willow garden – Wellyssa's Womb

IRIS

Iris is a staple in my garden. It’s so easy to grow, and it seems to like this crappy soil (although I do cheat and put down some gravel for drainage in the planting bed). I splurged and bought these fancy black, white and pink iris from Iris-4U, they’re local here in Denver, CO. (https://www.iris4u.com/ )

The store is just a private residence, who grows Iris on both sides of his house, on a large lot. He does a wonderful job, they are all labeled and organized well, and they have a catalog too. He opens the garden in the late spring when the Iris bloom so you can see what you like. the pick them out, and in the fall he harvests the tubors for you, and labels them. then you go pick them up.

And two varieties of pink, Pink reflection which is a very light pink and a dusty pink Iris. they were beautiful the first year, but now they need to be moved – the Canadian Red Cherry leafs out too soon and puts down too much shade. That’ OK, I’ll find them another location in the garden that they will like better.

I planted a mix or yellow, orange, bronze and rust colored Iris on the street-side of the south berm. They also did extremely well, and had to be moved,

as the blue rug juniper overtook the hill they were planted on. I sent a bunch to my Mom in Utah, and then a transplanted the rest into the south noodle gardens.

First year for the Orange and Rust Iris, south berm, street side

Orange/bronze Iris moved into the noodle garden fall of 2017.

They are much happier here!

Shades of purple, peach and white mix with the darker purple salvia at the base of the west berm. I planted some exotic “Safari” mix (Brecks bulbs). Purple, hot pink and orange with stripes and spots. AMAZING! the first year, but then all the

stripes and spots disappeared. they replaced the bulbs the next fall, and again the first year they were beautiful, and then the second year all the spots and stripes disappeared. Sigh. this is what they were supposed to look like:

I received a large quantity of dark purple Iris from a friend, whose nieghbor was tearing them out. I love freebies! And these are spectacular. I have no idea what the variety is though.

Mom’s yellow iris and some new purple ones I thought would look good with them. These Iris remind me of my childhood; Mom always had Iris in her garden, she still does.

Mom’s yellow Iris and some new purple ones I added 2 years ago.

“Since Iris is the Greek goddess for the Messenger of Love, her sacred flower is considered the symbol of communication and messages. Greek men would often plant an iris on the graves of their beloved women as a tribute to the goddess Iris, whose duty it was to take the souls of women to the Elysian fields.”
Hana No Monogatari: The Stories of Flowers

Fall color 2012

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.

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!

South 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.

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.

Delineating space

beginnings of irrigation and concrete edging

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 painted and measured where the edging would go

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.

Creating a border for the willow garden with black granite

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.

looking north/west from the edge of the front driveway

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.

south/west quadrant, thyme, basil, clarry sage, mother wort, thyme	North/west quadrant, Comfrey, curry, meadow sweet, oregano, sage, lemon verbena	North/east quadrant, marshmallow, mullein, horehound, parsley
South/east quadrant, bergamot	South/east quadrant, different view, angelica, oregano, marjoram, sage, dill	View from the second floor