Gardening on the Radio

I was on the radio yesterday to talk about gardening on Spotlight on Spring Hill (WAKM 950 AM) and had several fall gardening topics prepared to share. Then the first guest to talk, our City Codes Inspector, began mentioning some upcoming projects and I nearly got completely sidetracked. You see I meant to talk about leaves, not to burn them, not to waste them, but to use them in your compost or as mulch. I had seen a Craigslist ad that completely annoyed me last week and thought the radio would be a great opportunity to get out the message. The ad actually said "Free leaves, if you don't come get them I will burn them!" Now that is shortened and paraphrased but the ad offered leaves and threatened to burn them! I hope it was merely a motivational tool used to encourage people to take his leaves, but I doubt it. Let me apologize in advance if this offends you but burning leaves is completely irresponsible! It pollutes, it wastes, and it's just plain dumb. Now I'll forgive you if you have burned leaves in the past not realizing why you shouldn't but why would you waste a free and valuable soil conditioner? A mulch that comes down from the heavens to keep the moisture in the ground and feeds the bacteria and earthworms that turn regular soil into fantastic garden gold! Sorry but the issue of burning leaves has always burned me up.

I also meant to discuss lawnmower maintenance. Sharpening the blades, running out the gas, checking the spark plugs and changing the oil are all good things to do now so that your mower will be fresh and ready to go come spring. A little maintenance now is a good thing. (Of course this is yet another thing to add to my Things I've Neglected List!) Running the gas out keeps it from gumming up your engine over the winter.

I mentioned the leaves on the radio but completely ran out of time for the lawnmower talk. Why you ask? Maybe you didn't ask but as I often do I'll tell you anyway. The City Codes inspector mentioned the installation of a rain garden here in Spring Hill at Harvey Park! This coming Saturday from 9AM-1PM volunteers will be helping to create and plant a garden that will help filter water and preventing it from washing contaminants into our stream system. As soon as he mentioned rain garden I grinned. I've installed two kinds on my property and both have been very effective problem solvers. I wasn't necessarily worried about contaminants but was concerned over excess water pooling on our driveway and in another location flooding into our yard through the neighborhood drainage system.

Rain gardens use the root systems of plants to retain soil and to soak up the water to keep it from washing sediment into the streams. The plants serve as filters and clean the water before it enters the streams which is much better for the fish and wildlife that use those areas. One kind of rain garden uses a drainage area underneath a garden as a water holding area. That was actually the first type of rain garden I installed. It collects water from our driveway and brings it into a gravel area below a planting bed I established. Inside the bed are a combination of flowers and grasses that so far have enjoyed the extra water in that location. I've even planted a Yoshino Cherry tree that is definitely thriving in that location. This type of rain garden is more labor intensive to install as it involves digging deep into the soil and putting gravel where the soil was then back filling. It's very effective in absorbing water and solving drainage issues.

My second rain garden was done completely with plantings. Ornamental grasses are prominent along with a birch, beautyberry, and several perennials. The area used to flood back into our yard but the plantings help to defer the water back into the established drainage area and retain some of the moisture in the soil underneath. In the picture the area that is flooded is on my neighbor's property. It was taken back in September just after an extremely heavy rain. If these types of gardens lined our community drainage systems we would all have healthier water systems with fewer erosion problems.  

I was pretty excited to hear that our town is on the forefront of such environmentally sensible ideas. I would like to be there helping them install it but I have a birthday party to attend for a certain almost 2 year old girl! Maybe I can get out there early to help, we'll see, maybe you can too!

The Crape Myrtle Border

Along one side of our property there is a narrow strip of land between the house and our neighbors' properties.  There isn't much room to do a whole lot of gardening (or so I originally thought) and this side of the house felt exposed when we bought our home in 2007.  This is how it looked a couple years ago just after I planted a short row of hemlocks as a privacy screen:

November 2007

And this is how it looks today:

August 2011

You can't even see the hemlocks now.  I planted the crape myrtles in between each hemlock. We later lost two of the hemlocks then I replanted one then promptly lost it.  The two that remain are doing great now.  They get protection from the summer sun by the fast growing crape myrtles. In the winter we'll have evergreen color on the border. I added the stone border a couple years ago and began planting the 'Longwood Blue' caryopteris. With the exception of 4-5 plants (and some of those are in other gardens) most of the caryopteris came from cuttings.

The crape myrtles all came from seedlings or cuttings. The light purple ones were seedlings that sprung up in my parent's yard from their neighbor's crape myrtle trees.  The watermelon colored crape myrtles were from cuttings. Had I been thinking at the time I would have color coordinated the trees better, but they still look good as a mix!  I enjoy crape myrtles for their fast growing abilities and their natural beauty when grown as a tree. Many people lob the tops off the crape myrtles when pruning which will completely eliminate the beauty of the mottled tan and brown bark that appears on older trees (see Crape Murder or How a Crape Myrtle Should Be Pruned). Plant breeders have now developed smaller dwarf crape myrtles for those gardeners who prefer their crape myrtles as shrubs - much better than committing Crape Murder!

It's amazing how fast a garden can transform!

My State of the Garden Address

Our president gave us his State of the Union address for 2010 this week and informed us of his plans and his thoughts so I thought why not do the same for my garden? It’s been a while since I’ve addressed the garden as a whole entity as usually I just discuss its parts or its plants. Let me start off by saying it’s not necessarily a pretty picture. It is winter after all!

As I walked around the gardens today I had an opportunity to view what has been accomplished and what has yet to be done. The front garden hasn’t undergone many changes over the last year but it is due for some redeveloping. The Russian sage on the left of the sidewalk has grown large and it is time for it to be tamed or moved. It’s wispy and bare now but its white stems make an attractive winter feature and would look especially nice in front of an evergreen backdrop. I clip it back each spring but it likes to grow, and grow, and grow - I really can’t blame it! I have some options on a new location but then I’ll have to figure out what to put in its place…



I walked around the other side of the house to the self-sowing/self-seeding garden. It's inaugural year was very progressive and was full of blooms. Rudbeckia, sunflower, salvia, zinnias and several other plants filled up the seats in this garden.



And I couldn’t fully evaluate the state of the garden without the arbor. (Arbor and The House) I still enjoy looking at it. I feel like I won the BHG.com prize even though I lost out to a front porch repainting (it was pretty, definitely not our style though!). I saw in the recent Tennessee Gardener magazine and article about roses that had pictures of roses climbing all over gates – it’s a very tempting idea for this arbor don’t you think?



Past the arbor you will find one of my favorite gardens – during the growing season that is! The corner shade garden is filled with heucheras, hostas, astilbe, and an oak leaf hydrangea. The large evergreen tree on the left will be leaving very soon for multiple reasons: it’s too big to be this close to the house and it’s covered with bagworms. I could spray the worms (at the right time, when the larvae are still young) and probably get rid of them or handpick the ones I can reach but when you have more than one issue with a plant it might be time to go a different route. I tried the handpicked route once before and I couldn’t find all the bagworms. I have two ideas for its replacement either a dogwood (Cornus florida although I wouldn’t mind a Cornelian Cherry Cornus mas) or a Forest Pansy Redbud. If I go the latter route I’ll move the one I have to its new location.



The border garden looks mostly bare but the ornamental grasses do liven things up. The birch I planted in spring did fantastic this year and is already beginning to show its characteristic peeling bark. I can’t wait to take a similar photo of this area in the spring, summer, and fall so that I can see the seasonal changes. 



This little rose campion is sporting some nice silver green foliage in the rain garden. There are quite a few other plants with foliage showing like the irises, daffodils, hyacinths, and several others. It’s still January but if you look you can see spring coming.

 

I took too many pictures for a single post so come back for Part 2 of my State of The Garden Address! This post was mostly the front and side yard gardens the next one will include the back yard gardens and probably a picture or two of the greenhouse (look here for an update on the greenhouse).

The Border Garden Corridor

Everybody has a spot in their yard that needs definition. Whether it is a shared boundary line with the neighbors or just a border between garden rooms, people like to define their spaces. Another major project I tackled last weekend was the side border garden. As it's creative name describes, it is on our side border, and it's purpose is to define our boundary line. It's also just behind the Self Sowing Garden. As you look past the front porch and to the left you can see an area of darkened mulch. That's where I'm taking you today.

Here's a closer look. In the front is the Self Sowing Garden and behind it is what will be the deciduous grove that will one day create summer shade along this side of our house. It's hard to see but many of the plants are already there. A crape myrtle on the left and two dogwoods form a line with an Eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) and four hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis). I've loved hemlocks ever since we lived in East Tennessee and went on hikes in the Smoky Mountains. In front of those deciduous trees are a loropetalum and a viburnum as well as two dead azaleas. Yep not everything grows for me. They were rescued plants from the discount rack that just didn't make it. Although I did manage to get one azalea cutting that lived through the winter.

From this angle you can see the hemlock hedge row that will one day provide privacy on this side of the house. Until then I'm planting some fast growing crape myrtles in between each hemlock to provide a very fast growing privacy screen. When the hemlocks reach a good size I'll cut out the crape myrtles.

Here's a view from the backyard. Once things fill out on this side the view of the neighbor's yard should be somewhat obscured. I hope to keep the grass nice and green and may eventually add some stepping stones set below the level of the grass.

For now all you can really see is mulch but underneath that mulch are layers of grass and leaves gradually composting underneath the cover of newspapers (some even date back to 2006!). Over time the soil will build up and become better for whatever plants find their home here. Stay tuned to watch this area come alive!

Edit: I may end up keeping the Crape myrtles, you've convinced me! The plan was to have fast growing trees for more immediate shade then to removed them for the hemlocks. It all depends on how things work so we'll see how it goes.