Everything seems like it’s in bloom. Even the California Poppies have started. But who wants to look at flowers? Let’s save ‘em. Lately I haven’t had a lot of time, but we’ve had a tiny vermin problem in our house. In an attempt to fix things I finally arrived at trimming back the trees that touched the roof.
And while I was up there, why not take some pictures? Different perspective and all that…
Thanks again to Heather at Xericstyle for starting the monthly Wide Shot series. Having these monthly pictures really helps me see how much everything changes.
The thing that strikes me this month is the way that the slower growing structural plants are really starting to give the yard visual interest in the winter. It’s not all just dead twigs. Pam (Digging) told me that I had the structure in place, but at the time I didn’t really quite catch what she was saying. I’m starting to see that structure fall into place.
The biggest part of xeric gardening is definitely the weeding. This can get easier once you get things under control, but I don’t think I know a gardener who doesn’t do a lot of it. But #2 is cutting back perenials at the end of winter. It’s a pretty big job.
Here’s 5 trash cans full of lantana and mistflower that I pulled out today. We tend not to mention this task because it comes at the most beautiful time of year, when it generally is pretty nice to be out in the garden.
But it’s still a big job, and not much fun. The results (and the promise of spring) make the lantana skin irritation feel mostly worthwhile:
Too long without posting. Why? I don’t know. You know how you queue up a blog post and it’s going to take too long to write, so you write nothing? I hate that. This is an old story. Today? Today I went out and chopped down an 8 foot tall boxwood bush. But that’s a story for another day.
For the past several winters our washing machine has backed up and flooded our laundry room anytime the temperature went below freezing. It was AWESOME. Nothing like mopping out your garage in freezing weather! We got a $4k estimate on getting the pipe fixed and so we saved and saved. Some people save for vacations. We save for plumbing. In November we had filled our piggy bank, and took the plunge.
The plumbers came out and dug a 4 foot tunnel under our house. Pictures don’t do it justice, but here’s one anyway.
Of course a 4 foot tunnel under your house ends up creating a huge pile of dirt. And anyone who does gardening knows that the amount of dirt you dig out of a hole is roughly 4 times as much as you need to fill the hole back up again.
So I ended up with a nice pile of dirt covering a patch of lawn that already had trouble growing grass. On the Monday before Thanksgiving Julie said I had to do something about the dogs tracking in mud. So I ordered 3 yards of crushed limestone and filled in beds over the next few days.
Day 1
Just filling in existing beds.
Day 2
Etta helped me make the new flowerbed. We scrounged bricks and built a small retaining wall and border.
Then we leveled the bed. But Rhett, what are you doing?!? Keeping you out of the mud was why we started this project in the first place!
After many, many wheelbarrow loads of stone we ended up with this. Note the addition of plants, that we still haven’t planted. When I’m weak I let the girls buy things I have nowhere to plant. Then this happens.
We all love the finished product. Even the dogs.
It all turned out so well Julie wants me to fill in all the rest of the beds that border the house.
This gomphrena plant has had only one bloom for months now. It’s simplicity next to this smoke agave (?!?) is so refreshing next to the riots of gomphrena rampaging through the rest of the garden.
Oh crud. I tried to figure out what this plant is. I’m pretty sure they sold it to me as a “smoke agave” at The Great Outdoors, but I can’t find any references to that online.It has white tips and edges…
I love grasses all year long. The way they move in the wind is mesmerizing. But it’s hard to capture that in pictures.
But fall - fall is their time of year. I think the seed heads are as pretty as any flower.
Oh man, my yard is calling to me. But it won’t get any help for another week or so. I’ve been working on producing and doing technical stuff for my latest play.
It’s been a lot of fun. I’m so proud of the finished product, and hopefully some of my readers will make it out to see it. But I’m definitely ready to get back in the yard…
Holy cow. It’s been far too long since I posted. So what’s been going on? I got a new gardening buddy. Junie actually likes to hang out with me when I garden. She tastes the plants and occasionally licks my head.
Rhett’s more like Julie and thinks gardening is far too warm.
I pulled my back out programming a computer game with the girls, and then we went on a 10 hour trip to East Texas this past weekend. Also not good for the back. And a messed up back is no good for gardening.
Yesterday while pulling weeds a gentleman pulled over his car and talked to me about xeric plants. I think that’s my favorite part of the yard. People stop and talk to me. Never once had anyone stop and talk to me while mowing the lawn.
I’ll try to post a picture of the front yard. It’s really beautiful right now. Gomphrena blooms have stated to dominate in the extreme heat.
So since I was just writing about trimming trees for drought, I thought I’d talk about one of the things that puzzles me most about my yard. I have really nice St. Augustine foliage.
It’s wonderful to lay in and take a nap. At this time of year you just want to roll in it. And it takes very little water. I haven’t watered this area since sometime last summer. Which begs the question, why? Well there happens to be a gigantic oak tree just west of the best parts of the lawn:
Note how high the eastern facing branches are trimmed.
I have problem beds where I can’t get almost anything to grow. Even with supplemental watering. The tree that shades them looks like this facing west.
I think I might try a drastic haircut to see if I can improve things.
On the east side of your grapevine, where the sun rises, you strip all the leaves. That allows for better airflow. On the west side, where the sun sets, you keep a good canopy of leaves to protect the drought. We do it by hand.
I feel like this is next level pruning. Seems fairly obvious, but it’s not something I currently do. Even though it’s pretty obvious that plants that grow east of my large trees do better than plants on the west side of the them. From Slate on Dry Farming.
