Being the “all or nothing” type person I am, last year I convinced dh to plant all of the 8 flower beds we outlined with cement curbing. Well, really, one of them was an existing one but we added on to it and (more than doubling the size) planted a zillion more flowers in it – major overhaul – so I’m still counting it as a new one. As soon as I finish cleaning up the front flower beds I’ll post comparison photos of the newly planted beds last year and what they look like now after a year’s growth. For now, I just wanted to say that this all or nothing personality often gets me into trouble. Last year I ended up having to hire some kids to help get everything planted. I think we planted over 200+ things last year if I remember right. Earlier this week when I returned some dried up things that didn’t make it through the winter, I couldn’t help but use the refund $$ to purchase a few more things. I only bought 14 plants which didn’t look like THAT much work in the shopping cart. I knew I would have to plant them all by myself this year, but I hadn’t calculated how long it would take to plant that many things by myself! Last year I would come home with the entire back part of my YUKON fully loaded with plants and it would only take 1/2 a day to get them in the ground. By myself, it has taken me all week to plant barely a dozen things. Emily has also helped, but even with both of us working it is taking a LONG TIME! Now you know why I haven’t had much time to blog lately.
Planting anything now is quite a process. First, I have to figure out where to plant the things I bought because now I’m going outside of our landscape plan (LOL – not sure if that’s a good thing or not). We planted the “plan” last year. Now, I’m filling in with some flowers I’ve decided I really like, filled in spots that didn’t have any early summer color, added some different heights in a few areas, etc. Basically, I’m putting “my” touch on the “plan” now (LOL). We’ll see if I end up with a mess come next summer. I digress… back to what it takes to plant something around here. After I figure out WHERE to plant something then I have to cut through the fabric mat. I’ve gone through several utility knife blades and one pair of good scissors cutting through all of this mat. Then.. digging the hole. I’ve found it easier to use a little hand held spade instead of a big shovel. Fortunately, we’ve had a lot of rain so the digging has been pretty easy. Then, we (we as in the boys help with this part) haul off the dug up dirt and replace it with some mulch and good dirt since most of what we dig up is pretty rocky.
Then, planting the plant is the easy part especially when you have such great 4 year old help!
Seriously, EVERYONE needs a helper like this! Thanks to our botany teachers, Rose Ranae & Lavender Laura, both of our boys have taken a keen interest in what I’m doing in the flower beds this year! THANKS gals for helping to develop a love of gardening and nature in our boys! I’m SO thankful for all of their green thumb projects this year. I can’t even believe I would do this, and if it weren’t for them I wouldn’t have. I “rescued” a plant.. you know as in brought one in from the flower bed to give it some TLC in our light hut! We’ll see if it makes it or not. I think it’s problem is that it’s supposed to be in a partly sunny area and with all the moisture and cool/overcast days we’ve had it’s a little on the yellow side. I figured it was probably going to die anyway so I may as well bring it in the house for some doctoring! I’ll post pictures of it another day… now back to this week’s planting project. I sure do digress a lot, don’t I?
Sometime later I will have to go back and poke holes in the main water line, insert all of the connections (those hurt my fingers SO MUCH.. ouch….), attach the tubing, and then put the right dripper on the end for the size plant I planted. Since we’ve had so much rain and the weather is still pretty cool here I’m not going to worry about the drip system stuff until a little later. These new plants will need to be watered by hand until they’ve been in a little while since I won’t want to water our year old things as much as the new plants will need. After they are established then I’ll put them on the drip system.
I’ve been going through each flower bed to cut bigger holes in the fabric mat around EVERY SINGLE plant we planted last year. I have transplated some of the ground cover type things to other areas. I’ve fixed the drip system problems….. some of the emitors have come off, some of the tubes aren’t quite long enough to reach the center of the plant, etc. It has taken me all week, but I’m 2/3 of the way around the house. I’ll finish up the front flower beds next week.
I enjoy the exercise I get from working in the flower beds, but I’m less than thrilled to mingle with all of the bugs, worms, and spiders who make their homes in our flower beds. I also don’t like how the dirt dries out my hands. Even worse is the claustrophic feeling I get when wearing gloves. So, I skip the gloves and use lots of Eucerin cream on my hands at the end of the day.
Both of our parents really enjoy gardening so you would think some of their love of gardening would have rubbed off on Tim and I. Nope. They both have lots of flower beds and vegetable gardens (although my mom’s vegetable garden is a “container” garden). We’ve been in our home 16 years this month and last year was the first year we spent any amount of time, energy, or money in flower beds. Maybe gardening is something you can acquire a love of? You know.. .like some people (I won’t mention any names) have an acquired taste for coffee? I’ll get back to you in a few years to let you know if gardening out of necessity to keep up these beds we put in last year has caused me to develop a desire (or at least a fondness) for gardening or not.
One of my blogging friends, Debbie, obviously LOVES gardening. It seems like she’s putting in some new thing every weekend. She’s a “real” gardener who knows the names of her plants. And, she doesn’t mind all of the creepy crawly things you’ll find in a garden. She even helped her kids catch a SNAKE! Not me.. I’m not going anywhere near a snake and I only remember the names of my plants if they happen to still have the tag on or if I happened to mark any deviations from our plan on the design sheet. You can check out her blog by clicking here. Then click on “The Garden” label in the side margin.
Cynthia,
I’ve moved house so many times as an adult, 15-20x maybe? And everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve tried to improve the garden just a little. Improving the soil, planting spring bulbs, or a perenial or even once, a tree. I love to think of all the spots on the earth which are little bit more colourful because of me! {g}
Having said that, I’ve not had time to do much with our current garden at all!
It’s great to see what you’ve been doing.
Dorothy
What a great helper!
Love all the flower photos.
