Ah, January. I have created a new folder in Photoshop Bridge entitled Garden 2011. I have one single photo in it, but it’s an important one—a shot of where we’ll be creating a woodland garden.
Out of necessity came opportunity. We had the local tree guys out to take down a large tulip tree that was in imminent danger of falling onto the chicken coop and across the driveway. It was a tricky undertaking because of its location. The older of the father/son pair is in his 60s, but you wouldn’t know it by the way he scampered up that tree. Starting at the top he sawed off limbs and then he topped it. I was in the house when the top 10 feet of the tree came down. There was a huge crash, which I would have been worried about except I heard the two men erupt into whoops of glee. Isn’t it great to take joy in your work?
Anyway, the rest of the tree came down, as did another in the way. I will also have to move a lot of the hostas I planted there in the past two years since they will now likely scorch in the sun. I’m not showing you photos of it all because the whole process made a humongous mess that I will have to deal with when the thermometer climbs above freezing.
While the tree guys were here they made me a good deal offer to clear some of the woods. I hopped on the chance to get this section of the woods cleared of underbrush and trash trees. It is the area near the house that we look on when we eat dinner outside in the summer. Without all the tangle of underbrush and trash trees, we’ll get a better view into the woods. We’ll also put in a path and a bench to overlook a ravine that you can’t see very well in the photo.
Whatever else goes in the woodland garden, I am determined that it will be low maintenance. We already have a healthy crop of moss. I like moss. Some of the hostas will also find a new home there. Then there will be bulbs. And a hammock. And my bottle tree.
So here you have it, the first view of the new woodland garden.
Robin
Here it is September 12. The air conditioner is off and the windows are open—at least when it’s not too chilly anyway. I spent the afternoon rotating out the summer clothes and bringing out the sweaters and long pants. Where did summer go?
My blog here at Bumblebee has been quiet. That’s not because I’m not growing food and flowers and herbs. It’s because at some point I have to make a choice between living my life or writing about it. With my consulting job, little dogs, chickens, cat, garden, house plants—not to say anything about the husband and son home from college—I felt pulled to so many directions. I have been falling into bed at night thinking of everything that didn’t get done.
So, consider this a little bit of a catch-up post with just a few photos that I neglected to share until now.
In one of the beds leading to the front door I planted a variety of coleus and nestled a birdbath planted with succulents. At first the coleus looked a bit sparse, with a lot of mulch showing. I pinched it back and before long it was so bushy and tall that the birdbath was lost in the dark burgundy, black and green foliage of the coleus.
The birdbath has these little orangish flowers that open in the sunlight, creating a beautiful display. I have to admit that I was inspired by Debra Lee Baldwin’s Succulent Container Gardens, which I received as a review copy and drooled over but neglected to write about until now. Buy the book. You will love it.
I have decided that succulents have a big future in my garden, since watering takes a great deal of time and the succulents can fend for themselves.
After two bad tomato years due to fusarium wilt and late blight, we have finally had a good tomato year. I had to dig new beds in a whole new area of the yard as well as plant some hybrids in an attempt to foil the fusarium wilt. I am considering solarizing a large area of the potager next year. I don’t look forward to the ugliness of plastic on the ground or having so much area out of production, but it may come to that.
In the meantime, we had a good year for strawberries, lettuces, cucumbers, the most adorable and sweet tigger melons and herbs. Herbs galore! Our needs here are fairly simple, so I continued to focus on ornamentation in the potager as well as production. But pots do need watering, don’t they. *sigh*
I have some fun news to share about the chickens, but that must wait for another day.
Robin
I never really understood the interest in growing monster vegetables to see how big they can get. To me, the point of vegetable growing is to eat the things. But more often than not once a vegetable reaches gigantic proportions it is no longer edible.
But perhaps it’s akin to my fascination with sunflowers. I have grown short, bouquet-worthy sunflowers. I have grown stunning, nearly black sunflowers. I have grown dainty sunflowers. But what I really adore is a colossal sunflower. Towering sunflowers. The kind of sunflowers that makes visitors stop and say, “Is that real?”
Until this year the tallest sunflowers I have grown were Mammoth. They grew to about 8 or 9 feet, towering over the rest of the garden.
But this year I grew Titans—the biggest yet. I measured them this morning at 12 feet tall.
Visitors ask me if they are staked because it seems so improbable that a flower on a single stem that tall could stand up without assistance. But the stalks are nearly as round as my wrist, so they are standing tall all on their own.
Now, what’s bigger than a Titan?
Robin
