How does your garden grow? - YouLookFab Forum

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How does your garden grow?

Runcarla

Veteran

When the temporary garden centre tents go up in the parking lot of the grocery store, it’s a sure sign of spring! Where I live, it’s not really safe to plant tender annuals and veg crops until Victoria Day (CA)/Memorial Day (US), but it seems like spring is coming a little early this year. Besides, the garden guy on the radio said it’s time to plant ‘cold crops’ like peas and salad lettuce now!

Last year’s 4 x 4 veg patch rigged from recycled wood and chicken wire provided good protection from the rabbits and other varmints that live in the ravine behind our house, and we had fun growing fresh veg (peas, beans, lettuce, green onions, tomatoes, potatoes). This year the garden is being upgraded to 4 x 8 and DH has gone to town building (and repairing) garden structures while I started some things from seeds a month ago.

So, how does your garden grow?

1. Tomatoes started from seed
2. new garden patch with cold frames (built by DH) chicken wire goes up next week!
3 and 5. Roses got pruned and trained on trellis to maximize blooms
4. Lady’s Mantle, peony, widow’s tears, hosta making an appearance
6. Iris in the pond (will bloom yellow in early June)
7. Front yard garden - the slowest as it faces North and is in shade much of the day
8. DH with ‘The Oil Rig’ (he also rebuilt the flower boxes on the garden shed)
9. a wind storm blew the lattice out of the arbour and DH made new inserts from recycled wood he ripped into strips with his new table saw - I’ve got roses trained up the arbour.

I’ll start a new thread here in ‘Off Topic’ every couple of weeks - so take snaps of your garden, patio and balcony planters, kitchen window herbs - whatever you’ve got growing - and post your pics!

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19 replies

Latest reply was from MsMary

chewyspaghetti

Veteran

Very nice!
I'm jealous- just houseplants for me right now. We're hoping that when we move in October we can get some outdoors pace.

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JAileen

Veteran

Carla, your garden projects look great!

1. Tomato plants I started from seed. They are outside all day now. We’ll plant them on Mother’s Day, in a WallOWater. We could still have frost until June.

2. Peonies, not quite ready

3. Red Twig Dogwood
4. Apple blossom
5. Rosemary - this plant is huge, and bloomed all winter. Hummingbirds like it.

Blooms from a couple weeks ago

6. Crabapple
7. Forsythia - this shrub is massive, almost up to the eaves of our house. I hate when they are pruned into little balls.

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Anonymous

I love that curved trellis . Your area looks much further ahead than we are in Wpg . Nothing has started coming up yet , nor is the grass anywhere near being green . I always wanted a raised bed but never figured out where to build it before we ultimately moved and it was a moot point . Garden centres are setting up their structures in parking lots but no plants outside here yet . I’m not rushing to buy flowers yet - might actually wait until after the long weekend - which is not my norm . I’m usually so excited to get going I’m out there too early

Runcarla

Veteran

@ cheweyspagetti - I’ve never seen a spider plant in bloom before! It’s lovely!

@ JAilene - I’ve looked for those ‘wall of water’ things after you posted a pic of one last year. Who makes them? I’m ‘testing’ one tomato plant, outside but it’s too tall for the cold frames. I just invert my weeding bucket (an old diaper pail) over it every night or when daytime temps go below freezing! Poor thing...

@ lisa p - the curved trellis is made up from two smaller trellis’s held together with zip ties to make a half circle! They are about 5 yo and holding up very well (no rust.) https://www.canadiantire.ca/en.....p.html#srp I like that they are not right next to the wall, and the air can circulate - important with roses! Pic below - a bouquet from last summer, made up from the roses I grow!

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JAileen

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I move my tomatoes in and out every day. All of our nurseries carry WallOWater, but so does Amazon. This is a different brand, but looks the same other than color. Ours are pale green instead of red.

https://www.amazon.com/Park-Se.....crid=258TV=

Style Fan

Veteran

We live in an area that doesn't lend itself to a garden. I have several containers and fill those up every year. I pick up whatever is available and hope for the best. I usually go for a theme - purple flowers, interesting leaves, etc. It has always worked out. I did buy a rhododendron last year and planted it in a large container. It has survived the winter.
Along the banks of the river are lots of interesting plants. Soon the trillium will be coming out. There are other beautiful wildflowers as well.

Anonymous

Love the garden pics! Mine is definitely a WIP, though difficult cause of the shade. Many things I've tried haven't worked out. I'm trying to make a pollinator garden on the far side of the driveway. A honeysuckle popped up there unexpectedly
My neighbor is letting me dig up some of her ferns today- hoping they do well transplanted!

Anonymous

It is to early to plant outside. Daffodils are just blooming now. The garden centers are filled and open mostly because they got deliveries. We had heavy frost damage already on several plants in our yard. Lots of dead will have to be cut back, even on natives. We got a couple of climbing roses which get moved in and out daily.

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Such beautiful gardens and green thumbs! LOVELY. My late Mama loved to garden too.

It's very green in Seattle - like it almost always is because of the rain. Grey skies, but very green grass!

We live in a loft so no garden. But look at how well my very hard to grow inside Bonsai is doing

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SarahD8

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Lovely pics, Runcarla (and others)!

No veggie gardening for us this year as we are moving next month. But this week my native plant garden in an old disused water feature is in its full glory. Here's a pic: camas, yarrow, fringecup, yellow violet, western meadow rue, beach strawberry, and thimbleberry in the back.

Our new place doesn't have a yard but I'm hoping to do lots of container gardening on the patio. I'm plotting to dig up a few samples of the plants pictured here (well, minus the thimbleberry) and see if I can recreate a bit of this exuberant little meadow in a galvanized tub.

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Minaminu

Veteran

Wonderful gardens!

I started preparing some flowers and veggies for my garden. I have a propagator with courgettes, squash, chard, beetroot nd i do companion planting in my garden, I have a propagator with verbena, cosmos, basil, marigold, taggets and nasturtium. A friend of mine is growing cucumbers, tomatoes, fennels and some other flowers, we are planning to swap plants at the end of may. Next, I will start with kale, spinach and pak choy!

Janet

(website)

Veteran

We had a great little container garden last summer and I’m excited to get it going again this year, but it’s delayed as my husband scheduled someone to pressure wash and stain our back deck and it needs time to dry before we put everything back , including the planters. We have a big yard but most of it is shady and wooded so the deck and containers work best for us. Plus, critters don’t come up on the deck and weeding is almost nil.

In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying the azaleas in our yard in their full bloom and want to add more red and pink for the future. The clematis is looking good too.

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Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Janet, I say this every year! You have a STUNNING garden

Anonymous

The ferns are in the ground I hope they go forth and multiply!

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Jenn

(website)

Veteran

What Angie said, Janet. Wow!

I don't have any recent pics, but the plants on our rooftop are definitely starting to fill out again. Year-round growing season here, so I'm still getting used to the rhythms of it. I'm thinking about adding a hydroponic tower to grow more herbs and greens.

Suz

(website)

Veteran

So.....mine is coming along. In Victoria, BC. The first 3 photos are March 20, when the leaves still had not appeared, but we had some daffodils. Later photos from today.

Daffodils and hyacinths are finished. Our tulips rarely make it through the ravages of the rabbits and deer, but I do have a few, and in the backyard, the flowering crab is coming into bloom. Magnolias are just finishing. Leaves are all unfurled now, even the Garry Oak (which tends to leave out rather late) and the garden is looking green. Rosemary in bloom and some early blooming lavender about to flower.

It's a joy to see all your beautiful spaces. Mine is very suburban so it's hard to get a shot in the front that doesn't feature somebody else's house or car, LOL, but as you can see, the back is extremely private.

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Janet

(website)

Veteran

Suz, that looks like such a lovely space!

Thanks for the kind words about our yard. It's been a work in progress for over a decade now. We actually did some really intensive work on the property a few years after we moved in. We live in a hilly area, and our driveway is a long one with a significant grade and a curve right before you get to our house. The parking area was actually slanted so badly that if you parked and tried to open your door on the uphill side, the door could slam shut on you. We had it totally regraded and repaved, and planted areas along it to give us a little buffer zone to the woods that are all around us. Then my husband decided he wanted a lawn, LOL. So now we have a bit of lawn spot which I have to admit is nice for playing with the dogs, and for sitting out on a couple of adirondack chairs. Hubs is good at lawn stuff because cattle ranchers know a thing or two about grass and pasture maintenance!

Then we completely redid the walkway to our house. It used to be a series of stepping stones that dipped downhill and then led to a couple of small steps up to the front door. We redesigned it to be a wooden walkway and enlisted the help of a wonderful landscape architect to design plantings and rocks around it, to evoke the feeling that the walkway is running alongside and over a stream (made of river rocks). We added a stone retaining wall and redesigned gate and fence next to our garage.

Then we totally rebuilt the back yard decking after a deck outside of our bedroom actually started pulling away from the house (should never have passed inspection!). We added a roof to one portion of it so we could enjoy outdoor space with some shade, plus a larger semicircle deck for a dining table. And we landscaped the hills with retaining wall and plantings, instead of the weedy, woodsy area that was there.

There is always a project still to be done. Now the 30 year old dogwood in front of our house is slowly dying and needs to be removed, and we also lost a beautiful Japanese white pine. We are limited in what we can plant here because the deer eat everything. They love hydrangeas and hostas. And forget about any bulbs.

We love it here but it's a lot to maintain. I expect in 10 years we may want to relocate somewhere with a bit less to deal with in terms of house and yard.

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SarahD8

Veteran

Suz, my camas are giving your Garry oak a high five!

MsMary

Veteran

We just re-did our front yard and I'm really happy with it! I will come back later with pics of the plants, but in the meantime here's our trusty "watch peacock," Navil, on duty!

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