It's become clear to me through posts and PMs that there are some gardeners here just waiting for the chance to discuss gardening!
So, I was thinking... how do you use gardening, or how does it affect you if you need a break, need some respite, need to relax, need inspiration....how do you use it as a therapy tool in caregiving?
What are your activities: Do you go out and pull weeds, read a magazine, design new beds? Look through garden catalogues? Go to garden stores?
And what interests have you added to your gardening? Visit estate or garden displays? Do you go to garden shows?
Does anyone design and plant Knot Gardens? Raised bed planters? Assistive gardens? Pollinator gardens (and have you thought of ways to help the bees and butterflies?)
Are your gardens primarily for pleasure or food, or a mix of both? Do you grow plants for medicinal purposes? Which ones, how do you harvest and process them? Any suggestions?
Do you grow plants that can be used in crafts, such as grapevines for wreaths and lavender for lavender wands? Do you make herbal products such as creams, lotions, chapstick?
What else can you share about gardening and the means in which it nurtures your soul?
Gladimhere: Saw your container garden grown when you had that as your avatar. Amazing success there! Meant to mention it, but I was distracted. The containers were like metal horse troughs? Beautiful! Was not aware you were planting so many and grouping them. Good job!
Sharyn: You ordered more Iris for your new home! Landscaping a new just built property just doesn't always take off the first time, even if you hire landscaper.
The dichondra lawn had to be replaced with St. Augustine after a year. The soil with construction debris is just so difficult, and may need several inches to feet of good topsoil, imo. Good luck on your new flower bed!
My goal is to ask hubs to take out and discard the dead Cape Honeysuckle that died in the heat. There is another one just taking off, growing green, and huge!
Are you saving the rocks from your land? I found some big concrete chunks at the back of my yard; I suspect they were left over after the builder finished his concrete work and it was easier to just bury them than haul them out. No problem; they became the border for my woodland garden.
My father told me that decades ago that's where developers as well as homeowners buried some of their trash - at the end of the property. I did find some very small bottles which I believe were some kind of medicine bottle.
The garden area was a different story. That area, for the rest of the block, was originally a swamp that was filled in when the block was developed. I wondered why I smelled water, as if I was at a lake, when I began digging. It wasn't until much later that I learned about the swamp.
Lots of double digging, compost, and the garden became prolific with great soil, so much so that every little seedling that drops from the 4 junk tree widow makers in the yard next door sprouts, and grows, and grows and grows.
As far as if they put anything down before laying the sod in the front, I don't know. The landscaper who put on the sprinklers and sod in the front, would not call us back re the backyard so I called another company. I will find out more Monday as I have sketched my design plan with the need for the soil to be raised by the fence line as the neighbors sprinklers keep about 3' out from the dense very wet. My plan will is to have a flowerbed the width of the patio about 3' wide but it will have be filled in and mounded with pavers around it. It all depends on $$$.
I also remember my mom putting bricks at the base of her hydrangeas to change the color of the blooms. Red bricks would change the blooms from blue to pink as I remember, though someone could tell me differently
Double digging is extremely helpful, but if you have a strong back and want to try it, start with a small area first.
Mulch (dried lawn clippings, dried last year's leaves) can also help by slowing down soil dry out.
And earthworms are a big help as well. If you don't drink coffee and save the grounds, I understand that Starbucks gives away bags of coffee grounds to gardeners. Work them into the soil and the worms will come and provide some underground tilling for you.
The main trumpet is huge. Probably 12 feet tall, three or four vines braided together. Dang things they are coming up all over the yard. Have pruned many o u t, but they will be back. And the puncturevines poor Macy's feet. I pull them s I fine them. Walk the yard with my work gloves. Those things are really nasty!
Are you locked out again, leaving your friends? Your messages box is closed, hoping you are okay, and know that you are missed!
Also, Garden Artist, originator of this thread, glad to see you returning lately!
It's okay to come and go, but so nice to keep in touch with the old gang.
HELLO!
Grow morning glories and twine them all around the bark. They choke the tree and prevent it from getting air. Or strip the bark and grow the MGs then, winding them around the bark.
Stump killing is necessary too. I usually dig out around the stumps, strip the bark, and again, use morning glories to kill the rest.
I discovered that MGs do double duty as beautiful flowers as well as junk tree eradicators. And what could be lovelier than those pretty little flowers?
I don't hate the big trees though, the grow fast, make good shade and the leaves are small enough that raking isn't always necessary. Don't get me started on Norway Maples though....
Today (and every year) I pulled out my handy-dandy saw and cut out a huge pile of Boxelder saplings that keep invading my mom's lilacs. They just love to come right up through the center of the clump of lilacs, where they're hard to reach to cut down. Thought I'd gotten them all, then came back inside and looked out the window - nope - there are at least 2 more in the center of the lilacs, and about 8-10' tall. The trunks on those suckers are about 2" in diameter. Also cut one out of the flower bed that keeps coming back every year - the roots to that one go under the garage, so I can't yank them out. Then I trimmed the new sprouts that were coming out of the sides of the big Boxelder trees themselves.
I'd get rid of the big trees, but after the great pine tree purge of 2014, they're the only large shade trees left on that side of the yard.
I've got to get some herbicide that I can paint on the cut ends of the brush I've cut to get it to stop growing back. Most of them are in locations that I can't get to in order to dig out the roots, and I don't want to kill the surrounding plant life.