Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

 This past winter we got our first snowfall on Thanksgiving, and the snow cover was in place until spring.  This made it a little hard on the deer, especially since our deer seem to rely primarily on landscaping for food, especially in the winter, and a lot of people do successfully fence them out of shrubs.  You have to be serious about your fences or the deer will just go over them or under them.  Our next door neighbors put loops of fence around their Rhododendrons, but they did not anchor the fence with T-posts.  One day they looked out the window and there was a deer behind the fence.

The deer was behind the fence below and as you can see, there is no way they could jump into that.  They just squeezed between the fence post and the wall.  Is it not a little ironic that the leaves they ate were behind the fence, not above it....

The neighbors had thought previously of pulling these over grown shrubs, but having seen similar damage on other shrubs before I suggested that they just cut them to the ground and let them grow back fresh.  I knew of two other neighborhood houses who had, in the past, done this and I had watched the result.  So the last week of March they cut them down.

Not much left there!  I suggested they give them a good dose of granular fertilizer and just wait.

It wasn't long before they began to grow.  I made sure to take pictures through the spring and summer to track their progress.

End of May

Two of them came back thick.

The new growth is glossy and healthy.

Mid-August

The regrown shrubs are more proportionate to the other landscape.

One of them is lagging behind a bit.  I suggested that they go ahead and cut these bare trunks back further since no new growth is coming from them.  The new growth on this shrub is coming only from the roots.

And this winter make sure to anchor their fence with posts!

Working Out Landscape "Problems" for Next Year

 Now that I am through with another season of discouraging deer from eating my Daylily buds, I am starting to make plans for changes that will improve my life next year.  I have ten Daylilies that are still difficult to protect.  Three of them I don't feel the need to save or even replace, and six of them I do want to replace with something more suitable.   Last year I dug out quite a few and replaced them with other plants.  Between the lily dig outs and the winter failures, I had to replace twelve plants.  Now that is complete and I am making plans for next year's round of replacements.

These Daylilies are going to have to go.  The yellow Happy Returns that flank the entrance to the walkway are now done blooming and will have to be cut back anyway, and the tall white lily is just beginning to bloom this week at the point that I am sick and tired of spraying repellent every day.

These yellow lilies may as well be replaced with annuals.  In years previous I have planted annuals along the right side and I am going back to that.  A row of "white" Marigolds or Geraniums would look nice, but will still have to be sprayed.  So far, the deer have never eaten Petunias.  I think I may try those next year.  That plant on the left of the walkway is the original Happy Returns plant and I have divided it many times so that I, and our neighbor, have it in a dozen other locations.  The neighbor wants more, so these will not go to waste.

This photo is from ten years (or more) ago.

I felt like I would like a medium sized perennial or shrub in the place of the white lily.  Not far away in the same bed I have this Little Lime Punch panicle hydrangea.  The deer will trim it a little in the spring when the tips are growing, but it is not a priority to them so it is easier to protect than lily buds and they do not totally ruin it.  Once it blooms it is safe and will look nice for months compared to a lily which only blooms for a week or two and must be protected to the very end.

The Hydrangea is budding right now and it will be covered in large blooms until winter.  While the white Daylily (below) is at it's prime and doesn't really look all that hot.  I have decided that Daylilies are not front door plants.  They just look too plain or too scraggly most of the summer.  I mean if this is the best it can do.... there are a lot of easier plants that look nicer for longer.

My intention was to mail order a Little Lime Punch or a Little Quick Fire which are both panicle Hydrangea that bloom on new wood.  But, the local fancy nursery that I knew had a good inventory of Hydrangea just put their stock on 25% off so I went and got a beautiful two gallon plant for the same price as a one gallon plant usually costs.  After the extended rain the other day, I took my transplant shovel around and started cutting loose Daylilies while the soil was soft.  I put my spade in next to that white Daylily and the whole clump came up.  No cutting needed!

I was thinking that I may put a medium sized decorative grass to its right. but I already have some good vertical elements with the Echinacea.  I think a lighter colored Heuchera may be more appropriate on the corner replacing the yellow Daylily.  I guess I could always divide a shorter grass I already have because the deer are not interested in any of my many decorative grasses.  

Which brings us to the dry creek bed.  I had six Daylilies left in that area.  Four of those are on the replacement list.  The reason I hadn't already removed those is that I really liked a couple of them and they are a bugger to get out of that rocky planting situation.  This large pink one is gorgeous, but sort of stuck out amid the more subtle wildflower look of the other flowers in the creek bed area.  I have a couple of ideas for a more appropriate, more deer resistant plant to replace it like maybe Ironweed.  Because the pink Daylily is so pretty, the next door neighbor took it and tucked it in a corner where it will hopefully fare better than on the edge of my open lawn.

Nearby it was two toned lily.  The deer love this one.  Not only was it on the edge and easily accessible, it seems to taste better than some of the others.  Truthfully, the deer seem to prefer the lighter colored blooms, and while they will eat dark red ones, those are easier to protect.  The deer are not as determined to eat every. last. bud.  It was always the first Daylily to sustain deer damage every year.  I am just going to replace this with a Foxtrot grass division I already have potted up.  I think it is a Sweet Sugar Candy variety and I have more of those in a safer place.

And lastly, this little lily.  I had planned to remove it last year, but I had run out of ideas for replacement plants so I just left it.  It managed to produce one bloom this year, and the deer reached under the net and ate the rest.  I have more of this color in a protectable spot at the end of the vegetable garden so it was dug up and will be replaced, probably with Yarrow.

I am in the process of digging out half a dozen more Daylilies in less conspicuous spots.  Most of them are not even being replaced.  If the space ends up looking too empty, I can always plant something new in the future.  Sometimes the peace that empty space affords is more valuable than the satisfaction of a nice looking plant that you have fought for.  Gardening should bring joy, not frustration.  There is no reason to keep a plant that is bogging you down.

Mid-Season Landscape Maintenance - additional work done today

 Today is our second day in a row of cooler and drizzy weather.  We got a little rain which revived some of the tired out perennials but did nothing for the rainwater tank.  It was a good day to catch up on weeding because the rain had softened the ground, and it wasn't radiating heat back up at me.

I pulled about ten pounds of weeds (seriously) from two of the landscape beds then decided to refresh the edging while I was at it.

I used a transplant spade to cut the grass at the edge then pulled it up and swished the mulch around.

This bed I call the "Spring Garden" because it is full of Daffodils and Primrose.  When we mulch in the spring it is difficult to mulch closely around the Daffodil foliage.  When I cut the foliage back the weeds start in the thin mulch around the bulbs so after I pulled all of them I went ahead and dumped some mulch on those thin spots.  That way the weeds won't come back this season.

I walk along this bed every day and it is easily visible from the house windows so having a fresh edge and nice mulch makes a big impact.

Here are some more pictures of bright spots in the garden.

Echinacea Cantaloupe 

Hosta

Cardinal Flower

Profusion Apricot Zinnia

Licorice Plant, Sweetunia Black Satin and Rediculous Coleus

Some of my tall, decorative Dahlias are ready to bloom which is about two weeks earlier than usual.

Bloomquist Gordon Dahlia

**FOOTNOTE:  Today I tackled edging the area I call "The Warf".  We have a few edges in our landscape that are two inch washed stone against grass.  These require edging every three to five years which is a lot better than shredded bark mulch which must be edged at least every year and some, twice a year. For the first couple of years you can neaten it up with a string trimmer, or just pull the quack grass and white clover away, but every once in awhile it needs a reset.  This was on my agenda but my husband pitched in because cutting edges along stone can be a beast.  It looks nice when you are done though.  The sod pulled up enough stone that we had to refresh that a bit.

And then since everything was done on either side, I cut the edge along the flagstone.

You can see the mud line along the stones where the grass had encroached.

Whew!

A Late Start

This time last year we were already done with edging and mulching.  This year we are just getting started.  The weeding and clean up is already done but we just started edging and refreshing the mulch.

We edged the front fence line and tomorrow we will lay down some mulch.  162 feet of edging is no small task for two older folks, one of which recently had his "good" knee scoped.  Actually, this slower approach to spring cleanup and mulching has allowed me to get other things done at my own pace which has been very relaxing.

Today I planted my fourth and final row of peas.  The first two are up, and the third is starting to show some little green sprouts.

The Cole Crops spent the day under insect netting only and they look like it agreed with them.

Past Project Update: The Palisade Garden Bed

 Here is an updated view of the garden bed we carved out of the edge of the thicket  last July.  It contains grasses divided from various areas of the landscape and the myrtle ground cover that was already there and moved aside during excavation.  Next year I will try to add some color and different textures but they will have to be very deer resistant plants.

Today

Completion Last Year

Below is the original clump of Flame Grass that the majority of the grass was divided from.  As you can see, it needs to be divided again.  It has gotten unruly and flattened out in the last rain.

A view along the back line of grasses.

A Johnson Perennial Geranium divided out of the Creek Bed Garden spills out of my PaPaw's hog boiler.

A horse-drawn plow from the neighboring farm.

Before

After

Below is one of the Foxtrot grasses divided in March.

And this is one of the Little Bunny grasses I divided the end of June.

Dahlia of the Day: My Forever

When You're Hot You're Hot

 Is it ever too hot to do yard work?  Apparently not.  Remember back in April when we opened up our septic to pump the tank?  Well, this spring was so wet, and the ground was so saturated, that we began to be concerned about the slow percolation in our septic field.  The one we had was a closed system designed for a two bedroom house.  There was no water outlet.  If the ground was saturated, as it certainly was, water just wasn't going to go anywhere very fast.  When we had this system put in back in 2011, the septic field was surrounded by woods., and there really wasn't any other option than a closed system that size.  Then in 2021 we removed most of the woods.  And now, we had easy access and elevation to drain a sand filter down to the road ditch.

So we dug up the yard.  Because, if you have ever had a septic system back up into your house, you will know that there is just about no amount of money that is worth taking that chance.

Now we have a big, beautiful sand filter that is permitted for three bedrooms, but actually big enough for four.  If anything catastrophic ever happened to this house, we would not rebuild it this small.  It is also a good selling point if the next owners ever wanted to add on.  

The filter drains down through where those trees were to the road ditch so it should never back up just because of saturation. We can do as much laundry as we want.  And boy, do we do laundry!  On days like this it is best just to undress straight into the washing machine.

After the excavator left, my husband spent several days with first a box scraper, then a york rake, getting the whole area graded and smoothed down.  Yesterday, we happened to find a nearby source of good topsoil that we needed to reseed the lawn over the sand filter.  The best time to use topsoil is when it is freshly dumped.  You don't want it to be rained on if you want to be able to spread it smoothly.  So, around noon, we began to repair the lawn.

Luckily, when we started, we were working towards shade.  And we had shade and a nice breeze to sit and cool down in.  Because the official temperature was 94F but both of my outdoor thermometers said 100F.  It took us about four hours.  We had to use the smaller tractor because one end of the filter is still a little like walking on a water bed, and the big tractor would have left deeper ruts.  Now we need to spread seed and hay so we can take advantage of upcoming rain and get some grass growing.

Below is a shot of our second family of Eastern Bluebirds at breakfast time.

ME FIRST!