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I'm starting with a blank-slate front yard this year. My new home only had overgrown yew bushes in the front yard which had to be taken out. Now I have nothing but a bit of grass. My house faces North, so I'm planning on planting a fern garden between the sidewalk and the house next door. I'm going to plant ostrich fern, Japanese painted fern, and autumn fern. If I can find some, I'll probably add a cinnamon fern or two. I do get some sun on the corner of the front yard, so I'm going to plant foxglove there. I'll probably plant hollyhocks down the side, which tends to be dry and gets a lot of sun.
My big problem is that all the brick pillars which support my front porch roof have to be re-built. I can't plant anything within several feet of the porch until that gets done. Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I love my japanese painted ferns. They're beautiful.
I did a lot of planting the last two years... this year I mostly need to weed and water, and fill in with some annuals. But I already have to split my asters, they're huge... and I already have takers for them, which is great.
I'm hoping that my front landscaping, which was just planted last year, will fill in enough that I can get some good pictures to share. I'm quite proud of how it looks.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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We are probably moving the last week in June, which puts a real damp on gardening. Maybe I'll try to start some stuff in pots that can be planted at the new place.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Boon
unregistered
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I planted stuff in trays. I'm going out this weekend with a shovel...and a bobcat, to till my garden so I can plant.
I have LOTS of space at my disposal to plant whatever I want...so it's hard not to get carried away. I'm limiting myself to 3 8-foot beds for veggies and a bed by the back porch for flowers.
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One of the neatest things to do when you move is to take some plants from the place you're moving from. I've taken hosta and ivy and even a small shrub from one place I've lived to another.
The best things are plants that are ready to divide. I like the idea of plants in my yard having relatives in another yard where I used to live.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Well, I have had raised beds in my garden for the past few years, but have been lax on weeding. Therefore, it is going to be a crapload of work I will probably not be ready for. So, I am going to remeasure, and have it rototilled.
I am going to get back into making chile sauces, so I will mainly grow chile peppers, heirloom tomatoes, and haricots verts. (no other bean should ever be eaten!)
Plus, I am going to start perennials from seed, as I have been threatening to do these past few years, so I can move them around next spring.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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"The best things are plants that are ready to divide. I like the idea of plants in my yard having relatives in another yard where I used to live."
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I might buy another potted plant for my birthday. At home I have spider plants and they tend to reproduce like mad so next year in residence I can have a jungle!
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Last year, when I looked over the house before buying, the back yard was beautiful. On both sides it had an abundance of tiger-lillies, peonies, and daisies in English garden style borders. This year I'm afraid to see what survived the cutting down of the tree. It was huge and heavy and when the trunk fell it left a deep gouge in the yard. I still have a couple of ton-sized pieces of the tree in my yard right now that I can't find someone to take.
I have big plans for the back yard, but most of them are years away. I do want to plant a tree by arbor day, to replace the old one we lost.
I don't really have enough room for too many vegetables, but I plan to plant cherry tomatoes in containers. Sometime in the future, I want to put up a raised bed or two for annuals and veggies. I might plant berries along the fence between my two properties.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I'm going to have a big veggie garden - corn, squash, tomatoes, peas, green beans, etc. We're going to have to fence it in due to the large amount of wildlife in our area.
As for flowers, I will probably only have a few containers on our various balconies. Until our dog grows out of puppyhood I don't trust him; I'd hate to go to all that expense and time only to have him destroy my plantings. At least the vegetables will be safe from him.
I'm planning on putting tobasco sauce and cayenne pepper (as recommended by various Hatrackers) in the flower beds with plantings already in them to deter aforementioned dog. We just bought the house in December, so I'm not quite sure what's all there - I've recognized some ferns and clematis so far.
space opera
edit: error, error on the wall. who's the worst typer of them all?
[ March 09, 2005, 11:43 AM: Message edited by: Space Opera ]
Posts: 2578 | Registered: Apr 2004
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No berries! Unless you have a huge field, you will regret berries, unless you box in the roots. They grow like mint, with underground runners.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I thought I might get some plants to put on my shiny new enormous patio. Or maybe I'll bring my collection of cacti from home. But first I need to finish with the whole moving in and unpacking thing. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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And trim them. Yes, berries are great. I guess we are lucky to be able to go berry picking in fields and on farms here.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Unfortunately, my wife has big plans. I am generally used as a beast of burden during these endeavours.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I have 2 acres of weed field to play in, as well as 8 acres of woods... We'll definitely have a big veggie garden. My daughter is going to have a sunflower house (as explained in the book "Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots"). It will have walls of sunflowers and a roof of morning glories.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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I wish I had an acre I could just let go to wild-flowers. I pick bouquets every week and give them to people. Wild-flower meadows are SOOOOO underrated.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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My black thumb and I are going to attempt to repot and/or do whatever the word is for "cut a piece off and make a new plant" an unidentified plant that was given to me by msquared at OrneryCon last year that I haven't managed to kill yet.
Posts: 1090 | Registered: Oct 2003
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KarlEd, how much land do you have? You really don't need as much as you think, if you grow intensively. You caould have a small patch of wildflowers with no problem.
One of my favorite books, ever, is called "One Acre and Security." (Oh my gosh, it's GONE! I just looked to get the author's name. Grrr. Whom did I loan it to???)
Anyway, it is all about sustaining a family on one acre of land. It discusses raising worms(something my husband and I have always wanted to do)and rabbits together.(which I would not want to do, as they would be sold for food or research. Hmm, could do Angora rabbits for fur)
Anyway, it is such a great book, and I really wish I could find it!
EDit: Jenny, you would love it.
[ March 10, 2005, 09:30 AM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I want a flower garden. Please, do an intervention for me and convince Fahim how important it is for sanity. Please? Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Quid, I just watched a Sopranos episode where they did an intervention for anothr mobster who was using heroin. They were very effective! Should I send some of the local mobsters over?
"Listen, pal, yer wife says she needs some flowahs. Whaddaya say?"
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote: Willow Creek Press is proud to bring back to print Bradford Angier's classic One Acre & Security: How To Live Off the Earth without Ruining It. First published in 1972, Angier (deceased) is one of the pre-eminent voices of the back-to-the-earth movement. One Acre & Security is a book for all those who have dreamed of living close to the earth, not in the wilderness, but on land within easy driving distance of the city or suburbs. It begins by explaining what sort of land to look for, where to look and how to make sure of land titles. It goes on to discuss organic gardening on one acre of land, raising herbs for money and bees for honey, growing grapes, making wine, juice and jellies, and drying raisins. For the more serious back-to-the-earther, there are sections on how to build a house, keep cows, goats, sheep, pigs and poultry, raise rabbits, earthworms, fish, frogs and turtles, and how to find the best hunting and fishing. Angier's text is as useful and thorough today as it was 30 years ago, and deserves to be on the shelves of a new generation of back-to-earthers.
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I don't have anywhere near an acre. I think my lot is something like 40 feet wide and 120 feet long. If you subtract the front yard (maybe 12-15 feet deep?), the house (50 w/porch?) and the driveway (10), I'd guess I have a back yard that's roughly 45X40 feet or so. (I'm totally guessing). I suppose I could plant a patch of wildflowers next to the fence or as a border to define where the driveway ends and the yard begins. . . Hmmmmm.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Elizabeth: yes, please send a local mobster. That'd be great! And I'm not even saying I need an entire garden. A few potted plants would do me fine.
And that sounds like a terrif book. I'd love to check it out. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Perhaps you should offer to write a gardening column in addition to your dining column. Then it would be a business expense. Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Hmm. dkw, great idea. I'll have to see what I can figure out. Magazine? Newspaper? Oh, except for one wrench in the plan - we don't pay taxes here anyway, so there's no actual benefit in it being a business expense. BUT a purchase excuse . . . Now that's a whole other ballgame.
I just recently started writing a gadget column in another magazine, and I'm hoping that I can score some sample gadgets to write about. And then keep, of course. Yep, I (mostly) love my writing gigs! (Did a hotel review a few days ago. Less than happy about the experience. Long story.)
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Quidscribis, what is the growing season like there? You could grow some beautiful chile peppers. There are some that grow year round, and grow into beautiful bushes. You could then have an offshoot chile sauce business.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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KarlEd, when my husband and I owned a home in a housing addition we always had a large patch of wildflowers. I marked off a patch about 6 x 4 and just threw the seeds in. They were *so* pretty; we got compliments on them all the time.
Here's a flower question for anyone: I noticed that we have about 6 daffodil plants growing on the edge of our woods. Is there any way to move them safely? I have no idea how they got there, but it would be nice to at least move them a few feet over to border the shed.
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SO, I think if you are careful and the ground is soft enough you could just dig around them and move them now. We did quite a bit of that last year, and they may not have bloomed quite as nicely but we didn't have any die.
I've got a separate but related question that I asked on the landscaping thread. When do you have to get bulbs in the ground by in order to have them bloom?
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lol, well I got them at costco, some lillies, and allium if I remember correctly. It appears that they really should have been planted last fall. So I don't think I have to "wait until last frost has passed" in order to plant them now. I was wondering how freezing temps at night would effect them. Though it doesn't look like it will happen this weekend cause it will be too cold.
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I have all kinds of plans for gardening, but don't know what any of them are!
Since we moved in Oct, I held off completely on doing anything with the backyard, so it's just dirt (and weeds - with all the rain here lately, the weeds are thriving). My father (an avid plant man with a master's in landscape architecture) said March or April would be best for getting most of the planting done, with May probably being best for putting in sod. He and I need to get together and have him bring over his drafting table so we can make all the plans. I have a pond to install (in which I'm going to grow water plants - fish would be too hard to maintain), plan to have a couple trees (probably a chinese pistash and one of the pines that can actually grow here ok), a raised planter along the back fence for growing flowers and veggies and such, and some grass in the center of the yard. I saw the most unique African daisies at the store last week (their petals are a different shape from what I've seen before), that I'd like to plant on Saturday. They won't last long, but they look so pretty (and I'll leave them to seed so they'll come back next year - and this winter I'll throw down the other African daisy seeds I have from my parents' yard so I can have a pretty little patch of flowers).
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AJ, Go ahead and plant them ASAP. They may not bloom this year, but they almost definitely won't last unplanted until next year. The freezing temps probably won't hurt them as long as you plant them to their proper depth. If you're very worried about that, then put a thick layer of mulch over them. If you're lucky they'll bloom, if maybe a little later than they normally would. I've planted bulbs as late as the first week in January and they bloomed (though I wouldn't recommend this as planting them was like chipping holes in concrete, the ground was so frozen.)
If they don't bloom this year, but you get foliage, they should be fine by next year. Worst case, you get nothing, but that's definitely what you'll get if you don't put them in the ground soon.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Quidscribis, what is the growing season like there? You could grow some beautiful chile peppers. There are some that grow year round, and grow into beautiful bushes. You could then have an offshoot chile sauce business.
Elizabeth, the growing season here is non-stop, pretty much, although there is some fruit that's available only in September - November, for example. Daytime temperatures are 28-35 year round.
The big monsoon, or southwest monsoon, is from May to September, where Sri Lanka gets the majority of its rainfall, and the little monsoon, or winter monsoon, or northeast monsoon season, runs from November to the end of March.
This year, there was no rain from November to the end of March where we are, but was instead very hot all the live long day. Rain just started in the last few weeks.
Growing peppers. I would love to. I'd love to get some seeds for some varieties that are hotter than what are available here. I love hot peppers and their sauces. Yum! But I wouldn't bother turning it into a business - I'd never make that much money here. But as a hobby? Oh yeah, baby!
Having said that, we also want to move to a house with air conditioning. I'd love it if the house also came with a yard with banana trees, or mango, or papaya, or lime, or . . . well, all of the above! That'd be great! If/when we buy or build a house here, there will be the requisite fruit trees in the yard. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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My neighbor and I are going to put in vegetable garden beds (3) and an herb garden (1) - those kind that you see in the big city, surrounded by the wooden frame that are about 4'X8'.
Will 10 inches deep be enough, do you suppose?
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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They look like they've been pre-prepared to bloom the first year you put them in. We will see. I really doubt it will be happening this weekend, because I have no desire to plant anything if there are two inches of snow on the ground.
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