OK. If you’ve been keeping up with my posts – here are the pictures I promised you. Hang on to your garden gloves ! They’re a bit scary at the moment, but somehow I think they’re going to turn out quite nicely with about 2 weeks of hard work.

The first two shots are of a perennial garden I planted several years ago when my parents were about to sell their home of almost 20 years. They told me to take whatever plants I thought I would want and that I had approximately 30 days to do it in. Well, when I first planted the dozen or so plants – it worked out perfectly. My 20′ x 20′ square garden was perfect. However, over the years they have multiplied and spread to such a degree that it is more than past time to thin out the crowd and move them to other locations.

Since school will be over tomorrow, my plan is to get out there and weed out as much as I can. This way I’ll know exactly what I have to work with when it comes time to transplant.

The good news is that a clematis that I was certain had died over the winter has come back stronger than ever so I’ll need to put up a trellis to keep that from wrapping itself around the wild roses (alreadying happening) which continue to “thumb their nose” at my efforts to kill them. UGH!   As pretty as they might be in full bloom – they are equally invasive to my “neck of the woods” and I can’t wait to dig the roots clean out of there.  It will mean removing a rather rickety looking fence that I put up 6 years ago to keep the deer out. In the meantime, my son has managed to run into it a couple of times with his dirt bike and I’ve clipped the corners a bit too tight with the riding mower as well. Ah well, just add it to my “DO IT” list, right?

The next big project is to take the plantings (mostly lilies of one kind or another, some hostas and Italian chives) that I have thinned out of the 20′ x 20′ perennial garden and plant them into a foundation garden which has a good start but then sort of fizzles out. This garden will extend about 12 feet past the foundation of the house and down a small slope where it should receive ample sunshine. At the moment it has a shape to it that is no where near big enough to house the plants I think I’ll need to move so I’ll be taking some white spray paint and a hose and deciding approximately how much bigger I’d like to extend it. To make sure the soil stays where I need it to be, I’ll have to erect a small retaining wall on the backside of the extension and that, my friends, is the next project I’ll need to tackle.

Here is what it looks like currently.

This next picture shows the garden extending off to the left. As you can see, it needs some work and I’ll be pulling the brick away from that area and forward from the foundation – then extending it down the slope the dozen or so feet I mentioned above.

So, there you have it. I’m hoping to get started on this very soon and will keep you up to date on my progress.

Happy Gardening !!

I’m still waiting until the actual school year is finished before I can spend the kind of time I really need in the yard. Switching from one 500 square foot garden to a circular 24 foot plot has proved to be more of a challenge than I had originally thought.  The circular garden plot has a 1 to 12 inch pitch down to the septic field of our yard. In order to make sure that all my seeds don’t run to the lower yard, I will need to build up the lower end and erect a retaining wall.

Once the garden is level my next challenge will be to clean up the debris left from burning for 9 years in this area. I know that the ground is fertile since there have been at least 6 volunteer daylillies that have appeared in the last 2 weeks or so.  After a soil test – I’ll know for sure.

I’ve already started 3 kinds of tomatoes and 2 kinds of peppers. I have onion sets ready to plant and am planning to transplant purple sage and oregano. I also thought I would have thyme to plant, but it appears that the sage and oregano have overtaken the small 2 foot by 1 foot plot that had originally been home to one of my favorite spices to use in cooking. Thanks to a local garden center I know I’ll be able to replant a fresh crop.

Stay tuned. I’ll be posting pictures soon as well !!