I Sense a Theme in This Garden

I suspect that whenever our neighbors see me walking around with a shovel, they just start pre-emptively rolling their eyes, because it must be no good.

This is what I worked on this afternoon: the latest trench in my grand irrigation plan. This one will go along the back of the house, turn at the Asian pears, back to the peaches and nectarines, and then over to the apples. I'm going to have two, maybe three pipes in this trench, so it needs to be fairly deep. Goldie was helping. Sort of.

The thing with our sand is that when it dries out, it turns very hard. So I had to soak it first, and then wait for the water to work its way in. While I was doing that, I dealt with this little problem: fireblight in one of the Asian pears. The only way to deal with fireblight in the tree is to cut off the infected branches below the bad wood, disinfecting your pruners as you go. Then you throw away the material, wash thoroughly, and change your clothes before you go near another plant that is susceptible to fireblight.

I'm hopeful that we got it all, but if it is a persistent problem, I will cut that tree down and replace it.

In other tree news, last weekend I planted my variegated weeping willow. This is a natural dwarf tree, usually only about 6 feet tall. I've staked it with a birdfeeder, because I want it to get taller. It's in the side yard behind the fence, and I'd like it to help screen the back yard a bit from the street.

As you can see, our neighbor's downspout empties onto our side lawn there (this is technically illegal, by the way, but I really am not fussed about it) and I thought the willow would help suck up water from that during the winter. Not that we've had a flooding problem since I regraded in the fall.

(The pot next to the willow contains a fig of unknown type and two Coast Live Oaks. I'm going to break those apart and give the oaks to a friend and repot the fig. In my copious spare time.)

In other garden news, the dahlias have started blooming.

And the tomatoes are coming along nicely, although they need more water (part of the motivation behind working on the irrigation system). We did lose one (Marvel Stripe), but nine tomato plants is probably plenty for three adults.

Oh, and my front garden is, like, explosive. The rose hedge is all in bloom, and the ground under it is littered with pink petals. What looks like it might be intentional ground cover inside the curve there is actually a small lawn of uncontrolled weeds.

And the natives garden is lush and pinkish right now, because May is the height of our native plant blooming season.

I love how the taller plants in the back make the transition in height from the sidewalk to the rose bed. The only thing I can't quite figure out is why the Eden rose on the arbor insists upon growing right to the front rather then in the middle. I must get better at tying that little bugger up there more firmly or it will fall on a visitor.

Noel told me a neighbor walking by complained about not being able to get anything to grow and marveled at my flowers. My secret is compost. Lots of it. Every year. It's not a great secret, and some plants do not care for it, but on the whole it works pretty well. Better than synthetic fertilizers because it adds material to the soil that holds moisture and encourages root development. Also, when people ask you how you make such a lush garden, you can say, "The secret is poop."

Technorati Tags: compost, dahlias, digging, flowers, gardening, irrigation, native plants, roses, tomatoes

posted by ayse on 05/12/07