Fall color, looking south/west from the willow garden
We paid System’s Pavers Company to extend the patio to the south edge of the house. Now the patio spreads across the whole back of the house and it looks beautiful. They had a difficult time finding stone to match what we had, because I mixed three different blends to get a variety of colors. they ended up having to pull stones from the side that was already done and swap them out with stones that they had.
The Linden in her fall colors
They grumbled, but they got it almost perfect. And although I hate to admit it, their side looks better than our side, and the weeds don’t grow in it. BUT – it was 4 times the cost of the side that we did, so there’s that.
small fire pit on the new patio
After we got the patio finished we could delineate the space between the patio and the edge of the bed for the dwarf Alberta Spruces. We installed some 6″ edging all the way around the area that would be lawn, tilled and then seeded in the fescue grass. (ONE type of grass!) This new lawn is why there were no larger projects completed in the garden this year. (Well to be fair, the lawn and the fact that the patio was ridiculously expensive.)
I called the lawn my purgatory. My yard guy, Jester, would come over to throw mulch or do trimming, and I’d be on my hands and knees bending over the lawn, reaching out as far as I could, pulling weeds out from between the baby blades of grass. He would say, “How’s purgatory today?” “Very funny” I’d reply; or “Still here.” For 2 – 3 hours every day, for 6 months, that’s what I did. Pull weeds out of the new lawn. Thistle and bindweed. Thistle and bindweed.
About 4 months in, I laid down some larger pave stones to make a walkway from the patio to the Herb Garden, letting the grass grow around the stones. It was worth it, this lawn is thick, lush, weed free and beautiful!
Fall color, Edge of south bermthe orchard, and the new baby willow
South berm, street side, looking eastSouth berm, street side: Sumac, mugo pine and rabbit brush
The butterfly garden is finally starting to look like something. It’s a big space. I usually buy at least 3 of the same kind of plant, and spread them around the garden to create a cohesion of color and textures, but I usually end up with 1 or 2 that actually survive.
Butterfly garden
In the closeup below, you can see Walker’s Low catmint, solidago, red barberry, dwarf rabbit brush, the brilliant yellow Maximillian sun flower, Russian sage, which is now turning grey for the winter, and the light orange fall color of the Linden Shrub in the rear. I planted a Linden there, at the base of the north berm, in 2005 and it died. So I cut it down. The next spring suckers shot up all around the dead stump. I decided to let the suckers grow to see what happened, and they grew and grew and became a beautiful Linden shrub. Bet ya never seen one of those before?
Butterfly Garden
To the left side of the butterfly garden you can see fading Leadplant in the foreground, little bunny fountain grass, some wild milkweed, mullein, sea holly, various dried and bleached out perennials, pink diascia, butterfly shrubs on the far right (behind the purple pot) and orange/red fall color of the pom pom bush towards the left/middle. The two dwarf Alberta
Butterfly garden
spruces that have been trimmed into corkscrews were first planted in large pots and placed in the south willow garden, but they didn’t like it there, and nearly died. I took them out of the pots and planted them here in the butterfly garden, and 5 years later, they have finally recovered. In the far background you can see the red oak on the left and the purple ash on the right in their fall glory.
Something I didn’t think to get good pictures of, because it’s kind of a mess anyway, is the process of putting in the the cobblestone dry river bed. In 2006 we had a heavy rain, and all the water ran to the center of the yard around the herb garden.
Dry river bed drainage trench
It was a swamp. So we began digging a trench from the high point in the yard, behind the dragon, down the hill, past the cupola, straight north behind the soldier Albertas, curving through the butterfly garden, and then turn due east along the edge of the north berm, hugging the berm northward and off the property, all the while maintaining a downward slope. The trench is 8″ deep, and lined with weed barrier, filled with 3-5″ river rock, and edged with 5-8″ larger river rock to hold the fabric down on the edges. I brought in some larger boulders, 12-24″ size to scatter around for a more natural look. This project took Jester and I two years working on it intermittently as time and money allowed.
I have soo many wonderful friends. Many people come to work in my garden, some for free, some for pay. Many people come to help divide plants when they spread too far, or pack too tightly. I only have soo much space. 2 acres looked like a lot in 2004; but now I can see the first half of the garden taking shape and I can look out back to the west and envision the garden that will soon find it’s way to the far corners of this 2 acre lot.
Plants have a way of taking over, throwing seed, spreading roots, popping up where they shouldn’t be. So, yes, I have truly wonderful friends who love to come over and help with the work of maintaining this garden, and share in it’s bounty from time to time.
That blue spruce in the rear/right of the photo is about 25′ tall and 15′ wide here. You can see what I was talking about in the 2011 discussion on the lawn; some of it is still green (cool season grasses) and some of it is yellow and done for the year (warm season grasses). but notice how they did NOT blend together, they segregated. “You stay ova dere you ugly warm season grass! Don’t be all tryin to mingle wid us cool grasses. Nope.”
Brian and I worked together a few years ago to make this wonderful Winter Solstice Sun to go with our holiday display. It’s hardwood, with 3 heavy coats of waterproof paint. Drilling the holes for the lights to poke through was a real chore, and each hole had to be thoroughly coated with paint as well. All the wires are stapled down on the back. It’s 36″ diameter.
All Hail the return of the Sun!
There are 50 large C9 bulbs in the center and 300 smaller lights making up the rays. It lights up everything in front of it for 20′. I leave my Sun out in the rose garden until February 1st, Imbolc.
Kestrel hawk on top of the bird feeder
One of the first Kestrels to find their way into the garden.
Something happened to the garden pictures for 2011. There are none.
I can’t find them anywhere. I have no idea what happened to them. All my garden pictures are digital and in my computer, except for 2011. I looked in all the other gardening files in case I imported the files to the wrong location. I checked my hard copy file to see if I did hard copies that year, for some weird reason. I checked all my drawers to see if I had
an old data card somewhere with the 2011 pictures on it. No luck.
So I decided I would copy my master garden record entries from 2011 into my blog. And No, I’ not going to do this every year. You would be bored to tears. But looking at this one year’s entries might give you an idea of an average year of gardening madness in my little corner of the world.
2011 – Master Garden Record entries:
FRONT
Rose Garden
Easy Does it
monkey business
watercolors
Replaced Rose de Rescht with Easy Does It (Mango/peach) rose
Replaced Oranges and Lemons with Monkey Business (yellow) rose
Replaced What a Peach with Watercolors (yellow/pink) rose
Very dry winter, the rose garden did poorly, 3 dead and at least 10 others with large portions dead. I should have watered more during the winter.
Trees:
Purple Ash
Nice growth in the purple ash trees,
Ash borer
but there’s an Ash Borer scare North of here, in Boulder and Ft. Collins. I should probably get them sprayed.
The new crab apples in the center
Hot pink crab apple
of the front yard made it through the winter and bloomed in a glorious hot pink! (I still miss the catalpas.)
The front orange day lily beds have taken over the tulips. The 60 I planted in 2006 now are twice that many. Their leaves grew so fast that they totally buried the tulips that used to be in the front edge of this bed. I’ll have to dig the tulips out this fall.
The front porch Daphnies (Carol Mackie) need to be dug out and moved
Carol Mackie Daphne
forward about 2 feet. They are crowding the Korean lilacs, or maybe the lilacs are crowding them. Anyway, their rear branches didn’t bloom because they have spread under the lilacs.
The yellow and pink twinkles (bulbs)
Spanish Pinkbells. they also come in white and yellow.
that I planted between the edge of the lawn and the rock wall edging the walkway down to the willow garden, came up in early spring and bloomed profusely. And very long lasting display, about a whole month.
The front privet hedge reached 40″ and received it’s first shaping. Looks marvelous! All my nay-saying neighbors who walked by and laughed at me on my hands and knees measuring and planting those 18″ sticks in the ground, can kiss my ass.
Lawn:
The hot and cold season grasses in the front lawn did not blend together like we were told. They self-segregated (sounds like a global problem?) So now the lawn looks half dead all year round. SHIT!
Rock berms:
Bright edge yucca
Added 2 Bright edge (yellow stripped) Yucca plants to each of the rock berms, and 2 kinnickinick’s. The berms
kinnickinick
are now fully planted!
SOUTH South shoulder Red Oak is suffering from Iron Chlorosis, adding more iron to the soil trying to save it. I thought it was just maples that needed more iron?
Duetzia
American Cranberry bush
Spring snow
Austrian copper rose
Replaced a Deutzia on the south shoulder with American Cranberry. The south sun was just too hot for the Deutzia. The Spring snow spirea was fabulous, like a 3′ diameter snow ball, the copper old fashioned roses were covered with yellow and orange blooms, the ninebark was brilliant yellow, the wigelias finally bloomed, a hot fushia pink, but they are still smaller than they should be – again I think the south shoulder is too hot for them, and the mock orange is now 5′ x 5′ and covered in fragrant white flowers that smell like – oranges!
Golden ninebark
Pink Wigelia
Mock orange
South berm, street side
Transplanted a few small shrub volunteers that have self seeded into other areas of the yard, into the south shoulder garden. All made it through the winter and are greening out.
Karl Forester Grass
Planted Karl Forester reed grass and Blue Oat grass on the sides of the center south berm. The sides of the berm
Blue oat grass
have been bare and boring up till now. The sides are steep, as this berm is about 10′ high because it hides the fire circle on the interior side of the berm. I terraced them in and mounded up water wells around them.
All 3 south berm red maples died. We just can’t get enough iron into this clay soil. So much for my wall of fire!
The lilacs on the south/west corner of the lot grew well after being hard pruned for thickening 2 years ago. They are nice and full, and about 3′ x 3′. They bloomed well this spring. And the Bloodgood Sycamore put on another 3′ and it’s bark is finally maturing enough to start peeling and looking interesting.
The Daffodils around the Red Maples came up very strong, and provided a good 30 days of bloom. (They bloomed while the maples still had bare branches, so I couldn’t tell they were dead yet.) I’ve planted 100 daffodils in each of the two maple beds for the past 3 years. There’s a 6′ diameter circle of daffodils now.
Pawnee Buttes western sand cherry
The western sand cherry shrubs filled
Gaillardia, Blanket flower
out and bloomed well (white flowers and a sage green leaf). The blanket flower I planted at the edge of the noodle gardens had a hard time. ½ died over the winter. I’ll buy a few more this year and see if they do better in that spot.
South berm, interior
Shrubs on the south berm are all doing well, the burning bush finally got wide enough and hard enough at the bass that the rabbits can’t eat them, the red twig dogwoods are 4′ x 4′ now and bloomed well, the mugo pines and rabbit brush all grew. The only thing that I’m having trouble with on the south berm is the forsythia. It bloomed very sparsely, I have 3 full size shrubs and 2 ground cover varieties. The ground covers did better, but they’re going to need a hard prune this fall, they are scraggly.
Burning Bush
Red Twig dogwood
Mugo pine
Rabbit brush
I planted 5 Royal purple smoke bush around the top of the south berm, that circles the fire pit. Can’t wait for them ti fill out and set the berm on fire. The blue rug junipers are doing a good job of taking up space in the bare spots on the inside of the berm, surrounding the fire pit. The white sage is taking over the world. Needs to be divided.
Purple smoke bush
Blue rug juniper
White sage
South dessert garden, interior
Purple emperor stonecrop
I planted orange poppies (a gift from a neighbor who had too many) and purple emperor stonecrop in the south dessert garden. I took the Echinacea out of the herb garden and planted them in the dessert garden as well.
CENTER, BACK YARD
The cupola garden bulbs are too densely clustered. They have multiplied well, and will need to be dug up and re-spaced. Yea! And Ugh!
The Linden Tree has put on another 4′ in height.
The giant Crambe on both sides of the womb of the earth produced giant
Giant crambe
leaves and 40″ tall flower spikes. Wonderful.
Butterfly garden: I pulled out the campanula from the herb garden and transplanted it at the base of the north berm. It’s getting NO water, so it will spread slower!
The Herb garden was seriously out of control. I can never use this much. I gave soo much away and have loads of it dried and bagged in the basement.
Clary sage
Lovage
Hyssop
Motherwort
I pulled out the clary sage, motherwort, hyssop and lovage last year, spreading it around the yard in other places where it can spread out. But new ones popped up, so I guess I’ll keep digging them out of here till I get them all. Tenacious little varments.
Dragon The artemisia died again on the dragon; I planted 30 plants in 2009 and another 30 last year. So I planted blue star juniper. Had to go to 6 different home depot stores to get as many as I needed. But they were on sale, $3.29 for one gallon pots. We’ll see how they do.
Blue star juniper
This will be the 4th planting on the dragon’s back. I don’t know what’s wrong with this spot in my garden, but nothing seems to want to grow here. It’s not the dirt, cause I bought good garden dirt to make this berm. But I WILL have a dragon! That guy with the huge Mansion in Castle Rock doesn’t get to be the only one in Colorado with a dragon in their garden. Although he did inspire my obsession..
One of my 10 soldier dwarf Albertas died. I searched all over town to find one almost the exact same size to replace it with. Fingers crossed. Then I decided to plant some mini-roses in front of the row of dwarf Albertas. I got them from an ld friend of mine Gwen Moore who raises them.
WEST The wildflower bed was like a small pond in the west. The flax came up profusely and covered the entire area (about 20 x 40′) in a wonderful blue
Blue flax
that rippled in the breeze like water. I love it when a plan comes together (she says, sticking cigar in mouth . . )
Tam juniper
The crab apples got a hard prune in late winter, 2010, and bloomed out nicely on new growth this spring.
Golden Rain Tree
The 2 Golden rain trees are still struggling. The Tam junipers on the west berm (planted under the crabs) are spreading nicely. They are 8″ high and 24″ wide in their 3rd year.
CENTER-WEST
DISASTER! My beautiful Willow tree had to be removed. It got a fungal disease. I had two different arborists look at it. Both agreed. It needs to come out and the ground around it dug out. I am soo devastated!
OK, I have planted 6 walnuts, all died. Then I tried chestnuts, they died also. I REALLY wanted some nut trees, but I think I’m going to have to give up on that dream.
Leach field garden. Brian put in 8′ square garden
Pampas grass
boxes in each of the four corners of the leach field. The pampas grass that I planted in the center of each box is doing well. We actually got some big fronds last fall.
ORCHARD
All the fruit trees received their first professional prune. J. Willis Tree company came out and they showed me how to do it. I watched as they trimmed each tree, and helped with the last few. I now know how to do this myself the next time it is needed.
NORTH
The Hydrangea on the north wall of the garage bloomed amazingly, producing 6 – 10″ globes of light pink flowers.
North shoulder
The little bunny fountain grass on the north shoulder died.
Leadplant
All 10 of them, Sigh. The copper roses bloomed well, but not as much as the ones on the south side, and I will need to find a few more shrubs that will do well on this side. Too much harsh wind I think, but the Lead bushes are looking good and the pea shrub is 5′ around now.
North Berm, Street side
The holly plants that I transplanted from my neighbor Linda’s house
Scrub oak
finally look healthy, still small though. The scrub oak have grown WAY too tall. These are supposed to be shrubs, not trees! I may have to dig them out and move them. The two large patches of dark purple Iris that I got from my friend Kimberly did well for their first year in the ground. Not much bloom, but good growth and foliage. They will be spectacular next year. And the grasses are finally looking like ornamental grasses and not accidental weeds.
I divided the two orange daylily beds in the front yard and planted another large spread of them at the far north/west end of the north berm, at the edge of the property. I put them moving down the berm into the ditch, below the grass garden. They are doing well.
North berm, Interior
White Birch.jpg
The last Japanese White Birch is finally looking like it might live. It actually put out some catkins this spring and is leafing out nicely. (I bought 3 of these from a guy who lives on a large property to the west of us. He has a small tree farm. The other 2 birches I got from him died, along with 2 oaks and 2 sugar gums.) Apparently “likes moist soil” excludes “clay” soil.
Canadian Red cherry
The 2 Canadian Red Cherries
Canadian red cherry in bloom
are now 10′ x 15′ and put beautiful whitish-green blooms this spring. The Burr Oak that I planted for my dearly-departed friend Mark, is dead. Iron deficiency. I can’t pull it out, as his and his daughter’s ashes are under it. I’ll cut it to the ground and figure out what to do with the space next year. Sorry Mark, I didn’t know about Iron and clay soil when I planted your oak the first summer we moved in.
The Russian sages and dwarf rabbit brush
Russian Sage
have spread out on the north berm and provide a beautiful purple and yellow backdrop for the butterfly garden.
I’m working my way through the garden design from east to west. The poor lonely, boring west berm is all out there by itself, just some Tam junipers and crab apples trees. Time to add some color, texture and layers.
New plantings on the west berm
(Another crappy, blurry 2010 picture!) Among the Tam junipers , some wild multi-colored yarrow blew in from across the street to the south. So I let it grow. It adds some nice color in the spring, and something interesting to look at in the winter. At the base of the berm I planted a row of Black-knight Spirea. then I tilled up and prepared the soil in front of the berm so I could put in some perennials. I planted a variety of fancy Iris (mail ordered from Breck’s bulbs), and purple salvia, cause it was on-sale and I want pinks, purples and whites on the west berm. I also planted a variety of winter hardy roses both on my side of the berm and on Roy’s side. They will be white and pink.
The sycamore tree at the west end of the south berm
In the far background you can see the new Sycamore tree that we planted, I think 2 years ago? It’s finally starting to look like a tree. The two bookend boulders (see above pic) were purchased with the boulders that form an energetic boundary between our property and the neighbor to the north/west. They weigh 3 tons each.
I don’t know what happened but most of my pictures for 2010 are blurry. You can’t make out what the shrubs are, but I decided to post this pic anyway because you can get an idea of what I’m trying to create with the red/orange/yellow colors on the south shoulder and berm.
this pic is really blurry, but you can see the color on the south berm
The tree furthest back is a Russian Hawthorn. The tree in the middle is a Northern Red Oak. The yellow shrubs are Ninebark, Mock orange and Duetzia. The red/orange round-shaped shrubs are a form of multi-colored Spirea.
The Snow-White crab apple by the west berm has wonderful fall color.
The two front rock berms are finally done. There’s a total of 25 tons of black and red granite on each berm: 12.5 tons of large boulders, and approximately 12.5 tons of 6-12″ rip rap. Jester and I worked on these berms for an entire week. We set each stone so that you can walk on it and it will not move. When I’m weeding or tending the plants on the berms I can walk from rock to rock without worrying about it moving out from under my foot and possibly turning an ankle.
I bought a variety of dwarf evergreen shrubs and xeric roses to go on he berm, and snaked the irrigation lines down in between the rocks, out of sight. It took me 18 months, shopping at sales and getting lucky at the nursery to get all the shrubs I needed. The tree in front of the berm is a brilliant fushia crab apple. the catalpas that we planted (the most expensive trees we have purchased to date) died in this springs early freezing temps. I called the nursery where we purchased them and they said that 100’s of Catalpas had died that winter. Apparently they pulled their sap up into their branches during a warm spell in February, and then when it went down below free double digit temps, the sap froze and burst in their veins. So sad.
Fall 2010: Hot pink Mums.
This isn’t the best picture, but take a look at how much the privet hedges have grown! they are about 24″ in this pic. And we put a rock edging in front of the lily bed too.
So I am gingerly stepping through the day lilly garden, pulling our the dead flower stalks. This one is not quite ready to pull free from the bulb so I bend over and get a little closer and . . . . OMG! Sweet Jesus save me! i come face to face with this beauty!
Look at the size of that spinneret!
She was only about 3″ from my nose. I teetered on the back of my tennis shoes and backed up.
What in the hell kind of spider is that!?! I hope it’s not poisonous.
I run inside and look it up on the computer: it’s a St. Anthony’s Cross spider. (“Cross” because they keep two legs close together so their legs form an x shape, or a cross.) Non-poisonous. Whew! They eat lots of bugs and flies. Yea! But yikes, she is HUGE.
St. Anthony’s Cross spider
As I turn look slowly around me, trying to refocus my eyes into the thick tangle of lily leaves, I can see 2 more of these beauties. I tip toe my way outta there and decide the dead flower stalks can stay up a little longer. Besides, the spiders are using them to anchor their webs. Wouldn’t be right to mess up all that hard work.
She’s about 3 1/2″ long. Her abdomen is as big as my thumb.
I’m sorry, but when I look at this picture it reminds me of one of those cheesy poses that Martha Stewart does: you gotta hold the bowl just right so the cherries show, make sure you’re wearing a colorful gardening hat, smile a cheesy smile, stand straight, and have something interesting in the background of the photo. LOL!
