April Garden Notes
We spent the better part of the week outside working on the flowerbeds, and since this blog is the archive of what-I-was-doing-when, I like to file my garden notes here.
Photos from April 22nd, after we did a flowerbed cleanup (pulled out a year’s worth of bermuda grass, planted some seeds and annuals and a new lavender to replace some things that died over the year).
Lots of lettuce ready! Need to eat more salad! After this photo was taken, we did more weeding, rearranged hoses, moved the morning glory (behind lettuce on right) closer to the wall (cement wall to right of photo), planted sunflower seeds, and planted a watermelon seedling in the front of the bed near the nasturtium.
A view from the veggie patch looking down the length of the flowerbed. The far corner has become something of a shade garden because the neighbors’ trees have gotten big. Foreground moving away: nasturtiums, salvia, ice plant, cape honeysuckle (the huge flowering shrub, orange flowers), pink geraniums.
For contrast: here’s what this space looked like three years ago.
June 2008, looking the opposite direction. The lettuce patch above is in that wall/fence corner now.
When I rearranged the hoses later in the week, I made a loop go through the bare mulch part of the nasturtium patch in the foreground. I think we planted some of the flower seeds from the kids’ Easter baskets there, but I’m not sure. We did plant zinnia, cosmos, bachelor’s button, and morning glory farther down the bed toward (but not IN) the shady corner, and a few more sunflower seeds along the back fence where they came up so beautifully two years ago. Oh, and it was CANTELOPE seeds we planted near the nasturtiums, now I remember.
The redug/replanted area to the left of the cape honeysuckle and butterfly bush. There had been a large semicircle of stones sort of where the hose is. They were thick with bermuda grass so I heaped them in piles as we yanked the weeds. Some are still in piles. š We planted the new lavender (above Huck’s head with a new arc of stones), some poppies, moss roses, a fuschia, impatiens, and the aforementioned flower seeds. That’s a bougainvillea on the back fence with the bare lower stalk and new green growth at the top. It’s usually in flower this time of year, dunno what’s wrong this year.
This pincushion flower was a giant clump two years ago. Now just some stragglers, but still one of my favorite things in the garden, especially contrasted against the orange and yellow nasturtiums (to its right) and the cape honeysuckle (left).
April 25. Milkweed is blooming (far right above R’s wrist) and Rose rescued a tired monarch. I know I posted these photos already but it’ll be nice (for my later reference) to have them here in context.
Later in the week, starting Tuesday the 26th I guess, we tackled a woefully weedy flower bed in the front yard. Very small bed bordered with bricks that you could hardly see under the bermuda grass. Rose & I pried them all up, yanked the weeds, returned the bricks to their places, added compost, and planted a few (small, cheap, easily movable if necessary) things: the rest of the flower seeds, some sweet alyssum plants, a yellow daisy. I discovered that the boysenberry plant in my big gray planter—the planter was a gift from my Shakespeare Club kids a couple of years ago—had rooted itself a runner by the house wall–neat!
We also uprooted all the weeds in the backyard strip along our neighbor’s cement wall. It’s ready for planting now–more sunflower seeds, I think. Busy week!
MelanieB says:
Lovely! We planted the first of our flower seeds this week as well. A butterfly mix the girls helped me pick out. Today we bought a lilac bush and some more seeds– sunflowers and a wildflower mix. And manure. Lots of manure.
I should have thought of flower seeds in the Easter baskets. I’ll try to remember that next year. I need to find fillers that aren’t candy. This year I wasn’t very imaginative nor did I have much energy for planning. Hopefully next year sans newborn I’ll be more creative.
On April 30, 2011 at 8:54 am
yvonne says:
Wow, what a big difference you’ve made in 3 years! Beautiful.
On April 30, 2011 at 10:09 am
Heather @ Books for Breakfast says:
Oh, I love nasturtium. You always have the loveliest garden shots, but my favorites are the nasturtiums. Those webby leaves remind me of something you might see under the sea. Unfortunately here, just when they get going, the hot sun bakes them to the ground. Why do we always pine for the plant that we can’t have?
On April 30, 2011 at 12:03 pm
sarah says:
Your garden is beautiful! We wanted one here but the ground is all clay. But we do have a few flowers in pots, including some grown from seeds my father gave my dd. I’ve never had anything grown from seeds before! I envy you your garden so much.
On April 30, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Penny says:
You’ve done a beautiful job there! Like Sarah we’re all clay, so pots abound. I love seeing your garden/butterfly photos š So much nicer than fire ants… lol
On April 30, 2011 at 3:05 pm
sarah says:
The before and after shots are impressive!
On April 30, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Melissa Wiley says:
I started out doing container gardening here because we are renting. But there was all that dirt just begging me to stick things into it. š And then my wonderful mother kept coming along and uprooting vast swathes of weeds, and before you know it, we had a flower garden.
All those nasturtiums are from one little dollar-fifty seed packet! They are an amazing flower in this climate. I’d tried them once or twice in NY and VA, following Linnea’s example in the books, single nasturtium seeds in teacups on the windowsill…but they never flowered. Our first spring here, I saw them carpeting my friend’s front yard and was blown away. Every summer we collect the seeds that carpet the ground beneath the blossoms and tuck them into other bits of the garden. They bloom for months. I’m fairly wild about them. š
I do have a history of creating gardens and leaving them behind before they mature! In VA the little trees I planted were just coming into their own when we moved. When we visited last summer, I was blown away by how huge they are now! And oh, my left-behind berry bushes and strawberry patch!
On May 1, 2011 at 7:08 am
mamacrow says:
oh scabious! How I adore scabious! they grow wild all over the chalk cliffs by my mother’s flat, many different colours. I’ve always thought they look like victorian hats, with many hat pins in them – pincushions would do just as well š
On May 1, 2011 at 12:07 pm