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!

In and Out

 I have been hardening off my seedlings rather than just throwing them out in the cold frame.  I'm working around the house each day so it isn't too inconvenient.  They can be out for several hours each day now and by the weekend they will be fine in the cold frame all day.

The Coleus and Marigolds are out there already.

I am warming the soil for my Dahlias.  The regular soil temperature here is 50F but under the panels I have it up to 64F.

I finally got the Caesar's Brother Siberian Iris planted.  

We decided to remove the brick border.

We got our new mulch and finished mulching.

I am enjoying some of the new to me perennials.

This is Penstemon Onyx and Pearls.  The foliage stayed "green" all winter.

This is Amsonia Storm Cloud

I've had this several years, but it is the first year it has significant blooms.  
It is Lemony Lace Elderberry

The Bartlett branch of the pear tree is blooming.

Both Northern Spy apple trees are full of buds

The later blooming daffodils are opening and there are new variations every day

And the strawberry plants are blooming.  These are first year plants.  I snipped the runners from the neighbor's plants last year.

Spring is under way.

Rain Delay

We are enjoying a quiet, peaceful, April Shower kind of day.  Just what we needed!  A break from landscape clean up.  It is such a gentle rain it makes me wish I had planted something.  But, I am in a spring planting lull.  I am beginning to move things out of the workshop and into the cold frame to harden off.   This is a good day for that.  They won't be too hot and they won't scorch in the sun.  I can just put them out there and relax.  

Yesterday I brought out the El Brighto coleus cuttings I took from my lightly frosted plants last fall. They hung out in the workshop all winter at 55F. They got pretty pale at that temp, but when I turned the heat up to 60 a few weeks ago they colored up real nice and started putting on growth. I deleted a couple over the winter that just didn’t root in well but ended up with 15 gorgeous plants. I cleaned out all of the dead leaves, spread them out into two trays to give them room, and watered them in well.

Yesterday we cut the last landscape bed edge.  We are out of old mulch and waiting for this year's truckload, but we are prepped and ready to roll.  It was a good day to dilly dally and check on the roots of the Linden trees.

We all believe we are not over mulching and creating mulch volcanoes around our trees, but it never hurts to check.  I raked the old mulch away from the trunk flares and checked for any strangling roots.  Each tree had a few that needed to be removed, but nothing too dramatic.  I just used pruners to snip these sections out where they cross the larger roots and gave each tree an apologetic foot rub.

 

Still Mulching

Yesterday we got a very nice day and made the best use of it.  We are getting about every other day sunny and warm.  Spring is in full swing.

We mulched around the London Plane trees.  We did not bother to cut a new edge around these and you cannot even tell.

We mulched around the front of the house and along the driveway.

While the tractor was out I got the old Siberian Irises dug out from around the wellhead.  These needed a reset because they had a lot of grass encroaching and moss and crap.  I had already dug out some really nice dark blue Caesar's Brother Irises and set them aside ready to go in.  First I wanted to straighten out the brick edging and I didn't quite get to it.

Not today either.

April Showers?

 

Yesterday:  Fresh Snow and BITTER cold winds.

Today: Blue Skies and Warm Breezes

And fresh mulch

The lawns are still so soggy and wet that we are working on weeding and mulching areas we can reach from the driveways.

Peas and Lettuce

 

Time to plant peas.  I planted about 3.85 ounces per row which was the entirety of my seed peas collected last year.

This was about the nicest weather I have ever planted peas in.

I also sowed leaf lettuce down each side and covered everything with burlap to keep the birds out while everything germinates.

We finished edging and mulched the front fence line where the ditch lilies came out.

The End of the Ditch Lilies

We spent three days working on the ditch lilies, a total of almost eight hours with clean up and everything.  It was a bit of a muddy mess, so there was considerable tool cleanup.  But if it had not been a muddy mess it would have been that much harder to get them out.

This is the situation we were dealing with.  After sixteen or seventeen years, each clump had expanded to the point of taking over the railroad tie border and was not only speeding up the disintegration of the RR ties, but making its way into the gravel.  There was a mass of roots along the ties.

Some of the fence sections were not as bad and we could sift through a bit with a fork.  But the further along we went, the more aggressive we got until we were stripping some sections down to the gravel.

Next we will fill in the low spots with soil, cut the lawn edge and mulch.

The ditch lilies got moved back to the ditch.