Gardening

Happy Mother's Day

For all the mothers out there and especially my own! Happy Mother's Day!

For me it was another day of gardening and trying to catch up with a very late winter. Two weeks ago we had snow. Tomorrow this is what we expect:

Yep. Already into the nineties, which means the gardening will have to happen in the mornings, because it's just too scorching hot after lunch.

Here's a bit of our newest project - a butterfly garden, which means tearing up 1/3 of the front yard. I'm using Barbara Damrosch's Theme Gardens book as a guide for the many flower and flowering bush plantings.

There'll be a white curved picket fence in front of the wishing well that will help define the actual flower plantings around the bird bath, stretching to the walk on the left, and road to the right. More photos when things start to grow, and I'll include a list of the plants as well. Wait until I paint the wishing well with a full palette of colors! I can't believe it's mid-May and the cottonwood tree behind the bench has barely begun to leaf out.

The flower boxes have been planted, but I still have to paint all the white trim. This is part of the springtime ritual  for me, sort of a "right of passage" into summer most people would just as soon avoid.

After a nice chicken dinner that hubbo cooked, we had homemade vanilla custard ice cream with raspberries soaked in St. Germaine elderflower liqueur. Very nice indeed!

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his. - Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Z is for Zilch

Which is almost the way I ended the A-Z Challenge! Yikes! I was out-of-town on a mural installation and got home way too late last night. I'm fried, and I wish I could do Zilch today, but I have to finish reading Eric Maisel's new book, Making Your Creative Mark: Nine Keys to Achieving Your Artistic Goals. It's a terrific book meant for professionals in all the arts, and you can read my review tomorrow at the Blood-Red Pencil blog.

I also have to plant Zinnias, because I just found another huge bag of seeds. Apparently, I had Zinnias on the brain when I ordered seeds last autumn and this spring. Which is okay, because I love them. I plant California Giants from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds up the centers of each of my raised vegetable beds, and they not only look colorful and gorgeous, they shield the tender lettuces planted on either side from too much sun. I love those hot colors - these are the colors of my youth - groovy man!

I'm off to Zip through the day, my friends. It's going to be a Zoo around here today. Thanks so much for visiting me during the blogging challenge, and I'll continue to add your names to my special list. We can keep visiting each other, right? Just leave me your blog link in the comments and I'll continue connecting with you.

X is for Xeriscaping

Definition of XERISCAPE

A landscaping method developed especially for arid and semiarid climates that utilizes water-conserving techniques (as the use of drought-tolerant plants, mulch, and efficient irrigation).

 

But contrary to popular belief, it doesn't mean zero-scaping. There are many ways to plan a water-wise garden and still create the visual beauty all gardeners love to see. It's all about clustering different textures, colors, and heights in a visually attractive manner. Here are some examples:

 

What do you think of this look? Do you live in a dry area and grow drought tolerant plants in your garden? What's your favorite flower, grass, or shrub? 

Here are some links you might find useful:

Colorado State University Xeriscaping Factsheet
Denver Water
Plant Select

V is for Vines

I love arches. Arched doorways. Arched gates in the garden. Curving arbors with vines spilling over them. Flowers ranking upward, like roses and clematis and sweet peas. There is something so romantic and European about this idea.

Alas, I can't seem to grow the flowers that embellish an arched trellis, though I've tried for years. My clematis languishes. The roses die back by mid-season. Sweet peas hate the heat and don't even try. I've almost given up too.

But last year we tried some grapes. It appears they may actually come back this year, and if they climb, we might even get enough leaves to brine for stuffed grape leaves at our annual Greek feast. The heck with actual grapes - we're easy to please. Just a few dozen nice-sized leaves to put up. Is that too much to ask?

Okay, I confess. I harbor fantasies of a grape-covered patio like this. With big, ripe clumps hanging down just waiting to be plucked. A person can dream, right?

What's your elusive gardening dream?

K is for Keyhole

Photo credit: afrigadget.com

Specifically, it's for keyhole garden beds (also known as African gardens). I've mentioned them before on this blog, after seeing the plans at the Texas Co-op site here. When I realized how much dry garden waste this arrangement used up, I knew it was for me. We have tons of brush and garden refuse to layer, and a plentiful supply of cardboard boxes from the local grocery store. The big dilemma was creative ways to build the structure because rock is at a premium around here, and so is decent soil for the top layers.We don't even have urbanite available after the county yard ground all their broken concrete into gravel.

So here is how we started:

First stakes were surrounded by chicken wire, that were then lined with cardboard including the ground. This was watered down well. Then a layer of coarse, dry brush was added and watered. That tube in the middle is for the "compost bucket" and where the arrangement is watered several times per week. I call it the "wormhole" because you know what's going to take up residence there soon, right?

Next, more layers of cardboard and garden waste, the coarser stuff toward the bottom, and watered between each layer.

Then some nice bags of leaves on top of the next layer of cardboard.

After watering, yet another layer and then newspapers. Getting bored yet? ;)

And finally, dirt, composted stable bedding from our neighbors, and bagged potting soil. It took a lot of that to get a 6-8 inch layer of planting surface.

I couldn't stand the sheer ugliness of this, so we bought some snow fence, cut it in half to the proper height, then covered the soil with straw. This is the second one, where we had the brilliant idea to use old shag carpet from the barn as another barrier around the stakes. We think this will hold moisture better than the cardboard alone. Remember the idea here is to conserve water while offering a bio-intensive growing area for healthy plants like you see in the first picture.

Five of these keyhole gardens are placed in what will become a permaculture suntrap facing south. You can already see the small peach trees that are the start of an orchard. In a few months, I'll show you updated photos when we get more of the foundation in place for some of the other elements in this suntrap.

If you want to give this method a go, be forewarned. These six-foot diameter beds take a lot of energy and materials to build. Each one took two of us a half day of constant effort. We'll see if it pays off for us. I love the idea of having a good place to empty my compost bucket, and even more, not having to bend so far to plant and harvest. If it really does conserve a lot of water, so much the better. Water is cheap where I live, but that won't last forever in this drought, and I'd rather be prepared for water rationing. This will help a great deal.

Here's a video about this technique should you care to learn more. It takes a slightly different approach. I wish I'd watched this first - very inspiring and intriguing! I loved the upbeat music.



Here's the website to http://keyhole-gardens.com/ for more ideas. I'm hoping my keyhole gardens look this lush in a few months.

Have any of you tried this type of gardening? What kind of vegetable gardening do you do? Please leave me a comment!

I is for IRS or is that IRiS?

Yesterday you saw a bit of our artwork. Since I'm scrambling to get tax paperwork together, I thought I'd do a little promotion to help pay the tax lady. This is Aunt IRiS, an original piece of art (using me as the model) my husband created a few years ago - based on the Uncle Sam Wants You posters from the WW2 era. Every year, sales from our CafePress account help us pay what's due. You can click here to buy a mug. They are lovely gifts for anyone with a personal accountant, or just to use yourself while you're suffering through the season. Especially satisfying if you have an irreverent sense of humor, and a stiff drink within. Ooh, and look! CafePress has the tee-shirt on sale in the "gifts for accountants" category.

It's wickedly cold and windy again, so my gardening plans are still on hold. I'm hoping that my irises, which have poked their green spikes out of the soil, will live to bloom. I have them all over the property. They are tough and seem to like the challenging conditions around here. They tend to be pale though - the soil is too lean to impart much color. I have lots of these:

What I covet are these:

A girl can dream, right? Now back to Aunt IRiS. Have you finished your tax return yet?

G is for Gardening

I'm a bit late this morning after returning from a very long day trip to Denver. One of the highlights of Sunday was a trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens where things are still looking pretty brown, with just a few hardy bulb flowers peeking their heads through the cold ground. Still it was a lovely day and there were loads of people out walking the paths. I came away with numerous ideas for my own gardens. Also a real appreciation for water features, hard-scaping, and architectural features like pergolas. Here are some photos of images that inspired me and might translate to my own efforts here at home:

Water feature with simple sculpture

A smaller pool that would work in my yard

A flagstone rock garden with native plants

Brick hard-scaping with a covered path to the right

An evergreen mound adds a mass of green

I don't think I would have noticed these features during the summer when the gardens are a riot of color. I got a lot more ideas from the barren gardens than I thought I would. It's all about getting the "bones" down right. That's true with anything, I guess,  whether building a house or writing a novel. Get a solid foundation first, and all the embellishments tend to enhance the picture.

Speaking of novels, maybe I'll make some headway in the next few days. It doesn't look like I'll be gardening much.

By "damaging thunderstorms" they mean high winds, hail, rain turning to snow, and a possible tornado. Nope. Definitely won't be gardening. How's the weather where you live?

F is for Flowers

F is for flowers, which I adore! There is rarely a time, winter or summer, that flowers do not adorn my home. Here's what is gracing my dining room table now:

I've even thought of creating a series of paintings using my favorite blue vase, because I've taken so many photos of it over the years with different arrangements:

My garden is a riot of color every year too - well as much color as you can expect on a prairie:

My favorite place to write when it's cool and not too windy:

How about you - what's your favorite flower? Leave me a comment!

Chickens and Chocolate Eggs

Dear Juwainyuh,

What a lovely letter you write, and thank you for sharing all your wonderful ideas about gardening and houses! I have to tell you a story about chickens and brown eggs.

I actually get brown eggs from my neighbor a half mile away, who also has Brown Swiss cows. I feel very lucky because, hard as it is to believe, getting local eggs is not easy out in the country. Most local farmers who raise chickens sell the eggs in the city, where they can earn more money for them.

But the brown eggs I get from my neighbor are nothing like the eggs from French Maran chickens. Have you heard of this breed? We first learned of them when we visited Minnesota in October. We stayed at the lovely Deutsche Strasse B & B and one of the other guests was participating in a chicken show at the local fairgrounds. Their French Marans won best of show. And here is a picture of the eggs they lay. Now those are brown eggs! They look like chocolate! You can find more information about this breed here and here, if you are interested.

I loved seeing the plans of the raised bed garden . I have raised beds, too, and I can't imagine being able to grow anything in this hot, dry climate without them. It really makes a big difference in being able to grow food to eat. I had a very good salad garden right outside my back door all summer. Here's an example of how I mixed up the vegetables with the flowers which was very pretty and lush looking!

And here's another picture of a raised bed:

There are four L-shaped raised beds that border the "charmed circle" in the middle (which is just a napping place for the cats).

I'm interested in permaculture, too, and in the new year, I plan to create a sun trap in my middle garden as well as some keyhole beds. Have you heard of those? I have a tremendous amount of brush to process, and this seems like an excellent way to handle that. I just have to find something with which to build the support walls, which is an issue around here, since there isn't a lot of rock. Here's a picture of what I'm talking about:

As to the big binder you left behind in Yemen with all your research and plans... you can create another bigger and better one here, right? Think of the old binder as nothing more than practice for a better set of plans!

Thank you so much for your wonderful letter, little friend!

Love,

Dani