Return to The Project

[Note:When I was suffering my writer's block over at the Garden Bench, I did continue to write about the garden, but fell way behind with uploading photos. And, this blog needs pictures! So, I have updated and uploaded. This was originally written on September 25th.]

As I told you last time, I need to re-do the xeri-garden. I have loved it all summer, but if it's going to be really great in the future, I need to stop and smell the catmint and fix some things.

Too wide. Altho it is a great size for its site, I lost track of one of the big rules of laying out a garden. It is too wide and I cannot reach to the back to weed and to work on the plants. The
landscape timbers that I used come in 8-foot lengths, so it seemed simple to just cut them in half and make the bed four feet across. If I were eight feet tall, that would be fine, but at 5'3", I can just barely reach three feet effectively. So, I need a way to make it easier to get into the bed so I can reach across it. The answer is to install some pavers so that I can kneel on them and extend my reach.

Too shallow. I admitted earlier that I didn't put enough dirt in the bed. In my heart of hearts I knew that when I put in the original dirt, but I was so tired that I did not want to deal with it then. I just wanted to finish the bed. So now I need to add dirt.

Too long. Altho I had no real understanding of how large the xeri-plants would be, I still did not buy enough plants to fill the final space. So, I have bought additional plants and need to move some others around to use the space to a better effect. The agastache 'Ava' and the catmint nepenta 'Walker's Low' are both more than twice as large as I had expected, so they are planted too close together. By spreading them out a bit, I can fill more space and they will have more room to expand some more. I want the bed to look full, but the plants don't have to tumble on top of each other to be pretty, and look full.

I have spent the past two weekends fixing the xeri-garden and am finally happy with the current state. Last weekend I mixed growing medium - hereinafter "dirt". Mitchell needed additional dirt for his square-foot-gardens. There is a specific recipe for that, so I just bought extra ingredients and tried to make enough for my bed, too. Remember that I need 5-6 inches more dirt over 32 square feet. I estimate that at 16 cubit feet of dirt!

Mixing dirt on that scale is hard work. First one dumps all the ingredients onto a large tarp. For me it was three different types of humus, vermiculite, and peat moss. To mix them together you first rake them together and then "tumble" the pile by pulling the tarp from one side to the other in both directions. The goal is to get the mixture to look the same throughout the pile. I made enough to top off Mitchell's bed and started to fill mine - when the rain came! I put what was left back into the big bags and stored it for later use.

It was clear to me that I did not have enough to fill the whole bed, so this weekend I bought some pre-mixed gardening soil, more peat moss and some perlite. I was not able to find vermiculite, so substituted perlite. It tends to clump a bit more than vermiculite, but when used in a fairly small amount, it does fine. So this morning I dumped all the soil I made last week back onto the tarp and added new ingredients. More mixing, more tumbling and I had enough new dirt to finish filling my bed.

Now the hard part. I had to dig up all the plants, add the dirt and replant everything. I emailed the nursery where I bought most of the plants and asked what I should do about the broken agastache 'Ava'. Their recommendation was that I "cut it back hard" since I have nearly 60 days until the first hard frost. In our area that is around November 15, so I am cutting it close, but I have hope.

By day's end I had a new bed. I added five new plants: Three Beard Tongues and two Evening Primroses. Penstemon digitalis 'Husker Red' will be the new "big plant" in the far corner. It should be three feet tall at maturity. Two Penstemon mexicali 'Miniature Bells' will fill the mid-space and the primrose Oenothera fucticosa'Youngii-lapsley' are in the front. Under all the catmint and 'Ava' I found three of the small penstemons that had disappeared. I think they are 'Elfin Pink' and 'Violet Dusk' but will not know until spring. I moved them much closer to the front of the bed to give them more room and some sun!

I also moved all of the sedum 'Neon'. It was also too far back in the bed and hidden under the spreading xeri-plants. When I transplanted it in the spring it was not strong enough to hold up its stems, so they flopped this year and were buried under other foliage. I cut everything back this time, so that they should grow up strong and tall next spring and stand above the surrounding plants.

And finally, you will notice a path of small pavers down the length of the bed. These are for kneeling on so that I can reach the back of the bed to work in it. They are close enough together to put my kneeling pad over two, or I can use them "as is". It will make my work easier, but once spring comes and the plants start new growth they will pretty much disappear from sight.

Let There be Xeri!

Well, it's done. After two weekends of hard - and I do mean difficult and heavy duty - work, I have my xeri-garden. As you can see, it doesn't look like much ... yet. I have been telling you not to get too excited, because now the plants need to grow. I hope I have given them a good start. So, here's the last step, which I finished this morning.

Fortunately, it was a pretty day with very overcast skies. Altho the temperature was already 70 degrees at 6:15, the cloud cover kept it cool to work. Last night I laid out the bed on paper. This is always a good idea when you are working either with lots of different kinds of plants, or when you are working with a big bed. I had both. I had 22 pots including nine varieties, plus ground cover to fill a space that is 64 square feet. To lay out the space I used graph paper and the tags from the plants. The way I do it is to make a list of the plants including their height, width and color [from the tags]. Obviously, you want the shorter plants in the front - duh - but the width determines how close together or far apart you want to put them. A plant that is 8 inches tall x 10 inches "wide" will fill a circle with a 10-inch diameter. So, if you want your plants to fill in the space fairly tightly when they are mature, you need to figure out how far apart to put them. I like about two inches of "overlap", so for those 8 x 10 plants I would put them 8 inches apart instead of ten (10 - 2 = 8). And, of course, you want to consider color. My bed is primarily blue, violet and pink, but with white and a soft yellow to break up the pastels.

I started by setting the pots out according to the plan. You will always want to move a few around when you see how they look. Then I started at the left end at the back and moved left to right and back to front digging and planting. It is very easy with a new bed like this. All the dirt is soft and easy to dig. I waited until they were all in place before watering the bed. I watered twice and will do it again this evening. In addition to the plants I have bought, I pulled a Sedum telephium 'Autum Joy' out of my existing garden and divided it into four clumps for this garden, as well as six or seven clumps of Sedum spurium 'John Creech'. The latter came from Garland's garden nearly 10 years ago and is all over my garden. It's probably my favorite sedum.

If you look at my plan (at the bottom of the post) you might notice that there is about a third of the bed that is mysteriously "blank". That's because I over-built! Truth be told I really didn't realize how big this bed would be. The part that is now filled is about what I had in mind, but I built it much larger, so what to do? Eventually I know that there will be plenty of volunteers and other plants to add, but for now I have filled it with annual plants for color. I may use it next year for a cutting garden, or let Mitchell use it to augment his vegetables.

So, what did I plant? I keep saying this is a xeri-garden, but it is also a hummingbird and butterfly magnet as well. All of the plants can get by just fine on small amounts of water and none of them like to stand in water - hence all the sand and gravel in the bottom of the box to help the water run thru and off down the slope of the yard. Working from the tallest in the back to the front, here's what you will find:

Agastache x 'Ava' - Ava Hummingbird Mint. This grows up to 4 feet tall (so it's next to the fence for support if it needs it). It's a rose pink and will be covered with blossoms from mid-summer until fall.

Penstemon barbatus 'Elfin Pink'. Two feet tall and a bright pink, this is reportedly one of the easiest beardtongues to grow and a hummingbird favorite, and it's next to:

Penstemon smallii 'Violet Dusk', which is also two feet tall and pale purple. It is already in bloom.

Oenothera fremontii 'Shimmer' and Penstemon 'Blue Lips' are at the front. The former is a pale yellow and the latter is ..... pale blue. They are only 10-12 inches tall, so nice for the front. Blue Lips should bloom in June and Shimmer much of the summer.

Thymus serpyllum 'Coccineum', Red Mother-of-Thyme is the ground cover for the left front corner. It will form a carpet and trail over the edge of the box.

Salvia 'Snowhill' fills in behind the Elfin Pink. It is a little taller and white. This, too, is already in bloom, so I get some more instant color from it. The white looks good against the grey fence.

Sedum 'Autum Joy'. I put two clumps in the back left corner. The greyish color will be nice with all these pastel flowers, and the bloom is a bright, bright pink that fades to a pretty brown in the late fall. These plants look terrible at the moment. They would have done better to have been transplanted in the early spring - like early April - when they were short. I think they will eventually make it, but they will not be much to look at this year. There are two more at the far right end of the planting.

Nepeta Walkers Low - Catmint. There is one plant tucked in between the Violet Dark and the sedum at the far right end. This is a clear violet with a slightly grey foliage, so another nice combination with my pinks and purples. It is already 15 inches tall.

Sedum 'John Creech'. As an after thought I added this groundcover along the front of the bed. It forms a lovely two-inch tall mat and will trail over the front of the box.

The last plant that went in was gift from my next door neighbor - a passalong plant. It's an annual or biennial that grows "wild" in her yard, and before weed killer grew wild in my yard. Remember that many "flowers" are simply domesticated weeds! It's in the lamb's ear family and has a lovely deep cerise flower. It will self seed, so will make a good filler in this bed and help with the wild look that I hope to have in a couple of years. When I remember it's name I will tell you!

So, that's the Big Project - all done, except the growing. I feel happy to be finished, but a little let down not to have something on the horizon. Unfortunately, the next project is more in the keeping-up-the-house variety. I'll take some pictures in a few weeks to see if we are making any progress. Happy Gardening!

It's Still Coming Along....

It seems like I have deserted the Big Project, but I have not. I've just been too tired at night to journal what's happening. So here's where we stand as of tonight:

Tuesday - bought and spread 10 bags of gravel. The "buying" part wasn't too bad, but by the time I loaded the sacks on a cart at the store and pushed them thru check-out, I had sense enough to ask for help loading them into my car! At home, I had to unload onto a garden cart and then dump the gravel into the box - not too hard actually, just lots of pounds of rocks!

Thursday - the plants arrived from Santa Fe! High Country Gardens is a class act. Everything arrived in excellent shape - via three day delivery. Nothing was dried out and there was zero damage to the plants. I watered everything and put all the plants in a shady spot to wait. I also picked up 16 bags of sand at the garden center. I was smart enough to get two carts this time, and again, I got help from the nice folks at the garden center loading the car.

Friday - spread the sand. At the right hand end of the box it's about two inches deep and at the left it's four inches. The plants that need the best drainage will go at the left of the box. Once the sand was spread, I started moving dirt from the compost pile. Remember the three wheelbarrow loads of "good" dirt I removed from the site? Well, that was a drop in the bucket to refilling the box. Remember, I built it up 15 inches at one end and six at the other. I am estimating that I have 75 cubic feet inside the box! After dinner [when it cooled off] I loaded more dirt for a total of 17 wheelbarrow-fuls and had the box about half filled.

Saturday - early this morning I started again on the dirt. Six more loads and the right compost pile was empty - actually I dug down about 8 inches below grade before hitting clay again. Fortunately, I had a Plan B. Under the left compost pile was another pile of dirt. I flipped the pile from left to right, moving all the loose and dry material over into the hole on the right side and started digging on the left. Many more loads and I finally filled the box. Unfortunately, I lost count of the loads this morning, but am guessing that it was a total of 35 or so. Remember that this are "girl loads".

The only excitement of the morning was the discovery of a black snake in the dirt under the left compost pile. I dug into him and scared him way more than he scared me, so I gave him a few minutes of privacy to disappear. When I returned to digging, tho, I kept plenty of distance from that part of the pile and kept my feet well away from the shovel. Lesson in composting: there may be snakes in your pile. Chances are they are not dangerous, but keep an eye out!

This afternoon we did a bit more shopping for plants to fill the space. Orange had a great sale on perennials and I got five more that I had not planned on having. Tomorrow we will have the big reveal. Don't get too excited yet, tho. I am planting perennials, so I am planning for the future. It will look sparce for at least a year, and won't be gorgeous until two years from now.

Project # 1 - Rain Delay!

No work today. A slow drizzly overnight rain was still hanging around this morning, along with a cool front that dropped the temperature but left a yucky-stay-inside kind of day. To be truthful, I was glad. With every muscle and joint in my body aching from yesterday, I was glad for the day off!

It is giving me a chance to see if I am right about the natural drainage of the raised bed. So far, water does not stand, but we have only gotten a half inch of rain, so I need to see how it does with a true downpour. Hopefully, we will have some nicer weather this week and I can finish shoveling out the rest of the dirt and start putting in the gravel. Time will tell.


Lessons learned: One - I'm not as young as I wish I were and need to take heavy work a bit slower - if I wish to walk the next day. And, two: wear more sunscreen. The new Neutrogena 70+ works great, but you need to put it everywhere!

Project #1 - It's Underway!

A good day in the garden - at least in the building part of it. I actually got farther than I had hoped. The day went something like this.

7:00 a.m. Working on the raised bed. All the materials were laid out in the carport - landscape timbers cut to length and holes drilled last night. It was a great morning for a project like this - overcast and cool and just the birds to keep me company. By 7:30 the first corner is in. Digging is less hard than I had feared. Fortunately The Tree Man's son had dug up a large section when he grubbed out the stump two weeks ago. I quickly found that I was digging out too much dirt and not too little, as I assumed I would do.

The big challenge was getting it level, the ends perpendicular and the sides parallel. If I could get the first row in properly, the rest would be easy. My father and brother would have measured and drawn plans. I, on the other hand, had spent the past year contemplating. So what does a girl do when she has grown up in a family of engineers? She plans it in her head and then wings it on the installation - and it worked just fine.

10:30 a.m. The entire back wall is built and the lower (left) end. Now I am ready for the hard part. I had assumed that the front would be harder to dig out since that part of the yard had been all in grass, whereas the back part had been a flower bed and therefore previously tilled. What I had not anticipated was that I had guessed exactly right on the amount of rise in the land - from left to right. The timbers I had cut fit exactly right. I only had to dig out a shallow trench for each new timber across the front and the rise worked out just right.

12:00 noon - The box is complete up to the first full four-sided row. And it looks good. Along the way I have hauled out three wheelbarrows of good dirt, two of bad dirt - mostly clay - and one load of grass and root scraps. The latter look like chunks of old decaying bone. It occurs to me, tho, that in a way they were the bones of the tree, so maybe it is a fitting image for them. I was able to leave more than a foot of space for the native honeysuckle, altho I did have to cut several of the ground level roots, and was able to make a small swale to carry any extra water away rather than letting it stand.

Time to take a break for things like food and regular garden maintenance - deadheading, cleaning around the pond, and cutting flowers for the house. Also a nap would be nice!

4:00 p.m. - Look out Laura Ingalls Wilder! I have a mini-cabin - at least that is what Mitchell thinks. He keeps looking for the door. I did have to make a trip to Big Blue for four more landscaping timbers to complete one more row than I had planned, but that was a nice break in the work. While there I picked up some gravel - well 750 pounds of gravel - for the bottom of the box.

Drainage is the crucial element in this project. The plants that I want are xeriscape plants - agastache, penstemon, and salvia. They need for the water to run thru the soil and then drain away - and not stand around their roots. I'll accomplish this two ways: first there will be a couple of inches of gravel and a couple inches of sand in the bottom of the box, and secondly, I'll take advantage of the natural drainage of the site. The land slopes from right to left and from the fence into the yard. So water will naturally run away from this raised bed. By putting in plenty of stone and sand I'll be able to take advantage of and encourage the natural run off.

8:30 p.m. - One last thing to do today. I ordered the plants! Agastache 'Ava' is a dark cerise that could go four feet tall - wow! With the fence as a background it will look great. Penstemon 'Elfin pink' is a clear pink about two feet tall. Penstemon 'Blue Lips' is a clear blue beardtongue with a lavendar throat. It's only 10 inches so will go near the front, along with Shimmer Evening Primrose (Oenothera fremontii 'Shimmer'). At the very front will be Red Mother of Thyme - a three-inch creeping thyme that will spill over the edges of the box - someday. I don't know how quickly they will ship out, so doubt that I will have them for next weekend, but surely in two weeks I'll have it up and running! I will also be moving some plants from my garden - some sea oats for sure, and probably some salvia 'May Night'.

If I can still walk and lift my arms, I'll get the gravel in tomorrow and look for sand.

Project #1 - Step One

Tomorrow's the day. Barring heavy rain tonight I am starting on the new raised bed. Mitchell went with me this afternoon to get the lumber - landscaping timbers - and spikes to hold it together. Then he cut the shorter pieces I will need, and helped me to drill holes in most of the pieces. I may have bought one round too many so don't want to drill the holes until I am sure I will use them.

I've spent several weeks looking and thinking and I know how I am going to do it. A good plan will surely help! I hope to get started early in the morning before it gets too hot. Last summer I successfully put this project off on the grounds that it was too hot, so I need to finish this time before the heat rolls in. I think I am ready to go, but time will tell.

My plan is to build and dig simultaneously. Since the yard slopes, I will start at the lower end and dig in each piece of timber as I go up. We have a good long level that I can use to keep it all level together. As I get the first couple of rows dug in, I will be taking out most of the dirt. There is about 10 inches of good dirt on top of heavy clay, so I will only take the good stuff and just rough up the clay. Once the box is built I will be putting in several inches of rock and then sand for good drainage, so the clay on the bottom won't matter. I'll take the good dirt and mix it with the great dirt that Mitchell has been composting for me and have a good growing medium with excellent drainage. The natural slope of the land will help the water run out at the bottom of the box. If necessary, I can drill a couple of extra holes at the lower end.

Which brings me to my little helper. The last two times I have gotten the wheelbarrow I have found a little snake underneath. Technically he's a "common ribbon snake" - a form of garter snake - and appears to be about three feet long and the diameter of my thumb. The first time I saw him, tho, I did not think he was so "common". While I did not scream or go "eek" , I was startled to find him there. He froze and played invisible. When I went back a few minutes later he was long gone.

He's actually quite pretty - with stripes of several shades of brown and tan... like ribbons. I knew immediately that he was not poisonous; I do have sense enough to know what they look like! He has taken refuge in one of the compost piles. I normally keep the wheelbarrow upside down on the newer pile, so it provides a warm, dry spot for my little friend. Now that I know he hangs out there, maybe I can get his photo! I'll need to borrow his roof tomorrow, so will probably see him for a few minutes early in the day.

I would love to get the box built this weekend and then get the gravel and sand in over the next week. I have a few plants in the yard that I am going to transplant there, but mostly I need to order the plants. This is truly a long term project and won't be pretty until the middle of next summer, but the gardening game is not for the instant gratification crowd.... you have to plan ahead and then enjoy the wait.