A little help
Tag: butterfly garden
Butterfly Garden – Better and Better!
Everything takes soo much time! But I finally feel like I’ve accomplished something when I look out the back window at the garden. Sometimes, I look at the garden and all I see is the weeds; sometimes all I can see is what is still missing. I have to remind myself where I started.
Here’s where I started – in case you missed it in my previous posts:
So now, onto what’s been accomplished in the Butterfly garden!
Helianthus Maximiliana!
In 1990, while I was living in my little house in Aurora, a box arrived in the mail. Oh! A present from my Mother! I wonder what it is?
I opened the box to find a mess of tangled, completely dried out roots, that looked dead. what in the world? She’s crazy! She’s no doubt killed whatever this poor flower used to be. I called her up on the phone: “Mom, I got your present” . . . . long exhale.
“Oh great!” she says. “Now don’t worry, I know they look dead.”
“They ARE dead Mom.”
“Just divide the roots into equal piles and plant them in the ground, about 4″ down. doesn’t matter what direction, just horizontally not vertically. They need lots of sun and water to get going.”
“No Mom, they’re dead.”
“No they’re not, trust me, just plant them.”
So I did as she said, cause she has been gardening longer than me after all, and she’s my Mom. Then Lo and behold! the angel came down from the heavens and threw golden yellow all around my yard! They grew. And they grew, and then I divided them, and they grew some more, and over the 15 years I lived in that house, I divided them several times and gave away cuttings to everyone I could convince to take some.
OF course, I divided them one last time and took them with me to our new house in Brighton and spread them around everywhere. They are truly a weed – yet they are truly beautiful. They are the last thing blooming in the garden well into the fall, such a joy!
Butterfly transformation
The butterfly garden finally looks like a garden. I am still experimenting with adding new plants, seeing what will thrive here, tucking things in to the bare spots.
The river rock dry water bed is complete, after two summer’s of hard work. It really delineates the space throughout the garden. The butterfly garden grows on both sides of the dry river bed, it’s the biggest garden in The Garden.
Early spring is such a barren time in the garden. Especially after everything is cut back and trimmed. Last year when we expanded the rear patio we also added a 9′ diameter circular patio to the north west edge of the butterfly garden to provide a seating area. I drug a big heavy steel piano harp out her and propped it up next to the patio to provide a backdrop. I haven’t decided whether it will stay here or not. Looking out over the cleaned up garden, I realize I need to add some more evergreens or sculptures or something to add interest in the early spring.
Any suggestions?
As spring progresses, the butterfly garden begins to “spring” into it’s growth stage. The 4 pom pom shrubs bloom in a riot of 3″ white snow balls. Eventually I’d like to have a trellis between them, straddling the dry river bed, to provide a hidden
passageway to the circular patio. I haven’t found the right arch yet. During summer the butterfly garden really comes to life. White, red and purple predominate. I’m looking for some orange plants that will grow here and that butterflies like. It was important to me to provide a place for butterflies and bees in my garden, and I brought many divisions of perennials from my aurora garden to our new home in Brighton.
As the season turns towards fall the Maximillian sunflowers steal the show. Their yellow is so bright that they glow in the moonlight. They keep their flowers until the first hard frost.
Fall color 2012
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.
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.
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!
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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Let there be butterflies!
Among the flowers I dug out of my Aurora garden were Shasta daisies, coral sedum, maximillian sun flowers, bergamot, sunset hyssop and agastache. I knew the 12 or 15 pots of perennials I managed to divide from that garden, would not go far in my new garden in Brighton.
With 2 acres, I can plant 20 plants and you would hardly notice. But it was a start. I propped up a steel piano harp in the middle. I purchased 4 white pom pom bushes and placed them opposite the drainage trench. Eventually, I plan to put a pathway between the four shrubs, leading into the butterfly garden.
This is not the best picture, but looking to the northeast over the herb garden, you can see the beginnings of what will be a beautiful butterfly haven.
You can also see progress and growth of the oak, birch and Canadian red cherry trees in front of the north berm, and the Austrian black pines on top of the berm. This year we also purchased a couple of bristle cone pines. I planted some shrubs as well, but they’re small and it’s hard to see them.
Delineating space
It was time to put in irrigation to water everything that had been planted so far. You can see that we have laid the larger 1″ hose for the main irrigation line that will service the trees. This line is connected to the larger 2″ PVC line which is buried 12″ down. Dragging around the hose is just too much work, and takes too much time.
We also began to plan out delineating the boundaries of the lawn. We saw an example of concrete edging at the home and garden show, so we looked into what that would cost and decided to go ahead and splurge on edging for the lawn spaces, north and south.
You can see the orange paint on the dirt, outlining where the concrete edging will be laid. You can also see in this picture the flat stones were purchased to be used as steps down from the level of the front yard, to the lower level of the south willow garden.
The house was built on top of the ground, due to the high water table here, so there is a 6′ difference in level from the front door to the south side of the property.
The willow garden is being created, day lilies have been planted along the edge, sand cherries and Russian sage. We put in a bird feeder so we can watch the birds out the south dinning room bay window. Looking down the pathway to the west end of the property you can see that the west berm has been installed and the cupola has been placed and anchored into the ground.
Meanwhile in the front yard, the new hedges have been planted around the entire driveway. After I measured the spacing and determined that I needed 200 hedge shrubs – I had a complete conniption fit! No way could I afford to buy that many shrubs, not to mention, no one locally had that many. I called and called with no luck. Then I stumbled upon a nursery out of state that had saplings. So in desperation I decided to give it a try. They arrived in a single plastic bag. The saplings were 18″ tall and 1/8″ diameter little twigs. I shook my head, but I went ahead and planted them with help from my friends Robin and Mary. It took all day. I remember the look on my neighbors faces as I crawled around on my knees with my ruler, meticulously measuring the distance between each shrub and the distance from the driveway edging.
I enlarged the picture so you can actually see the saplings. Daily watering was required, but they made it.
Dear Mark.
My good friend Mark Johnson died this year, along with one of his two daughters. The whole thing was tragic. His second daughter delivered some of his, and his daughter’s ashes to me one afternoon following his memorial service. She said Mark had asked to have his ashes buried on my property. So I purchased an oak tree, (as he was a Druid and Oaks are sacred to them) and buried his and his daughter’s ashes under it.
I planted the oak in the North, which is the most sacred direction to the Druids and next to the Womb of Earth, for all things come from the Mother, and all things return. I drove his athame into the ground with the oak tree to delineate the site as sacred.
The piano harp marks the space where the butterfly garden will be created. Mark’s oak is in front of the north berm, right behind the harp. Now, there are 4 new evergreens on the north berm, Austrian Black Pines, Brian’s Mother, Judy, bought them for us as a gift to our new home when she moved here from Albuquerque.
Also, in front of the harp is a ditch which is being dug for drainage from the south side of the property, which is higher, to the north side, and off the property into the drainage ditch that surrounds the entire property. In 2005 we had a massive downpour and all the water ran into the middle of the garden where the herb garden was being built. Luckily, this happened when the herb garden was just the bottom rows of the structure. The water settled and sank the septic tanks about 2′, making a giant hole in the middle of the herb garden. We had to rip it out and Morrison Homes had to come out and lift the tanks back up, and mud jack tons of dirt back under the tanks to get them back to level. OMG – I thought I was going to loose my mind, it was such a disaster. Anyway, so we are digging a drainage ditch!
All the little marks in the ground are holes being dug to plant 4000 crocus, 2000 on each side of what will be the lawn. This project took me an entire week on my hands and knees. I can’t wait to see them bloom next spring.
Progress on the Herb Garden.
It’s amazing how fast herbs recover. They got dug up, put in pots, over-wintered across town in pots covered with straw, and then replanted into the new herb garden last fall. I’m thrilled at how well they did this first year.
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The fullness of June
