Wednesday - July 02, 2014

Digging It

Hey, at least it’s not another bowling post


I almost finished off the uppermost cross wall between the center garden bed and the upper shade garden. That piece of the center will become a huge bed of tulips to welcome Spring, but for now I’m going to throw some kind of colorful annuals in there to hold the nice rich soil in place. That bed is dug about 18” down, rocks sifted out and the soil seriously enhanced with top quality organic topsoil and compost and stuff. It ought to grow flowers like mad for the next several years without even fertilizer.

The upper bed is very shady. The uphill end hardly gets any direct sun at all, and the lower end only see about 3 hours of low angle sun in the early mornings. And with all the roots from the hedges and the nicely healing little dogwood (split during the hurricane), I couldn’t dig into the soil much at all. So instead I raked off any surface rocks, went around like a madman stabbing a shovel tip into the ground, and then laid down about 4” of enhanced topsoil mix on top. Scarlet begonias were planted in the dark end. They haven’t done well, but they aren’t dead either. I’ve got a couple dozen more edger stones to lay there for the border, but because they only go a couple inches into the ground they go fast. Plus the base soil there is very poor, powdery, and bone dry once you get past the surface calcification.

I’m putting in maculatums, aka deadnettles, which are a prolific form of wild geranium. They should mat out really well and root that whole 500lb lump of topsoil in place. Actually, that great lump has stayed in place all on it’s own, even without an edge border, so this is probably major overkill. Whatever. It will be pretty, and I won’t have to mess with them hardly ever.

The brighter end of the shade garden is getting New Guinea Impatiens, a colorful tropical annual that kind of reminds me of crotons, but with flowers. They should absolutely thrive in the nice rich soil there.

And then there will be the lower garden to deal with, down below the patio. It gets full, full, full sun, but the soil there is terrible. Subsoil at the best. Solid rocks mostly. Right now it’s a 10x10 patch of dried mud and stones. Bringing that to life is going to be a chore. Hey, when I take on a project, I really take on a project.

Advise for what kind of perennials to plant for next year is welcome. I want flowers, not shrubs. The whole garden is on the North side of the building, and in the Summer is partially shaded every day. The soil is great, I saw to that. And deep. And well watered with good drainage and pretty neutral pH. I don’t mind putting in 4 or 5 flats of annuals every year, but I would like to move towards a “set it and forget it” perennial solution. Mostly.

Whimsy on the edge: it’s tough to have fun with big rectangular blocks of stone, but we tried.
One area has a tapered raised bed, one area’s raised bed is exactly square, one area has stepped crenelations that go both up and out, and the uphill area’s edger stone will be a straight row of stones that stair steps its way up the slope.
The edge for the lowest section will wrap around in a decreasing radius french curve if I can do it. I’m pretty sure I have enough blocks to get as far as the rhododendron bush but I suppose I could always go buy a couple dozen more. 
And because I ran out of stone glue, the uppermost and lowermost blocks are all dry laid, so I can change them around next year if I feel like it. Yeah right. After all the work I did to dig them in? Them suckas ain’t moving, nevah.



This too shall green. Lower garden below patio is about as bad as it can get. There aren’t even weeds growing in most of it. Just rocks. Lots and lots and lots of rocks.
But when this part is done, when everything is done, we’ll have a garden nearly 60 feet long. Our own little private Eden here in the jungle.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/02/2014 at 08:33 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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