Looking More Polished

The drainage basin was helped along today by a morning trip to get more retaining blocks (sixteen of them can fit in my car, fourteen in Noel's, so progress is slow). I made some great strides and got seven more placed, and began working on the planting. I decided to move my little dianthus collection into the area, because it's kind of lost under the apples and dianthus are so lovely that you want them to be more specimens than backdrop.

Here's where I started this morning, with sixteen fresh blocks all ready to go.

And when I had finished my work for the day (because, oddly enough, the shoveling was irritating my carpal tunnels and my wrists were very angry with me), the teardrop shape of the lower basin was starting to form:

Over on the left there you can see the plants either in the ground or waiting to be planted. That doesn't include the dianthus I'm going to move, but it does include two new dianthus. Hey, it is my birthday flower.

From the peaches, you can see the shape a little better (also the sun isn't right in the lens).

I'm having to take apart the anti-stomping fence as I go around this corner, so it's a good thing it's been fairly hot and the dogs are exhausted. I'm also building up the soil level in the bed around the quince, which is likely to require lifting several of the plants there up to the new ground level.

From over by the Asian pears:

To the right, you can't actually see it very well, but we have a volunteer squash of some sort growing in the anemone bed, and now the anemones are coming up, too. Good times under the Asian pears.

Tangentially, here's where I'm putting a strawberry bed, once I have things in order enough to put in the big compost order for the fall. I'm using some of the dirt from the basin to build up this bed and define it against walkable ground. The dog bowl will move when that happens, I suppose.

Yesterday I had a moment when I came out and saw this and the chaos of it hurt me. Then I relaxed and let myself see it turning into a real garden, not just a big open yard. It's hard to go through this stage, where everything is dug up and messy and there are things all over the place (although I admit that I am a total slob in the garden, so there will always be things all over the place). But then plants start to grow in, and soon what looked like a kind of sparse little row of lavender is a huge bushy hedge that is taking over the sidewalk, and the roses that looked like little sticks are five feet tall and respond to pruning by bushing out even more. This garden will eventually fill in and look less chaotic.

Then I'll have to dig another big hole in it.

Technorati Tags: digging, gardening, landscaping

posted by ayse on 09/17/06