Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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Lily left the valley
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

Post by Lily left the valley »

Manalto wrote:Rosemary will survive the winter in the ground in Gardner with protection. In December, take a peach basket full of oak leaves and place it upside-down over the plant. Put a rock on top (the bottom of the peach basket) for stability. Remove it in March.
Thanks for the tip. I was curious as to why oak leaves, so I did a bit more research on them. I did not know that both their propensity to not break down very fast without help (a common complaint, apparently for composters with many oak trees), as well as their curl makes them ideal for insulating. I even saw one recommendation to put oak leaves between a pot within a pot for that. Neat stuff! I guess I should be glad we have the one oak tree on the property line at least.
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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I use the oak-leaf trick for plants that are marginally hardy here. Rosemary, camellia, aucuba and fig all will grow on Long Island and even parts of the Connecticut shore, but not inland central Connecticut, at least not reliably so. Oak leaves keep them protected in the worst part of the winter. For larger plants, you can make a ring of chicken wire (or similar mesh) around the plant and fill it with leaves. (I no longer protect my aucuba because it's so big and, except for some occasional winter damage, it is now mature enough to survive year 'round.) If you do it the first or second week of December, you should be good. You want the season's cold to put the plant solidly into dormancy, so you don't want to do it too early.

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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

Post by Lily left the valley »

James, it's still a wee pot right now that we decided to bring indoors this winter, but I have definitely filed this info away for next year.

~~~
I honestly am so far behind in both doing and reporting on everything Beebe that I'll just say we got bamboozled by a high 80° F cluster that peaked today at 89! and will start working it's way down to 70 by end of week. It's really messing with both our clocks, because the cooler weather made the earlier sunset make sense, and now we're outside sweating and frantically trying to beat the dark when we do our evening rounds of clean up and discuss in the yard.

The yard has been a little bit each day sort of progress. I am, again, overwhelmed. Still, anything happening is making me deliriously happy, and I hope at some point soon I'll slow down enough to have more time to get back to more typical write ups with images. Hopefully after the inlaws end their visit next weekend and I can stop seeing every dust bunny and cobweb I somehow never noticed until the last week or less. :crazy:

I did finally drag Sean to another nursery nearbyish that has loads of shrubs and trees. Most are not native, so I wasn't terribly interested in most of what they had. Sean, though, is still hell bent on fruit trees, and although I share this notion, we are still cash shy for such. We also realized that what we thought was a crabapple tree in the back is not. Now we are trying to figure out what kind it is, because all the apples are smallish. However, we figured when it was planted, most of that woodsy area was not there, and from what we could tell looking at it and discussing it, it's starving for more light. So we have a plan to help that along a bit next year.

The other thing he suddenly got a bit crazy about was the idea of buying a live tree every year and planting them at Beebe. I had to talk him down from that when I reminded him how SMALL our yard is. Blue Spruce was a common childhood tree for me, and he really loved the color, so we're thinking of getting a very small one to plant after the holiday. The very nice lady at the nursery explained how best to prepare for such a thing, and we've picked a nice spot out front where it will go. She was also very nice about pointing out that not only is it good to wait until closer to Xmas to get it for the tree's sake while it's indoors, but also because the prices drop.

Speaking of picking out spots. Our neighbors must think we are complete loons. We have marker rocks all over the front lawn right now, for future beds and already in progress beds and transplants and such. :lol:

I still have not put our bulb order in, but hope to get that done this week. Between being sick, and now trying to prep the house for the inlaws, I'm a bit all over the place and distracted.

You may remember the sunflower seeds I planted waaaay late? Four plants made it out of about a dozen seeds sown, two of which are determined to flower even though they are tiny for the variety! Because the petals still aren't out of the buds, I don't know if the weird temperatures will prevent that. We have a few day lily buds that I don't think will ever open, and I should probably just cut them and put them in a vase at this point. I still haven't told him what they are (the sunflowers), and he has no clue (not surprising, given their size!) I did, sort of sneakily ask yesterday what he thought about planting sunflowers outside the south office window to help shade it next summer. He liked the idea. So that will be part of the border around the dry creek bed area back there.

So much to do, and I know we won't get it all done before it's too late to do so. Somehow, I am ok with this.
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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Lily left the valley wrote:James, it's still a wee pot right now that we decided to bring indoors this winter, but I have definitely filed this info away for next year.


I know others who have done this too, I've just never had luck keeping rosemary alive indoors through the winter.

Lily left the valley wrote:We have marker rocks all over the front lawn right now, for future beds and already in progress beds and transplants and such.


Digging up grass for planting beds is one of my least favorite tasks. One technique I've used for future beds is to put several layers of wet newspaper down and then cover with a couple inches of mulch. It helps you visualize the bed in that position a little bit better, and slowly kills the grass underneath, making the bed easier to dig. If you add a layer of manure under the newspaper, it will increase organic content and nutrients, stimulate worm activity, and speed the process along.

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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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Had the oddest visitor in my upstairs hallway today. A caterpiller. I took a picture, but was in a rush and it's terrible, so trying to do an image match for it online was fruitless. I went back to where I left it, and of course it's moved on, so no second chance there. I wish I could not feel guilty about taking images of such lately, but there's just a lot to do. I tried to use some of the ID sites by color/traits, but still haven't found an exact match although it's close-ish to an orange-humped mapleworm moth, though the striping was not as dense as this species. The striped area was more of a central only marking area. I want to say dorsal area, but I don't think that's a vocabulary identifier for caterpillars. The rest of the body was gray, but it does have the two orange ends as this does.
Image

Weather is still quite warm. Continuing on with the ongoing projects this afternoon.

Manalto wrote:I know others who have done this too, I've just never had luck keeping rosemary alive indoors through the winter.
Hrm. I haven't tried to keep herbs indoors before, so maybe I'll divide it and try both. :eusa-think:

Manalto wrote:Digging up grass for planting beds is one of my least favorite tasks. One technique I've used for future beds is to put several layers of wet newspaper down and then cover with a couple inches of mulch. It helps you visualize the bed in that position a little bit better, and slowly kills the grass underneath, making the bed easier to dig. If you add a layer of manure under the newspaper, it will increase organic content and nutrients, stimulate worm activity, and speed the process along.
I've actually been appreciative of the breaking of ground, although the double digging part is tedious. :D I find it hard work, but I like the mental aspect of changing the look.

What we've fallen into the habit of is starting with the rocks, then after a few days to see it and think about it (or just didn't have time to get to it--hah!), we'll use a shovel to get a clearer idea of the shape and cut clean through the turf. I also started pulling up just the nearest edge (bed side) lately, so the edge doesn't get lost if it rains, but we don't lose anything if we decide differently.

In the back, I have done something similar to what you are describing with cardboard, and using my "baking bags" for weight. (So many bags now, as I've been clearing out what I definitely don't want for next year before it seeds.) Our long neglected turf, despite the aerating I tried to do this spring is dense and very thick. Most areas, we have to remove height anyway because of the build up over time, so I just toss the top layer in a set aside area near the compost. I originally made the mistake of mixing them in with the compost but they seriously retarded the composting process because of how dense they are.

Only one bed so far, a small one near the garage, were we fairly dithersome over the shape. I know these days the trend is to "serpentine" them, but those can be a chore to edge later. (I have an old fashioned edger, not a strimmer.)
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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Not sure what "baking bags" are. The benefit of the newspaper/manure/mulch combo is that light is blocked but water and air exchange continues and, over time, earthworms will aerate the soil while adding nutrients. An added benefit is that you're not bringing weed seeds to the surface, except where you dig holes for the individual plants you install. Some weed seeds can remain dormant in the soil for 40+ years - until they see the light of day.

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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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Manalto wrote:Not sure what "baking bags" are. The benefit of the newspaper/manure/mulch combo is that light is blocked but water and air exchange continues and, over time, earthworms will aerate the soil while adding nutrients. An added benefit is that you're not bringing weed seeds to the surface, except where you dig holes for the individual plants you install. Some weed seeds can remain dormant in the soil for 40+ years - until they see the light of day.
Ah. I thought you were using it as a grass killer, not in the method of today's landscaping fabric, which I despise. Even more so each time I find more that's deteriorated that I have to hand pick each rotting piece out of a bed. It's the modern plastic stuff. We found the rest of the roll in the garage, and although I was originally thinking to use it as a base for a path, I'd rather just use wool felt! So into the "free" pile it went.

The term "baking bags" I might have picked up somewhere, but if so I forget where. We had leftover black contractor bags from something or other (might have even been the studio we gutted years ago). I've been putting any weeds I pull in those, and leave them out in the sun so they bake at a high enough temperature that it kills anything trying to germinate, while also making the contents a nice soupy mess over time that is still good food for future plantings (the liquid is pretty much compost tea, really). I'm not yet ready for an always hot compost pile, so I did this instead. I'm using the contents of those in part with what little compost I did manage to not screw up this summer for my double digging to help add nutrients. I've had two bags baking most of the summer and am about to start a third, and possible fourth if I can't empty out the one I'm currently using fast enough.

In the future, I'll like to get a dark container of some sort for the same effect and not use bags. Hopefully I won't have as much to put in there by then, too! :lol: (In truth, I have considered using the doghouse that got left behind for such, and painting it a darker color, putting a liftable "door" over the entry to scoop out what's ready.)

I did remember one thing I forgot to mention. I may have mentioned this before, but when we were at the grocery store and I saw their pumpkins for sale, meant for display, it made me think of this again. We thought about trying to grow them out front next year, so they'll be a nice "fall" decoration without going out and buying any, even if they're still growing on the vine.

The tallest sunflower looks like it could open any day now. Today was warmer than they predicted, so I think it will make it before the temperature drops again. I did ask Sean today if he liked having a mystery plant, or if it drove him nuts not knowing, and he said he liked it. So I plan to do it again next year. I did offer, in fairness, that he could easily do one too if he wanted. I know he's not thrilled with the idea, but he said "maybe I'll think of something". :D
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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I do use it principally as a grass killer; cutting off the sunlight will eventually have that effect. It just makes sense to me to add nutrients, organic matter and aeration to the soil since most landscape plants will fare better. But you seem to have figured out a method that works for you.

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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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Manalto wrote:I do use it principally as a grass killer; cutting off the sunlight will eventually have that effect. It just makes sense to me to add nutrients, organic matter and aeration to the soil since most landscape plants will fare better. But you seem to have figured out a method that works for you.
I see the wisdom in that, especially if one isn't needing to remove height from build up as we do. Sadly, the amount of broken glass, cigarette filters and bits and pieces of children's toys alone I find in the yard pretty much everywhere means I'd just be burying it further. I have to rake very carefully in plain dirt just to make sure I'm not going to be adding another layer on top of trash. That's much harder to do with the long neglected turf part of the yard. At least the wild strawberry vines come up easily in clumps to see under. :D

There was a point that I was only focusing on one square foot a day for a while, until I realized how much we'd likely dig up for bedding or other plans like regrading, and then I only focused on pathways we were likely to keep.

So far, excluding the large machine parts I initially found in the one back corner (and there's still more, I just decided to focus my efforts elsewhere because it was taking forever) I have now filled a bit more than half a contractor bag with the various garbage bits I keep in the garage just for yard trash. That doesn't include the beer bottle glass. We bag that separate as I had a sharp reminder early on why even with a contractor bag, that kind of broken glass should not go in that bag.

That's also not including the two bags of ash we had to sort through from both the firepit and the ash that was dumped in the city garbage can without a bag (which the city wouldn't pick up.) Yesterday, actually, a neighbor that stopped by to chat while I was gardening mentioned the former tenants were well known for their regular bonfires in the backyard where they always burned furniture. I've found quite a few metal hardware bits from that ash left behind that I intend to use in projects down the road. They weren't very good at making fires. At some point, they even burned trash and other paper bits that didn't burn well. Things they didn't want going to a landfill, like old love letters and gentlemen mags. :lol:
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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So in the middle of no where in particular in the backyard, a plant unlike any I'd seen so far started growing early on, and just kept on going. The spot it was in was mostly sunny, and I decided to move it to the front to see how it would do.

I checked on it today, and it's looking rather well.

At first, I thought it might be lamb's ear, but the leaves also aren't as "hairy" as the images I saw of lamb's ear. We also had no flowers, so no color to go by, although I saw there are some variants that do not flower.

So I did a search for plants similar to lamb's ear, and I'm thinking we might have Mullein (aka velvet dock, flannel leaf or plant, feltwort, Aaron’s rod, shepherd’s staff, and lungwort). I didn't have the camera with me, but it looks awfully similar to this:
Image

I've been keeping an eye on the milkweed pods and they are getting so very soft. So any day now, I will be harvesting them for seeds so I can choose where they might grow instead of where the wind blows. I'm going to keep most in the back, but will also put some in the front.

Speaking of the front. The sunflowers. The one by the separate small lily bed is dying back. Because of our neighbor's wall 'o flowering shrubs, it didn't get near the sun it could have.

The two in the corner were also likely affected by the shade. The higher up one started to unfurl today. The lower and smaller seems to have had the early sun blocked by the grass I let grow to help keep that portion from eroding. The one by the rain barrel is the tallest by far, which surprised me since it's so close to the porch. Yet I think the combination of the early east sun and being so near the rain barrel run off really gave it an extra push. I do not think they will last long, as the temperature finally turned downwards today, with a much balmier 76°F at 1:11pm.

When we did our walk around, I picked up a few fallen branches along the west side, and there were some tiny dragonflies about. One decided one of the branches I was carrying towards the woody bits pile was a fine place to be. So we had a nice friend for the walk across the backyard until I put it down on the pile, where it flew off shortly after.

We have a few devil's paintbrush that popped up again with the warmer weather in that back corner. I am still amazed at how much is here all on its own. I am really glad I let the back run wild this year. A lot of great finds.

The last of all the weedy bits and a few lower flowering bunches I haven't ID'd yet are slowly losing their flowers, so I am letting them die out on their own before culling. We still have a lot of bumble bees and the occasional wasps feeding. I haven't seen any of the smaller bees for a while. I also haven't had as much time to sit and look either.

At some point, I'll write about what I found when I researched transplanting a mature apple tree. I have to say searching for such was a joke. Most of the sites and youtube vids I found were calling what I think of as a sapling as mature. :lolno: Then I found this lovely gem on a site that I'll post more about later. I learned more watching that one video than I did on about two dozen sites and maybe a dozen or so other vids. So I wanted to share it in case anyone else is interested. They are transplanting a pear tree, I think it was, but from what I'm to understand, for the most part a lot of the steps are the same save a few apple specific tips I've picked up.

We're still not sure if they are a crab variant because they are about 2" on average, or if they are all just small because of the shade. We only had green crabapple trees where I grew up, but now I know there are red variants as well. I found a site with a listing of different types, and hope to ID it today if it is a crabapple.

Lots more I want to write about, but only so much sun time! :happy-sunshine:
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