Archive for the ‘Beds’ Category

The state of the spring

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

I’ll start with the bad news. First, half of the heathers I planted last fall failed to make it through the winter. Some of them were destroyed by animals, others just died. The remainder are still hanging in there, but haven’t shown any real signs of growth. Secondly, many beds have been invaded by weeds and grass. I’ve been pulling them out. Finally, I have to report that I haven’t really had much time to spend in the yard, because I’ve been using my free time to work on my new house.

Now, the good news. My bulbs are fantastic. The crocuses had nice blooms earlier, and many of the tulips are now in bloom – a rich, slightly-orange shade of red. The daffodils are just going out of bloom, they were quite pretty, and the irises and asiatic tiger lillies are growing like mad.

I did find a young Yoshino cherry to plant in the berm (along with a Frech lavender), and it started to bloom 2 days after I stuck it in the ground.

I overseeded much of the front yard. Last summer’s drought was especially hard on the grass.

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Friday night

Monday, September 24th, 2007

When I got home from work on Friday, I found, to my delight, that my order of heathers had arrived. So, I spent my Friday evening planting in the berm I built for my mother. 5 varieties of Calluna vulgaris (heather), 7 varieties of 3 species of Erica (heaths), a dozen Crocus bulbs, and 14 pink tulip bulbs. Watered well, covered with cypress bark mulch, watered again, and by that time it was dark, so I called it a night. It was rather relaxing. I’ll post pictures later.

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Berm

Monday, September 17th, 2007

Well, after much effort, I’ve got the berm in. This was a major project during the late summer and fall at my parents’ house. I ripped up the sod, which took up the most time. Some of the sod I replanted elsewhere, some I discarded. I then installed approximately 50 lineal feet of plastic border, and put a lot of top soil and soil amendments in there in order to fill it in and give it some height. cherryyoshinomain.jpg

For the centerpiece of the back (north) part of the berm, I plan on putting in a Yoshino Cherry tree much like the one shown to the left. However, it appears that I will have to wait until spring before I can acquire a young tree and plant it.

The centerpiece of the front (south) part of the berm will be an ornamental grass of some type. Possibly a Maiden Grass such as this one shown below:

maidengrass.JPG

I’d like to have a lot of mounding plants in the berm, such as a variety of heathers. To that end, I’ve ordered the “Color All Year” collection from heathsandheathers.com. It’s a collection of 6 winter blooming and 6 summer blooming heathers. I think that should look good. For additional summer blooms in a mounding form, I plan on putting in a couple of choreopsis plants, such as this one:

choreopsis.JPG

Finally, I’ll be filling in the remaining areas with plants that bloom in the spring and fall – such crocuses, tulips, and chrysanthemums – and plants with interesting foliage colors and textures such as juniper, artemisia, and ferns.

Below are some pictures of the work I’ve done.

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juniper.JPG

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Recent activity

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

Sorry, no pictures this post.

My current project is located in my parents’ side yard. A few weeks ago, I cut down a spruce tree that was about 20 feet in height. In the area it occupied, my plan is to create an earthen berm for planting. The plan is to make it somewhat crescent-shaped, with four specific planting areas. On either end will be some sort of shrub. The back center will have a Yoshino Cherry tree planted. This will be the focal specimen of the entire project. The front center will be planted with a dozen different varieties of heaths and heathers. This will give it year-round interest. And between the different areas I will use low-growing plants for filler.

That’s the plan. Right now, I’m working on digging up the lawn where the berm will be. I still need to decide on what sort of material I will use to create a border between the berm and the lawn. If you have any ideas, post it in the comments!

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