How does your garden grow 2021 - #2 - YouLookFab Forum

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How does your garden grow 2021 - #2

Runcarla

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The May Long Weekend is traditionally the time considered safe to work in the garden - perennials have poked through, so there is less of a chance of digging them up by mistake, and temps are warm enough that tender annuals and veg won’t get hit by frosts.

Plants are still unfurling, so I have to be patient and not fill in empty spaces since most things are still growing and will triple in volume in the coming weeks and months.. I’ve done some dividing/replanting, but mostly garden chores this time of year are weeding and laying down protective mulch. I’m halfway through 40 bags of shredded natural cedar! Smells good, looks good, and makes future weeding a breeze!

So, how is your garden doing? Do you garden on a grand scale, grow herbs in pots on your balcony? Do you enjoy gardens vicariously - your neighbours’ efforts and city parks? Please share your stories and photos!

Linking to Christina’s forum post for the funny oregano stories! We have a little patch of lawn that smells like Italian cooking when DH mows. Attempts at eradicating the oregano have thus far failed https://youlookfab.com/welookf.....e-no-jeans

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JAileen

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Carla, your garden is gorgeous!

Here, it’s considered safe to plant tomatoes once the snow is off (a local mountain). So we planted our tomatoes, squash, etc,, a couple days after Mother’s Day, and now, the last few days, it’s been cold, raining and snowing. The snow isn’t sticking, but it did get down into the low 30s a couple mornings. Walls O Water could not be found for anything. We had lots, but after 25 years they do give up. I tossed at least a half dozen. I think everything has survived, even peaches. Here are some of our irises. We have a wisteria that has never bloomed, and but I’ve trained a clematis to climb up it.

I still have butternut squash and zinnias left to plant. I love these zinnias, Cut and Come Again. The flowers are small, but all colors, and with long stems. I enjoy having them inside. We got a new birdbath this year. It’s right out our kitchen window. Here is a cedar waxwing getting a drink. Last night I saw a mountain chickadee taking a bath.

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Anonymous

I enjoy gardens on city walks. Here are some pics from downtown and creek walk. I included a picture of geese that turned their heads just right for me

Is the oregano near the garden? You might have to cut out the patch, new topsoil and reseed grass.

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Anonymous

Oh, I forgot to write that your gardens are beautiful!

Glory

Veteran

Beautiful gardens! I’m a bit further North than Carla so we are just starting. I’ll take some additional photos tomorrow. I had to share this picture of Mr Sassy! Super bold middle of the day. He has visited a few times.

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JAileen

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Glory, that is a very bold raccoon. I would wonder if it was sick. We get raccoons, but usually at 2AM. (We got cameras to see what came around. Our neighbors have had bears!)

avicennia

Veteran

Ha! Ha! Sigh! The season for gardening has almost ended here in the Sonoran desert. It’ll soon be too late for transplanting and if I don’t move fast the plants won’t have time to get roots in before the burning heat starts. I still need to transplant about 5 agave, which I’ll do before the end of the week. I spent the day reorganizing the drip irrigation lines. From here until late October, gardening is just about tending the watering system.

avicennia

Veteran

Carla, all this is to say how much I admire your garden — the irises are divine!! — and long for the opportunity to garden all summer. Glory and JAileen, your gardens are lovely as well!

slim cat

Veteran

Beautiful garden, Carla - your hard work paid through!
Great pictures @JAileen and @Glory!
Feel a bit sad - I've never achieved anything remotely close to those beautiful gardens when we've had a house a few years ago ( some minor success with neighbors' chickens and cat wrecking havoc any time they got into our place ).

rachylou

Veteran

Your garden is truly flourishing, Carla!

The first pass kale and chard which kept on all winter is coming to an end. My strawberries from last year revived themselves and are looking happy. The chayote pear my coworker gave me last year is really growing. And first little asparagus shoots have come up from the plants I put in last year. They say it takes about two years. Peas, pole beans and tomatoes have gone into the ground. Peonies are in full swing.

However, none of my butternut squash will germinate! Admittedly, it’s the earliest I’ve ever tried, but it should work! And I just cannot get a leek to grow. I depend upon leeks. It would be so nice to have a ready supply!

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Anonymous

Wow everyone
Well a couple irises came up, maybe more next year. The ferns from my neighbor are wilting already, but at least the wild catmint I moved is happy in its new place.
I'm thinking I just need to cultivate what comes naturally, while managing the poison ivy, pokeweed, and Virginia creeper :/ After we build the new house on the lot, we'll get some professional landscaping done, and use native plants.

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cjh

(website)

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Such a nice garden, Carla! Thanks for sharing. It’s obvious you spend lots of time and elbow grease on your yard. I also enjoy seeing others’ photos.

Just finished up my variety flower pots. I have no theme or real color scheme except this year I chose pink, purple, orange and yellow. Some years I’ll sway towards red, purple and yellow. Then my MIL talked about her neighbors having potted flowers on the balcony, so I went back to the garden center and got another pot, bag of soil and more flowers for her.

My brother has an amazing iris collection. I have to share what he calls his “special” color. There isn’t really any other word for it. He also has white, various purples and blues, pinks, yellow, champagne and buttercream and copper colors, some Siberians, and more! I love to tour his yard this time of year.

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Runcarla

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@ cjh - I’ve seen that colour referred to as ‘root beer’ - but only in the Iris world!

@ suntiger - iris are tough and will grow on pavement, LOL! The trick is not to plant them too deep and let them heave themselves up to the surface. They like sun on the top of the tubers. Ferns are tough. They might rally yet.

@ rachylou - you never know what’s going to come up and what won’t. Last year I had to plant beans twice - the first group = nadda, and no carrots from seed either. This year ALL the tomatoe starts came up, and I was able to give some away.

@ Avicenna - I’m a budget gardener (as well as budget fashionista). I exchange plants with neighbours and ‘shop’ the garden club sales. The iris came from the plant table at church fundraisers!

@ Glory - jealous of your bleeding heart - it’s one of the plants that evades me, along with clematis.

@ Jaileen - big YES to the bird bath! We inherited a water feature that was not environmentally sound and expensive (required electricity and water). I consulted the guy who installed it and he said just unplug it and keep it as a still pond (vs a waterfall.). Within 6 weeks we had frogs! Birds and small mammals use it routinely as a watering hole kept full naturally with rainwater. Every year it is different, and every year I encroach a little on the ‘riverbed’ with my plantings.

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Suz

(website)

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Beautiful gardens! Looks as if it is iris season in lots of places right now! Also interesting to see the wildlife.(Both flora and fauna...)

JAileen, raccoons in many parts of Canada are renowned for their boldness. They're mainly nocturnal but you do see them quite often in daytime in our cities and towns.

Carla, I love your little curving pathway...

It's been a cool spring so things are a bit behind where they were last year. I need to learn how to divide perennials -- too late for this spring, but it's a goal for next year. I took these photos about 5 days ago -- ince then, the peony has finished. It has a short bloom life, alas!

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JAileen

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Suz, I’ve seen raccoons in the day time, too. We assume they are rabid, though.

Diana

Veteran

This week I discovered that the mystery plant beneath the bush on my front porch is a dahlia when it finally bloomed! (It’s come up every spring since the 2019 when we first moved in to this house but hasn’t bloomed until now). That was a lovely surprise!

Other than that I’ve started a few veggies and herbs and have more heirloom tomato seedlings waiting indoors to be planted. (I don’t have any garden plot space, only a porch so I have to grow most of my things in pots.). It’s gotten quite hot here all of a sudden so I’m optimistic that things are really going to take off soon.

I do have a couple of pots of French breakfast radishes that are almost ready to go! I love planting radishes, you can start them when it’s still cold and they mature so fast!

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Christina F.

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Haha, you won't lack for pizza spice.... that's what an Italian friend says oregano is best for.

We planted a bit of oregano but it's very low stakes for us. If we end up with nothing but oregano and mint, well, pizza and mojitos all around.

I am also planting a couple of petunias (in a railing box, nowhere near the herbs). And I want to get a lavender plant for a pot I already have. I am still learning about plant care in all its forms. The only plant I ever kept alive before was a jade plant that has remained at my office since the first lockdown. We are told that the people who care for the official office plants have been caring for our personal plants too, but who knows what I will discover when I go back in September (most likely).

avicennia

Veteran

@Carla so good to hear that you are also a budget gardener. But oh my, I would never have guessed it because your garden is so lush. For all my whinging about desert gardening, cacti and agave are great for budget gardening because they clone. I’m completely redoing the landscaping and have only bought three plants. They are also easy to move if you get the spacing wrong the first time. I’m going to move the Mexican fence post in #1 a little to the right.

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avicennia

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@Suz your garden is lush and gorgeous as well. Wow!
@Diana what a beautiful composition in the vase. French radish, who would of thought a radish could be so artistic!

Janet

(website)

Veteran

Oh, I love seeing these! Avicennia, I love the desert, so even though it is almost as far from our landscape as you can get, I love succulents and cacti, and the spare minimalism of desert garden design. Your fence is cool too.

Diana, lucky you! I love dahlias.

Suz, how lovely! Our azaleas are done, and irises in the area are fading quickly now.

I love irises, and tried to bring some from our old home to our new one many years ago, but I think "someone" got a little overzealous with the mulch (irises don't like to be buried deep), and they are long gone. I may try again for next spring.

Carla, what a joy your garden is to look at. I love your steps and pond! I need to post some pics of our new stream and pond in our backyard, now that my husband has mostly completed that project.

Rachy, the strawberries look great.

Glory, we had a visitor like that some years ago -- haven't seen him recently. He was very bold, he liked our trash can, and one night we heard a noise at our bedroom deck sliding glass door, and looked out to see him peering in!

JAileen, I have fond memories of zinnias in my mom's flower gardens. We don't get enough sun for the really good annual flowers in our yard.

I'll share pics later.

Laurie

Veteran

When I wasn't gazing lovingly at the new kitten, I actually did some gardening this weekend. We've had a bit of a drought this spring, and the ground was so hard and parched. 2 weekends ago I earned a blister breaking up the soil in the beds, and weeding. It was even drier this weekend when temps went over 90. In addition to the cicadas, the no-see-um's were wicked, and I have about 7 welts that are driving me absolutely crazy.

I'm not much of a gardener, but in special years -graduations, etc- I get busy with annuals. My husband is much more into landscaping, though plants a little haphazardly, and focuses on perennials. Last year, being homebound, I enjoyed everything I'd planted so much and took much more interest. This year I decided to still do a few annuals, and invest in more perennials. I have a close friend who went to the nursery with (and for)me, and also gifted me a spiderwort plant from her yard that she divided. The lamium under the tree came from my childhood home in Pittsburgh. My Mom is a fabulous gardener! We have a massive deer issue in our area so have to be very conscious of deer-resistant items. I always put marigolds on the side facing the woods for that reason.
Things planted 2-3 yrs ago have gotten big, so we'll be doing some dividing come fall.

Thankfully, it rained all day yesterday and everything is looking terrific today.

Carla, your garden is really gorgeous!

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Janet

(website)

Veteran

Pics:

1-3 are the new stream and pond my husband made in the backyard. It uses an old rock-lined drainage area from our swimming pool (we can turn off the stream when we need to backwash or drain the pool). It’s on a timer and remote switch so we can stop and start the flow anytime. He placed a bunch of large rocks and boulders, did some new plantings, got the little footbridge, added more of those black river rocks to help it look natural, and added some landscape lighting too (pics 1-2). The back yard has been a long transformation over 14 years!

The rest of the photos are from other areas of our back yard. Everything is greened up and growing a lot now. We kept the planters simple with just geraniums this year. The clematis looked amazing a couple of weeks ago but is now fading. The pool is cleaned and open! Our yard is surrounded by woods and mostly shady so lots of hostas and ferns, oakleaf hydrangeas, etc.

13-14 Our deck container vegetable garden.
Lots of tomatoes, some peppers, zucchini, beets, and the kale is looking especially good.

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Suz

(website)

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Wow, so gorgeous! Janet, the stream looks beautiful and I'll bet the sound of running water is cooling on a really hot day. Everything is so lush. Love your bright red geraniums, too. Can't beat a classic. I bought pink this year but am sort of regretting it...

Carla, loving that (now) still water feature! Gorgeous!!! Do you not get mosquitos from the standing water? That would be my worry. It's so pretty, though.

The only "water feature" we have is two little fountains. The birds bathe in one of them -- they like its shape. They also drink from it.

Laurie, so interesting about having a plant from your childhood home!

Avicenna, I love your desert garden. Everything placed with care and deliberation and the structure of the plants so visible.

Diana, so cool about the dahlia!

JAileen, I hear you -- that is what I was taught as a kid about raccoons, but times have changed for these bold Canuck critters and perfectly healthy ones can as likely be found in the daytime as the night. Well, maybe not quite as likely. But you do see them.

Runcarla

Veteran

@ Suz - I worried about mosquitos, but we haven’t had a problem since we unplugged the waterfall 7 years ago. I figure the frogs must eat any larvae? We have a lot of birds, too. Even backing onto a ravine/conservation area (with creeks, swampy bits, and a crocodile (!) - if the little dude we encountered on our last walk is to be believed ) we aren’t bothered by mosquitos.

Janet

(website)

Veteran

I’m envious — we have hellacious mosquitoes. I have to douse myself in bug spray before hanging out in our yard. We back up to a hundred acres of woods with lots of marshes so it’s pretty much inevitable.

Right now I’m listening to the hum of the 17-year cicadas.

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Laurie

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Janet - your place is so beautiful. how lush it looks. I love the pop of the red geraniums.
The cicadas are LOUD today. I was on a Zoom with some high school friends last evening who live in NY, NJ, PA, GA so I walked while we talked, and gave them a field trip view of the cicadas.

My no-see-um bites are still so itchy today. I don't get regular mosquito bites, but these things really get me.

Janet

(website)

Veteran

No-see-ums are awful too. And deerflies, ugh!

JAileen

Veteran

Janet that looks like something out of Men In Black!

Anonymous

Ooh wow Janet!