Still here

[dedekind_cut]

Very busy with work and gardens.

We had the 35-year-old overgrown foundation junipers removed from two sides of our house, and the lawn stripped. Also had a circular patio installed - wonderful textured pavers in concentric rings, with a flower bed all around. I've been busy designing and planting all the new beds, and since we're in a drought this summer, I spend lots of time watering. Larry designed an irrigation system that has helped a lot. (Thank goodness we get our water from Lake Michigan, so we don't have watering restrictions.) Larry also dug holes and helped plant the major shrubs, including sculpting two low mounds into our flat front yard for the trees.

Here's a partial list of the major plantings:

Korean spice viburnum
Rose-glow barberry
dwarf globe blue spruce
6 icee blue ground-cover junipers
dwarf Japanese garden juniper
garnet Japanese maple tree
2 Holmstrup eastern arborvitae
Blue Mist spirea
Bushy Blue Bell clematis
The President clematis
Gipsy Queen clematis
Etoile Violette clematis
purpleleaf sand cherry
3 gro-low fragrant sumac
Wentworth American Cranberrybush
5 Frosty potentilla
Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (contorted hazelnut)
Isanti dogwood (for the wonderful red stems in winter)
Flower Carpet Appleblossom Rose
3 Green Velvet Boxwood
3 Ebony Knight Mondo Grass

Also dozens of perennials - daylilies, 3 kinds of geraniums, blue clips, Irish moss, purple coral bells, bleeding hearts, variegated spurge, sedums, creeping phlox, 4 kinds of hostas, tiarellas, and about 30 new types of iris. I'm hoping to plant the last of the iris this weekend, and next weekend I can start moving daylilies from the shady spot they're currently inhabiting into the new front yard garden.

I had hoped to redesign and replant the North end of the oldest garden this summer, but I don't think it's going to happen. Perhaps I'll do the design work over the winter and take a week of vacation in the spring to do the digging and planting.

Most of the other gardens have been easy to care for this year - the shade garden and the sunny corner garden need minimal weeding and occasional dead-heading. The herb garden is weedy and out of control, and needs a complete redesign. That's another project for next summer.

And I really enjoy sitting on the patio, watching the birds and butterflies and bees, and looking at the gardens.

Comments

[kiramor.livejournal.com]

That sounds gorgeous! Congratulations on your hard work; may your garden grow well.

[kaytecat.livejournal.com]

Your garden sounds lovely. I especially like the concentric pavers. I love gardens with nooks and crannies. If I could figure a way to do it in mine, I would A skinny side garden is harder to round into nooks. I've been tempted to convert the side lawn into big, leafy green things, with only a path through, and only keep the square part in the back as a lawn.

Your garden inspires me. Do you have pictures of it?

Good to hear what you've been up to!

K

[aenodia.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a marvelous garden. I would love to see some pictures. I had no idea there were so many different kinds of clematis.

[oakwind.livejournal.com]

I am delighted to hear that you are still there:) It sounds like a great deal of work but worth it I am sure. I can't wait to see pics of it:) Still looking for inspiration for designing my own garden area but haven't quite got there yet.

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

That sounds just gorgeous; I wish I could see it!

My own land is looking a bit overgrown and scraggly in places at the moment, mostly due to a profusion of blackberry bushes. At this point, they're bearing, and I am exceedingly reluctant to whack them until I've gotten my harvest from them. Then they'll get whacked back quite a lot. (They will regrow, and give me lots of blackberries again next year. I'm still trying to figure out whether they set fruit on first-year or second-year canes. I think it's second-year, but I'm really not sure.)

Garden

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

It all sounds utterly marvelous (and I'm thrilled to hear from you at all). Louie's big garden in front of the house is going wonderfully, too -- skinny side gardens around the house somewhat less so. (It's been hot and dry recently in Minneapolis; if things don't improve in a couple of days, we'll need to do some major watering.) Good that you're going into this much detail, as things sound extremely vivid.

Nate