A few photos of the late July garden

Last weekend, John helped me with weeding out the watercress and horsetail from the stream. How nice to have help with this big job, so it only took about two hours. I'd weeded the upper half of the stream the day before - hoeing areas with small weeds and hand-pulling the larger weeds. And John weed-whacked some of the ivy trailing from the neighbor's side of the stream. Here are some photos of the garden.

My little garden helper

I can't resist posting a few photos of my oldest granddaughter in the garden.

Tigridia - a delightful summer-blooming bulb

I encourage you to look for Tigridia bulbs next winter/spring and plant some, so you can enjoy these lovely blooms. Each bloom only lasts for a day, but more come along. They are a nice surprise as you walk along the garden bed. They come in a few different colors.

 

Clematis - Jackmanii and Jackmanii superba

I have two Clematis growing on the south side of my deck. They are about 20 feet tall this year. I ran some cords from the second floor deck ceiling, and they climbed part the trellis up the cords. One of the Clematis is 'Jackmanii', and the other is 'Jackmanii superba'. They are different shades of deep purple, and the 'Jackmanii' flower is a little smaller with 5 petals, while 'Jackmanii superba' has 4 petals.

These are type 3 (or C) Clematis, so I cut them in late winter down to about 12'' from the ground.
They get daily drip irrigation. They don't like to get dried out (they'll quit blooming early).

For some of my other Clematis, I trim off many of the spent flowers. I think it may keep the plants blooming longer.

Godetia - annual flowers

This spring, I scattered a packet of Godetia seeds in the raised bed along the driveway. I planted wax begonias in front. The Godetia are in full bloom now. If I plant this combination again, I will plant pink or white begonias, instead of the scarlet ones.

It certainly was easy and inexpensive, so I will definitely grow them again from seed.

In the smaller bed that is just past this long bed, I have pepper plants - jalapeno, Gypsy bell, and Anaheim. They are all doing well. So far this spring and summer has been great for my veggies.

Pruning Nandina domestica (Heavenly Bamboo)

It is easy to prune heavenly bamboo. There is a group of cane-type plants that are pruned in the same way. Select some of the oldest canes and cut to the ground. New canes will develop. I limit this pruning to one third of the canes. This photo shows three of the regular Nandina domestica after cutting canes to the ground.

You can also prune canes part way, which will cause them to branch, if this is the type of shaping you desire.

A few photos and late May garden activities

I took a few photos from the deck this morning. The first one shows the driveway berm with the ninebark and spirea starting to bloom and the rose garden getting ready to bloom.

This photo shows my two new arbors installed next to each other, my tomato plants in their pots, and some of the beds around the lawn. We set up the drip systems for my large containers - the one by the pool handles my tomato and Brugmansia (Angel's Trumpet) plants. Another next to my upper driveway handles other pots that I have on top of a retaining wall.

We installed a new fountain near the Japanese garden. My Angel's Trumpet plants have flower buds already. This morning I discovered our "resident" rabbit has munched on some of the hosta leaves in my shade bed and some of my Scarlett runner beans. So far, I am not concerned, as there are lots of hosta leaves, and the beans should recover. The rabbit is getting quite large feasting on my plants.

 

May garden activities

Whew - What a lot to go in the garden in the spring! We spread 62 yards of bark in the last couple weeks. What an effort. Fortunately I didn't have to shovel and push wheelbarrows, but I sure did a lot of raking.
Doublefile Viburnum are one of my favorite shrubs.

 

My Gunnera are just getting going. They love their streamside location!

 This is the berm by the lower driveway.

We got two new arbors and placed them next to each other. I planted Thunbergia (Black-eyed Susan Vine) to grow up the sides.

Plants are growing like crazy, which is wonderful, but the conditions are also great for weeds. So I've been  after them regularly. I either pull by hand or hoe with my action hoe (also called hula hoe). Love this tool!

The Mason Bees filled nearly all the holes in the "house". I will need a bigger one next year. I might try to get my husband to help me build one.

 

 I planted my vegetables. Here is a photo of my peppers: Gypsy Sweet Peppers, Jalapeno, and Anaheim. I also planted Scarlett Runner Beans, Japanese and English Cucumbers. I planted tomatoes in pots: Sungold, Matina, Tommy Toe, Cherokee Purple.

 

The bumblebees are enjoying the Allium. 

 

The April Garden - Mason Bees and Emerging Plants

Just a few quick shots of the garden taken yesterday. I'm happy to report lots of Mason Bee activity! You can see a female adding mud to finish off another tube. There are more completed tubes than I expected this first year. I think more bees than the ones I purchased found the home. Yea!

I am doing lots of weeding (hoeing and pulling) of all the little weeds that enjoy the current conditions of moisture and light.

Rock garden area near upper driveway.

 

These little iris came from my sister and are doing wonderfully in a few places near the upper driveway.

These fronds are from the royal fern, and it is majestic when open.

Some small-sized rhodies and blueberries enjoy an area with very well-draining soil, as it is over an old rotten cedar tree.

Marine Hills Garden Club Plant Sale

A lot of my garden plants came from my garden club plant sales. Great prices for good quality ornamental and native plants. Our next plant sale is:

Saturday, April 26 from 10 am to 3 pm

 

Plant Sale in Federal Way

 

Marine Hills Garden Club has a great assortment of annuals, perennials and native plants for sale.

Come early for best selections.

 

Location: 29301  7th Place South in Federal Way

 

Questions? Call 253-839-4413 or e-mail judymcdonald41@yahoo.com

Top dressing my flower beds with compost

I purchased 22 bags of compost and spread over my flower beds yesterday and today. I also spread it where I will be planting scarlet runner beans and cucumbers. While more expensive to work from bags, we find it much easier and the compost has "cured" a little longer, making it a better quality than bulk compost.
The compost add some nutrients, and I had spread some fertilizer over much of these beds last week.

I added a little bark to freshen up my little Japanese garden:

Mason bees are out (Blue Orchard Bees)

After hibernating for several months in my refrigerator, I set out my new mason bees. They've been very active for the past week. I'm lucky to have a little stream along the side of my property, so the females can get mud for placing in the tubes to separate their eggs. And I have plenty of blooming plants for them to get nectar.

Native Red-Flowering Currant

The birds and bees are happy that my red-flowering currant shrubs are blooming! I have more than 20 scattered around the hillside and native areas of my yard. They are a couple different shades of pink, as they are from different purchases from the Pierce Conservation Society native plant sales. They start out very small and grow quickly.

Moving plants

I took advantage of a mild winter day to get John's help to move a hydrangea that was going to be too large for its location next to the house. It also wasn't all that pretty either (can't remember the variety). So it got a new home on the lower hillside. I planted another Choiysa ternata in the hydrangea's old spot. Now I have three of them in the beds on either side of the front entry - a better plan/layout. I'm fond of of Choisya ternata, as it is a useful broadleaf evergreen, and it will happily take pruning as needed. I have the 'Sundance' variety in several places where the golden leaves add bright spots of color. And five 'Aztec Pearl' do a lovely job of providing year-round structure in my beds surrounding the lawn. Their fragrant flowers provide extra interest in early summer, continuing until fall.

Pruning and training grape vines

I worked with other master gardeners at the Neely Historic Garden in Kent on Saturday morning. We pruned the grape arbor and dig some other garden clean-up tasks. I had been feeling like it was too cold to work in the garden lately, but after I was outside in the sun, I decided I needed to get busy in my yard. Since I started the day pruning grape vines, I decided to tackle my vines. I have a Concord and Catawba that are three or four years old. My husband put in some metal fence posts to use for the main supports and to support the wires, which run horizontally at about three feet. Then I pruned according to the instructions in the following:
http://extension.wsu.edu/maritimefruit/Pages/GrapePruningBasics.aspx

After I finished with the grapes, I went on to clean up a couple garden areas, hoeing the little winter weeds and trimming up some spent perennials that had nothing left to offer the birds.
Now I'm off to rake some leaves, so I can fill up the yard debris bin before tomorrow's pick up! I started this yesterday and found it took quite a bit of time to rake or hand-pull leaves out from shrubs. It sure does look neater though!

Cleaning out catch basins

We had our favorite "excavator" Noel clean out the catch basin that is at the bottom of our little stream. Over the past seven years, it had nearly filled up with sediment, rocks, and debris that washed down the stream.
While it is never fun to have to pay for something like this, we have a responsibility to take care of these things that are on our property. When we saw what a big job it was, we were glad we had an expert take care of it! Noel had to unbolt the metal lid part(after clearing away some rocks), and place a pump  a little higher to divert some of the water. Then he cleared out the catch basin. I didn't see him working on it until late in the day, and he was six feet down in the basin! I didn't know it was so deep! It took him a little more than a full day to complete this job.

Insects in my worm bin - Springtails

Yuk!  I was about to put some lettuce in my worm bin and discovered millions of very tiny white bugs. I used a magnifying glass and took pictures, so I could get a closer look at them. I've determined they are Springtails and not harmful. But I think the bin is too moist, so I've added more shredded newspaper and dry leaves, and I am leaving the top off for while. Since there is uneaten food, I'm going to cut back on the amount of food I add to the bin. My worms seem to prefer lettuce over other produce, and we generate more than enough lettuce to feed them, so that is mostly what they get to eat.

Here is a photo of one of my red wigglers with masses of these tiny insects in the drainage tray.

Here is my worm bin, showing some of the leaves and shredded newspaper I added: