compost pile if I didn’t go up and fetch it. So I planned a trip — get plants and have a nice visit with my folks. Perfect. But I needed to go sooner than later because they were going on a cruise for most of the month of May. After juggling my work schedule, the dates were set. Then by cosmic chance, I found out that most of my aunts and uncles would be there at the same time — a nice surprise since I only get to see them every few years. This is all working out swimmingly!

I headed up on Monday morning early and met Mom, aunts and uncles in La Conner — a cute little town known for its annual tulip festival. We spent the afternoon wandering around town and then went to see the flowers — one of my favorite little adventures.

Aunt Debby, Uncle Al, Aunt Linda, Uncle Larry in the tulips in La Conner

Tulip fields in La Conner. The lines of blooms is one of my favorite things.

Mom as a tulip angel — quite fitting, I think!

The next day, Mom and I got to work. She basically let me go shopping in her yard, which was great for her too since I was basically helping her clean out some of her beds.

This is the house they built a few years ago. It has an amazing view across the Skaggit Bay over to the Cascades and Mount Baker.

We filled the wheel barrow up with all sorts of fun for my yard.

After some other fun with the relatives that night, I left Wednesday morning. But I snagged a cuddle shot of them first.

My Mom and Dad — aren’t they cute. Even with the raspberry on Dad’s head from falling over. He needs to stop doing that.

Made it home with all of my bounty without any drama — not single pot tipped on the ride. Hurray for not driving like a yayhoo — as my dad would say! Thanks for the lovely little weekend, Mom and Dad!

There is a whole lot of cute packed into the back of my truck.

A Little Side Project

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Merridee

There is a massive road construction project going on at my work, The Columbian. One Wednesday, we on the desk were going about our business when one of the ladies in Advertising strolled by and mentioned that the landscaping in the west parking lot was being ripped out the following morning and all of the plants were up for grabs. Several of the desk members have thumbs as green as mine and we jumped at the chance. So during our dinner break, Bob, Romana and I went out to loot. Romana had a shovel in her car (that is a true gardener!) and I was thankful I had a pair of gloves in mine. My bounty was pretty awesome — several little variegated shrubs, 6 giant clumps of tall aster things (thought they were shasta daisies), a little tree and a ton of periwinkle. Loaded my share into the back of my truck and went back to work, sweaty but satisfied.

So now that I had all of this free booty, I needed to figure out where to put it. I knew I didn’t want shrubs in the new front yard bed and I didn’t really have a game plan worked out for the back. However, the front side area was screaming for something low maintenance but cute. The two draggly roses needed some friends.

2 leggy rose bushes and current home to the mulch removed from the front porch. yuck.

Another blank canvass to play with. So my next day off, a few hours of work transformed it.

Dug out a little bed. Plunked in the bushes, some davidii and asters, spread some of the mulch.

Looks much better. Sorry I about the poor photography and shadows. But you get the gist.

The Overall[s] Adventure

Tag Archives: new plants