' The way we are' is wet.... it was wet last fall and it is wet now... too wet to do much in the gardens I'm afraid, although I am going to try doing some transplanting this evening. After church on Sunday, my wife and younger son and myself celebrated Mother's Day by moving many yards of soil from the 'compost' pile. It's a combo of sods from edging the gardens and 'real' compost. I never can figure how that pile gets so huge but it does every couple of years or so... it was close to 40' long and 15 feet wide with about 7' of height. There's a fair amount left but the picture below gives you an idea of how much soil we moved... there were still large frozen chunks in the mix. I am so lucky that my wonderful neighbor to the north allows me to use this area for my mulch and compost and whatever else I need for staging the gardens.
We managed to get the dirt moved in a couple of hours by using any and all available equipment.
One of my neighbor's let me use a large JD tractor with front loader... definitely oversized for the task, but it saved shoveling and with my slipped disks there is no way I could do major digging in the dirt. I used the large tractor to gingerly loaded my DR power wagon, and a garden trailer behind my lawn tractor in turn while Sarah and Adam drove them to the appropriate spots needing soil. Adam ended up doing some shoveling I think, but the power wagon has a power dump which made it easier for Sarah....
We added more rocks to the conifer terraces and the rain came before I had a chance to smooth out the soil... again, I should be able to avoid shoveling by using a couple rototillers in different sizes that I have. You know you're getting old when you spend half your time trying to avoid heavy physical labor so you don't have to spend the other half of your time at the chiropractor's... five visits last week but I'm definitely improved. Once the terraces are dried out a bit and smoothed, I will add lots of peat moss and pine bark as soil amendments... possibly some Turface for drainage as well...
Another spot where I added about eight yards of my 'compost' soil is pictured below. I wanted to have this sodded by now but we are so wet that the sod farms are unable to cut sod. Leveling is needed here as well and a split rail fence will back up the new sod. Beyond that I am increasing the area for conifers as seen in the second photo.
So here's the view from the other side... I should be able to incorporate many conifers here as well... there are already magnolias and a few acers might be a nice addition also...
The final area that got more soil is still in need of even more... it's the new miniature conifer rock garden near the gazebo pictured below...
Thus far, I guess you could call this a 'muddy' post... when I think about it, this is the perfect year for all these changes... even without them, the gardens are not up to par due to this past winter and I'm thinking the drought the summer before last is expressing it's damaging effects as well. Many, many magnolias will not bloom at all and others are at 25% of normal or less... I'd say the Wada's Memories are at less than 10% of normal bloom. I am just thankful that the majority of the magnolias lived through these trials.
There are many blooms in the gardens despite all the messy works in progress and I'll share some of those now...
Three star magnolias are presently in bloom but beginning to drop petals... a fourth had very few buds this season...
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The smaller blue spruces pictured here are Montgomeries...  |
Daffodils are coming into bloom throughout the gardens... the picture below is a few days old. With a cool few days coming, I'm hoping they last another couple of weeks or more. We transplanted and divided about three hundred the other day and they took beautifully and are in full bloom in another part of the garden...
Pasque flowers are blooming well this season and I enjoy the many available variations in color....
There are many tulips coming into bloom ...
These are tulipa tarda or waterlily tulips...
I really enjoy the conifers... these are Larix decidua being trained into sculptural forms...
Abies koreana 'Silberlocke'... Abies are among my very favorite conifers...
The trilliums are relatively new to these gardens but perform beautifully... I am excited about the possibility of them seeding about over time and am already finding them in places where they weren't planted by me...
Pulmonarias are in full bloom just now....
Simple Pleasures is a Dennis Ledvina hybrid that is very hardy and blooms a month or more... here is proof that it can handle the most difficult winters. It's one of my favorites as its blooms are always perfectly formed....
My tiny flowered seedling has a number of blooms despite the winter... I think this is so cute!
I added a few PJM's to the conifer bed I'm developing across from the gazebo path... I can't tell you how many of these I've planted over the years... I think I've finally figured it out. I now butterfly the root system (cut into fourths and get vicious with the outside perimeter of the roots... my problem in the past was that the roots never left the root ball, even after years in the gardens. If interested, go to the Rare Find Nursery site and look for their video on preparing rhodies for planting.
I find myself leaving the realm of 'garden rooms', preferring longer vistas instead.... not sure where this is coming from, but it is influencing a great many of the changes underway in the gardens this season.
Oh yes... I just received my summer issue of "Country Gardens" which contains six pages on the daylilies here at Oak Lawn... if you run across it, let me know what you think... Take care, Larry
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