I like to work in my garden for a couple of months, then I get bored with it
As I mentioned before, the lady who owned the house before us planted some random perennial/flower beds in our back yard. There really was no method to her madness, but it has provided me with some fun nonetheless.
We moved here 4 years ago in May or July. Our old house had a few flowers that I planted in the back flower boxes, but nothing to get excited about. This house had perennials - something I had never experienced before.
That first summer was so much fun as I just waited for everything to bloom. I bought myself a perennial book and would scour the pictures until I was able to identify 99% of the blooms in my yard. I made lists of what bloomed when. I made maps of what flower was where. I took photos of each area at the same time each month so I could see the difference at the end of the summer. It was all great organizational fun.
The first summer was fun because I really did nothing but look at flowers.
Every summer after that I have done some sort of major overhaul to the "garden". One summer I removed a whole area and sodded it in (she had a big square right in the middle of the yard - made no sense whatsoever). I moved those flowers to a different place. The next summer I had some high schoolers from church remove 20 huge bushes and I re-bordered two existing areas with the existing landscaping bricks (removed the bricks, leveled the dirt, dug up some sod to make the areas bigger and relaid the bricks). And last summer, while I was pregnant I planted some tulip bulbs. This summer I moved some flowers, re-planned two areas and planted some gladiolus and crocus bulbs.
Its fun! I love to see the flowers blooming. I love making my annual spring trip to Home Depot to buy the annuals to supplement the perennials and to fill in my window boxes and patio pots. I love having 3 Gerbera Daisies to look at while I read my book outside and play with the girls.
You know what I don't love? I don't love weeding. I don't love watering. So by July, when it is usually too hot to get the mail, my flower beds suffer. I'm good until then - weeding and watering for a couple of months. Hot and Humid? Nope, no good. Weeds thrive. Flowers thirst. And I look out my window and think, "Oh my, I really should go out and weed sometime soon". And the next day I think the same thing. And the next day I think the same thing. So the "garden" is neglected, my annuals are yellowing and dying, my window boxes are ugly and every year I promise myself that I won't let it happen again next summer.
I'll let you know how that goes.
Here is how one flower bed looked the last time I weeded, wed, whatever...
Looks nice, doesn't it?
June 27, 2006.
We moved here 4 years ago in May or July. Our old house had a few flowers that I planted in the back flower boxes, but nothing to get excited about. This house had perennials - something I had never experienced before.
That first summer was so much fun as I just waited for everything to bloom. I bought myself a perennial book and would scour the pictures until I was able to identify 99% of the blooms in my yard. I made lists of what bloomed when. I made maps of what flower was where. I took photos of each area at the same time each month so I could see the difference at the end of the summer. It was all great organizational fun.
The first summer was fun because I really did nothing but look at flowers.
Every summer after that I have done some sort of major overhaul to the "garden". One summer I removed a whole area and sodded it in (she had a big square right in the middle of the yard - made no sense whatsoever). I moved those flowers to a different place. The next summer I had some high schoolers from church remove 20 huge bushes and I re-bordered two existing areas with the existing landscaping bricks (removed the bricks, leveled the dirt, dug up some sod to make the areas bigger and relaid the bricks). And last summer, while I was pregnant I planted some tulip bulbs. This summer I moved some flowers, re-planned two areas and planted some gladiolus and crocus bulbs.
Its fun! I love to see the flowers blooming. I love making my annual spring trip to Home Depot to buy the annuals to supplement the perennials and to fill in my window boxes and patio pots. I love having 3 Gerbera Daisies to look at while I read my book outside and play with the girls.
You know what I don't love? I don't love weeding. I don't love watering. So by July, when it is usually too hot to get the mail, my flower beds suffer. I'm good until then - weeding and watering for a couple of months. Hot and Humid? Nope, no good. Weeds thrive. Flowers thirst. And I look out my window and think, "Oh my, I really should go out and weed sometime soon". And the next day I think the same thing. And the next day I think the same thing. So the "garden" is neglected, my annuals are yellowing and dying, my window boxes are ugly and every year I promise myself that I won't let it happen again next summer.
I'll let you know how that goes.
Here is how one flower bed looked the last time I weeded, wed, whatever...
Looks nice, doesn't it?
June 27, 2006.
And here is the same flower bed - TODAY!! Pathetic. I'm almost embarassed to show you:)
getting to know me in 100 days - day 10 
6 comments:
Wow, you are organized. That description of your first summer almost scared me a little bit, BUT that last picture eased my mind... :o)
I love to garden too. I also get ashamed of the state of my flowers by mid August. In the spring I save my $ to buy the biggest and best hanging baskets in Will county and by the mid August I'm taking the poor pathetic things down because I've forgotten to water them. I feel your pain...really I do!
i hate gardening...actually, i don't think i've ever done it before. if it were up to me, i would fill in all of our landscaped areas with concrete.
I love perrenials...I hate annuals. I get four hanging baskets every year for Mother's Day from my four boys. (that includes my husband) I really do try to keep up with the watering. I am a perrenial experimentalist. I tell everybody this, and if all whom I tell really took me up on this, I would probably have nothing left - but it kills me when you say you go to Home Depot to buy perrenials. Do you know how many black eyed susans and shasta daisies and hostas and tiger lilies and canna lillies and holly hocks and etc. and etc I have that could be split????? Come over and take some already!!!!
mine looks JUST like that. . .before and after. I actually tried to be creative and frugal with my gardening this year, and ended up transplanting a weed. apparently i don't have the green thumb
HS - so glad you take delight in my laziness:)
MB - I don't even bother with the hanging baskets. I KNOW I won't water those.
BFWW - No Ozinga Cement in Memphis? I know you're just trying to give the family some more biz rather than care for your landscaping;)
Carol - I have bought less than 5 perennials over the last 4 years. I have so many already, but there are a few that I really wanted to add (lavender, creeping thyme, creeping phlox - I htink thats it). However, I might just take you up on some of those. I already have Shasta daisies and hostas and tiger lilies (by the way I HATE hostas). But I don't have any rudebeckia (black eyed susans - see I'm so smrt) or holly hocks or canna lillies - I don't even know what those last two are. Now I have to find pictures, and replan the whole darn thing to add those... I'll look them up and try to figure it out and maybe I will actually come over and take some this fall.
Kary - how were you frugal with gardening? And what kind of weed did you transplant? That first summer I let some stuff grow that I didn't know whether it was weed or perennial. I took a picture and sent it to some website to identify it for me and it was a weed. Now I see them all over the roadside and cringe:) I feel your pain - I still don't know when something is a weed or not. Last summer I didn't know what these little plants were so I let them grow to find out. Ended up they were Malva, which are really pretty, but they overtake everything. Then after the flowers die the seeds are quick to fall off so as I pulled them the seeds went all over and now they are overtaking the flower bed again! You'd think I'd learn and pull them right now before they seed. Nope...
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