my garden

We moved into our house from a flat in July last year. I have two small yards, one front and one back.....and I mean small. The back one is about twenty feet long, and that is to the furthest point - it's triangular. The back yard has a small concrete patio area, and a tatty lawn - even tattier now we have our dog! The front has just lawn, also, except for one overgrown rose bush in the middle of the lawn. I meant to cut the bush back but then I looked and it is full of bud so I will wait now until after it has flowered.

My plan for the back yard is to pave it and make into a courtyard type garden, with lots of shrubs and flowers in pots and hanging baskets. I doubt that will be happening this year though as there's not a lot of spare cash at the moment. As for the front yard, eventually I hope to have that looking really pretty, but I am undecided as to where to have flower beds and what plants I want etc, plus at the moent the huge overgrown rose bush would prevent me from doing much there.

So, I expect that this year I am just going to be planting up pots and tubs, and even those will have to go on the paved area at the side of the house (my entrance is at the side). The puppy will eat them if I put them in back - she is a terror I do also have one small bed by the street door so I am thinking what to put in there.

Sweet peas are my favourites, so I must have those. I like busy lizzies as they make such a good show. I adore honeysuckle so I might plant one of those somewhere. I want to plant some pyrocanthus along my side fence at the front of the house, too. I would like to grow herbs too, and maybe some tomatoes. Oh and I forgot night scented stock, I love those. And nicotiana. And....

okay I'll shut up now. You did ask!

This year, I planted blueberries and a couple of plum trees. I planted a hedge that will hopefully grow very tall very soon so that I won't have to look at that awful neighbor of ours much longer I also planted some flowering shrubs. We have very poor soil and planting things means buying a lot of dirt. Now, I am out of money but still hope to somehow manage to buy some strawberries before it's too late to plant them. We planted blackberries a few years ago and those bushes are loaded!

I also plan to "plant" some more grass (have to use sod because nothing will grow in our soil by itself ) and create two more flower beds. Actually, one of those flower beds I plan on using as a little veggie garden. I also would like to plant a couple of cherry trees and maybe an apple tree. All those things will have to wait until next year, though. I wish, we had started taking care of our yard when we moved in ten years ago. Oh, well, better late than never.

Honey, I bet your yard looks just like the British yards on "Ground Force". Maybe you can get them to come over?

Kitty, good luck fighting those pesky rabbits!

Anja - I have yet to see an episode of Ground Force with a yard as tiny as mine! Maybe I should invite them over - shame Alan Titchmarsh isn't in it anymore, I have a bit of a soft spot for him

We moved into our place a year ago, and we're just starting to make a mark on the garden. The beds right up next to the house are going to have to remain kind of crummy this year, because we'll have construction workers tramping all over them. But we're having some fun in other parts of the yard.

We're doing some awful-neighbor management ourselves, though we're using a big fence. Not much is happening in back right now, but there are plans. We've got a highly inconvenient row of gall-infested forsythia that we'll be taking out and replacing with -- what? I'm not sure. It has the best light in the yard, so I want to put something great there. Possibly a little pear tree, maybe an arbor with table grapes or Zephirine Drouhin roses. We need something there, but that forsythia is a big pain. It arches over a path we use a lot, and it keeps smacking us in the head; every time we cut off a head-smacking cane, another one drops down to smack us.

In front, our clematis arbor is blooming like crazy, as are the Angelique tulips, the pansies, and the lilies-of-the-valley. The Pink Impressions and cute little Tarda tulips have just finished. All those tulips were wedding presents to us, and it makes me feel warm and happy to see them blooming. I'm wishing I'd planted alliums -- maybe next year.

We've just taken down a huge, sick old camellia bush in the front. It's hard to take down a large plant like that, but it was an ugly maintenance hog and would have gotten in the way of the people replacing our siding. I think I'm going to hire somebody to take the stump out; it's just too much for us. Anyway, we have a gigantic pile of branches now; I think we'll be renting a chipper. (Whee!)

Not everything is entirely hunky-dory. I didn't get the peas planted on time, and we've got a whole lot of chickweed. But in general it seems like a reasonably good year for the garden. I sure look forward, though, to the years when we get to just maintain the beautiful garden instead of being out there doing heavy labor with the shovels and saws. I keep telling myself that'll happen eventually.

When we get the vegetable garden all set up, we'll also try out our new toy, the Scarecrow. We have some problems with cats and raccoons. The Scarecrow is a motion- and heat-sensitive sprinkler that automatically squirts the offending varmints with a brief blast of water. (Muah hah hah hah... *ahem*) I hope it works.

-- Cam

So I'm not willing to put too much effort into my yard. I have two rose bushes I keep in large pots, so that I can take them with me everywhere we go. My hubby bought them for my for anniversarys. (First I had to tell him too - I don't want roses that are just going to die, I'd rather have soemthing I can keep.) I also planted some pansies, cause they're pretty low maintenance. Some day, though, I'm going to have my own home, and I'll plant everything, from flowers to vegetables. Anyway, that's my dream.

So far we have in two rows of lettuce plants, 4 rows of lettuce seeds in various stages of development, and two rows of spinach seeds. We still have to get our green beans in. Danika is so excited about the green beans. She tells everyone we meet that we are growing greenie beanies for her! This is the first year we'll have a garden at our new house. Part of the reason we bought the house is that it has such a lovely raised garden bed, but the years we bought the house we didn't move in until the end of July and Danika was only 5 months old, so I didn't even try. Last summer I planted some zucchini but I neglected it terribly and the rabbits ate the plants. This year we have installed rabbit-proof fencing. We have an unbelievable amoutn of rabbits around here!

All the books I read about gardening make it sound so complicated, but when I was growing up my mom had a huge (1/4 acre) garden that she grew an astonishing variety of veggies and corn in. And I don't remember her doing anything hi-tech to it. She basically planted the stuff, kept it weeded, and let it go! I hope it's that easy. One of my best friends has a degree in sustainable agriculture and organic gardening (from Evergreen State in Oregon), so she'll be able to help me if I run into problems.

The neighbors are going to use the back half of our garden to grow tomatoes. They have a daughter that is one day older than Danika, so we enjoy working outside together while the girls play. And now that we have a swingset up, Danika entertains herself quite well outside.

Danna =]

That's all I'm putting into my flowerbeds and borders right now! I can't wait until I have the time to do some REAL work!

My bulbs came up beautifully this year, and I made a list/map of everything I need to divide this fall for replanting.

With the MIL situation, we don't have much $$$ for "new" plants, but I do hope to at least get the weeds pulled and a couple of new flowers (Perennials) in. I may go ahead and plant my deck-boxes, planters and hanging baskets, too; since they can be brought in if we get a frost/freeze (like we did last night!!!)

Happy digging!

Lenora

being low on my own money to play with I gave my DH six,,six free lawn mowings[BD present]. So yesterday I mowed the front sides AND back. I usually mow the front so this is quite a bit more than I normally do. I even did the weed wacker and trimmed all around. It looks fabulous. I have a huge yard and so all the time I kept thinking how many calories I was burning It was not real hot but my face always turns beet red. Such satisfaction when I was done. We had so much rain lately that I could not mow when I should have...low yard and stays wet.So it was quite long.

beans are 3 inches tall and peas 3 or so. I need to plant more today as all of them did not germinate. strawberries have blossoms but I know it will probley take a few years to get a crop. Planting two tomatoes today,,,DD13 and I are the only one who likes tomatoes. Herbs are doing well.

also planting annuals out front today ,,plus a phlox[sp] that is so pretty. It is veragated green cream and pink

happy planting to all

Monday was a beautiful day! I mowed the front yard (I leave the back and sides for DH because it grows so fast that it needs to be bagged.) I also pulled all the weeds, wayward grass, and old icky mulch from the rings around the little trees on the devil's strip (treelawn?)...I ended up with a nesty sunburn on my back :mad:

I planted two hanging baskets of ivy geraniums for the front porch, and MIL bought two flats of impatients for the back of the house.

I still need to get the deck boxes planted, and mulch "everywhere." I think I want the black mulch...I think it's so pretty!

Lenora