The Garden: An Overview and Notes

I started the day by climbing out on the roof to have a look-see.

My primary aim was to take a look at all the various projections and holes through the roof, many of which are not connected to anything and could easily be removed and patched over, and also to check out the condition of the roof. Seems good, remarkably so considering that it is more than forty years old. There are some issues with the sealing between the roof and the wall, and going out there showed me the utterly craptastic job American Craftsman did on the painting, but it should hold for a while.

While I was up there I took this photo, annotated for your pleasure. I had one comment and two e-mails last week asking about the overall garden plan, so I figured some overview of the landscaping as a whole was in order. Here we see the garden as it is now, with grass covering most of it. I'm using the grass as a weed suppressant and soil cover, with the expectation that as we move along on the landscaping, most of it will come out.

Here's a view from the ground, standing by the compost heap. The large black container to the right is the dog swimming pool, an agricultural watering trough. As you can see, I leave tools and stuff lying around the yard all the time. Drives Noel crazy.

I turned a bit to show where the Fern Walk is, in the alley between the houses. The grass we spread on the side there has dried out and fallen between the vigourous weeds and volunteer grasses.

Out in front, things are much simpler. A hedge of roses, a magnolia that is struggling to hold on, an arbour. And lots of weeds.

Our first blueberry forming on the bush. We don't have many flowers, and I don't expect much fruit this year, but wow: blueberry!

In the last week, the Cecile Brunner went from covered in buds to covered in blooms. This is its first really big bloom since I planted it years ago.

Here are some of the flowers I've planted, all from Annie's Annuals, filling out and blooming, or getting ready to bloom. These guys are under and right next to the apple trees.

And by the way: the Asian Pears are blooming!

I spent a bit of time today painting lines all over the yard, marking out where various hardscape items will be going. Here's a few lines that show the fence around the chicken yard and the location of a tree or shrub.

From up at the back door, you can see the overall plan a little better. I was trying to figure out how many large shrubs and small trees I could reasonably plant back there, and the answer seems to be "more than I can think of right now."

I'm a terribly lazy composter, and never turn or aerate my compost pile. I just toss things on top of it and let them rot, and once a year I flip it and get the good stuff out of the bottom. Today was the designated day for the annual turning of the compost pile. There was a remarkable six inches of good compost on the bottom of the pile, which made me happy. The lavender branches in there still need to break down some more. And a clay pot had ended up in there, I believe via the alpaca poop I added a few months ago. A bunch of Bermuda grass was growing through there, too, so I weeded that out. Much better now.

The rest of my day was spent weeding. I subscribe to the "hold the ground you have" school of weeding, in which I weed the areas I just weeded first, so they stay weed-free. I only weed about a quarter of the garden now, because the rest of it either a) is too much to deal with right now, or b) is covered in grass and doesn't need to be weeded, thank goodness. And mostly I weed the front beds, where the Bermuda took over and got a good hold during construction. Yuck.

Technorati Tags: compost, gardening, landscaping, plants, roses, trees

posted by ayse on 04/29/06