gardengirl13's rantings

[gardengirl13]

Rain!!!! Finally some rain! It drizzled all day yesterday and may do the same today! I'm so excited that I can take some time off from watering!

[gardengirl13]

Well we've gotten our first frost, so all the perennials have been cut back. Leaves are slow to fall this year, so so far we only have three beds covered for winter. Lots of bulbs planted. I'm glad i did it early since I have been feeling lousy lately. I sprayed that deer and rabbit fence spray stuff and the rabbits are still around. I may spray a second bit this weekend, I think then it says to do it once a month.

[gardengirl13]

Outside is normal so far, a bit cold for this time of year, but everything seems ok so far this fall/winter.

Now inside I've lost two plants. One has soooo many fungus gnats it had to go. All the other plants have them too, but they're no where near as bad. I NEED to find a control method that works. I've used a systemic thing I mixed into the soil to kill the larvae, I've used sprays (2 kinds) and cut up fly strips to place on the soil. But nothing works good enough to get rid of them! I'm getting desperate!

The other loss was an orchid. But they are new to me so I'm assuming a couple fatalities is expected. But it seemed to turn yellow then die. I'm not over watering as the medium is very dry. I spritz them with water and am trying to keep the humidity up. But it died anyway. One other looks sad, but the other two seem to be doing ok. One even has some new growth! This was the one that seemed to be harder to grow and a little more advanced for me. ??? Hmmm.

Already planning next spring plantings and anything that needs to be divided and or moved. I've been sick since thanksgiving and am real tired, so the idea of gardening outside seems a bit much, luckily it's dec not June!

[gardengirl13]

Well spring is literally around the corner! I can't wait! This winter has been horrible! We lost a few trees. A few branches too that may make my shade garden a bit sunnier. Has me a bit worried.

But my snowdrops have been up for over a week, the crocus by the house are in full bloom! The other bulbs all have nice healthy shoots coming up! I can't wait! With all the plowing our landlord had to do, it'll take a month of weekends to rake the gravel out of the lawn and beds. We've started some of it, where there are bulbs coming up. I'm hoping for a couple nice weekends.

We bought three new pots this past week. I think we're going to wait on extending the raised beds since we're not sure if we're going to be here longer then two more years. So we'll fill them with some veggies and see what happens. I'll have to move some flowers out of them early this summer. Now that the one tree is gone we can plant more sunny stuff there.

For christmas I got a few books on containers so I can't wait to start planting them!!

[gardengirl13]

Oh this poor thing has been so neglected!!! I've missed this forum so much!!

OK so here's an update!

- we're looking to buy a house. We're waiting on the appraisal this week, we have a sellers concession so it needs to appraise slightly higher then what we're paying. But the agent seems to think it'll be ok. If not we have no wiggle room, so they'll have to lower the price. I have never been so stressed about something like this before. I think what's worrying me is this is the only house in our area we can afford that isn't a piece of you know what. Seriously the stuff they're trying to sell around here is insane!

- so while we're waiting we're not digging anything up yet. The agent asked me yesterday when we want to move the gardens, I said as soon as the appraisal comes in. They all know we have TONS of plants we need to move and they're allowing us to do it as soon as we know we have the house. Which is great! I don't want to be digging in the snow trying to rescue all my plants!

- my health the last two years has taken a huge hit! It's so bad my HR dept asked me if it was finally time to go out on disability. wow. That came as a shock to me! My last day was at the end of April. It's been hard emotionally dealing with it. But physically I am having as easier time taking care of myself. As long as I only do something for about 30 minutes then take a break it's ok. And being home I can sleep in more, take a hot shower or bath if I feel really bad. And just let the dirty dishes sit and not care! My husband has been a saint through all this! He does about 80% of the housework, and really knows how much I love the gardens so he helps so much! Now that he's done with school he has more time, but his band has gotten bigger, so that takes up more time now too. Which is a great thing!! If you like hard rock music (think Sabbath meets Rush, meets Pink Floyd meets Zeppelin check them out! here's a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJZipCJx3Ak they did for a contest. They lost, but it was still fun! (check out all their videos!) I shoot all the videos and photos! My husband is the guitarist! Him and the drummer had an old band but the bass player/singer left last Sept. A week before their last show they found the new singer, then a week after the new bass player. They much prefer being 4 piece as they can do more complicated music. If you're on facebook please please like them! I'm trying to get them to 250 likes!!! https://www.facebook.com/PsychicRevolution He graduated with his masters in library science this summer and got promoted at work. So he's doing quite well!

- now on to the gardens. With trying to move them I'm worried for everything! If anyone has suggestions I started a post in the hosta section but you can post here too. Here's a list of stuff I want to take with us

1- all the hostas
2- all the astilbe
3- all the other shade stuff helleborous, black snake root, if I can find them the trillium and rescued jack in the pulpit (rescued maybe illegally I'm not sure- our neighbors had tons of it and then they redid their driveway and the guys torn it all up!!!! We found them laying in the woods so we grabbed them and planted them in the gardens they're supper happy! They would have died if left) the coralbells, and a bunch of other things. The new house is damp and shady!! So I'm excited that all of our shade stuff can come and have room to be divided once they're happy in their new homes!
4- some of the sunny stuff, beebalm, lavender, purple cone flower, clematis, lilies, iris, etc
5- now the harder stuff, we have two roses I will not leave, one planted just a few months ago so it should be easy to move, the other not so much. It's been there a couple years. We plan on trimming it down. I hope that'll work. Any suggestions for roses PLEASE let me know ASAP!
6- the bigger stuff is a magnolia, which was only planted last sept (2012) so it should be ok to dig out, but the hydrangeas I'm not sure! We have 4 we want to take. Same with the one younger rose of sharon, the other is WAY too settled to dig up. I'd like to take the one lilac, but I owrry digging it up will kill it. But it's so cute, but still after two year has yet to bloom for me! I really wish I could take the dwarf lilac, holy cow that smell!!!! But again it's been there for 3-4 years and is too established to move. Plus they're not too hard to get. Also how hard is it to move holly? It's about 4' tall and 3' wide. It's fairly settled but it's something we really are attached to.

I wish we could spend some money right now, but we can't do much until after the closing. My favorite nursery is having a huge sale and they have some stuff I would love to get! We did get a buring bush for $12 though! Couldn't pass that up! I really want to see about getting a winterberry or three or four! ha ha! The house has a small plot as it's in a village, but there is a mostly dry stream on the back end where some nice things like winterberry would do well.

I'll keep everyone updated with how things are going!

[gardengirl13]

OK I'm going to post this here to remind myself to find it!!

We took or niece to the Bershire Botanical Gardens this year and I fell in love, as usual when we go there as they have tons of hostas!, with one flower. I normally don't choose hostas by the flower, but this one really caught my eye!

If anyone knows where I can get it let me know!!!

hosta clausa var. normalis plantain lily asparagaceae

[gardengirl13]

OK everything seemed to transplant well so far, but the darn deer have bee after EVERYTHING!!! ARGH!!!! Driving me nuts! My husband went out to shovel yesterday after our first big storm and he chased deer away, they then stopped at the edge of the yard and just watched him! he threw snowballs at them and they just stared! Darn things are worse then they were in the "country"!!! I'm real worried about all my hostas and other deer tender plants now!! I need a plan! I would love to do a picket fence but don't want to deal with property lines and zoning and permits. But they said we can do hedges. So we're thinking of putting in some after we do some drainage work (see the bog area here for more on this) One spot they come in though is on the other side of the property from the boggy area, but this has a drainage issue too since a few years ago when the cable company put in some underground cable there and dug it all up. Now it puddles quite badly. I'm not sure what to plan there for our hedge? I don't think forsythia will like it, I'm not sure the privet or boxwood would either. any ideas?

For now it's been so snowy and rainy and freezing cold I've been inside most of the time. Which is driving me a bit nuts. I'd like to get to know my new yard and gardens! It's hard moving this time of year for a gardener! I did find a sale on outdoor material and bought some to make a bench seat cushion for our porch/deck swing! 50% off! Excellent. It's getting me dreaming! I'm also searching the online plant stores for what to buy for next spring. Dreaming is very hard though when you don't know the yard yet. Can you tell this is frustrating me! ha ha!!

[gardengirl13]

It's been a bit yet again. I've been spraying like crazy and so far everyone is still here! I rotate between a few different sprays and other smelly things.

I just got a pm about getting me the hosta I want, thanks so much for the offer, but the botanical gardens set one aside for me during their plant sale last week! I emailed to ask if they could sell me a small division. Planted it on fri and it's already sprouted up double the size!! It's been a crazy year so far with growth!! I can't believe how big my hostas all are already! The shade plants are all in bloom and so happy with the wet soil here compared to the dry soil at the rental. It's made SUCH a difference! I can't believe how much we had to water and they still weren't happy, here they're going nuts!! Couldn't find any of the jack-in-the-pulpit, but I must have found one enough to accidentally dig him up as he's coming up!! There is a native nursery locally I may go to to see if they have any for sale. I got more trillium too, of course all three I bought were labeled wrong and are not the colors I wanted! one I like a lot more, it was red and is blooming a pale pink, the other is a yellow but is blooming red, the third I'm not sure yet as he's not even in bud yet.

Living in the village has it's ups and downs compared to living in the country. It feels funny to say that as this village is what other people would call the country. But any way. It's taking some getting used to. But I've had TONS of people stop by (the shade garden is up front) and say what a wonderful job we're doing and how great the place is looking!! We're going to paint once HD has a paint sale, which will spruce up the house nicely too.

I'm going to have to look around here a bit. Last time it being winter is was quiet. I'm hoping it's been busier!

[gardengirl13]

Ohh it's been so long again! Sorry I'm so bad about coming here!

Well we're moving again. The house and yard is ok, the location is not so much. We really miss the privacy we had in our rental. We're trying to buy a house back in the country again. So everything will be dug up and moved again. sigh. Oh well, I'm excited about being able to get a more private yard, and having double the space for gardens!! The front yard is all rock, so lots of nice rocks gardening possibilities there! Sedums etc... The other half of it is flat and will be great for veggies! the back has a small stream we will stop up a bit and do a real water/bog garden! Plus it hills up and has shade so our woodland gardens will look great!!

Hope I'm not jinxing it by talking about it! But it's across the street from our last rental. Our landlord called and said they might be thinking of selling it. We know the family well, house sat for them and the cat, babysat the kiddo etc... So we know what we're getting and who the neighbors all are etc... I really hope this sale goes through well. The stress of finding a rental has been beyond difficult to say it mildly. So this HAS to go through ok, and soon or we might be homeless for a bit between the closings.

[gardengirl13]

2015 wish list:

cracker crumbs
half and half
grape fizz
Strawberry Yogurt
Tequila Sunrise
Dancing Queen
Fragrant Bouquet
Lakeside Paisley Print
Gemini Moon
Paradise Island
filligree (can't find this anywhere, but one with the same coloring would be good if anyone can tell me other names)


crazy one:
Dream Maker

[gardengirl13]

Oh it's been totally crazy! The move went ok, a few hitches that were remedied quickly (one the town can't say for sure what the address is since it has like 3 legal addresses. sigh. But it's all done. We're in the house for almost three weeks now. Trying to get everything planted. I's just been super hard. The people who bought our house bought it for their son to live in, he said he can't wait to garden and to take whatever we want since he wants to do his thing. So we took all the plants that had meaning to us and stuff we can't replace. We're slowing doing it. Watering everyone like mad due to the heat. I can't believe how hot it's been!!! It's killing me to be outside. So sadly things aren't going as fast as I'd like in that department. But the house is 100% blank slate. A dream for any gardener. also extremely daunting! We have so many plans! Our neighbor, who has always been super nice, cleared out a large cedar so we can have a sunny rock garden out front near the road. It's going to look awesome! The outcroppings here are nice!

the bad part is the great front window that I thought was east, is more south east and my orchids can't handle it. Now I'm having to spend a ton of money on lights for them since no other windows are ok for them. I hate not having them in windows, but they look nice on the shelves right now. The lights should be here this week some time. But I can now have cacti for the front window which we've never been able to do. We tried and always have to move them to my husband's office. But with the sun they should do well there!

I'll post photos as we do the planting. It's going to take awhile if this heat doesn't break soon! Even into next week we're expecting 90 and humid! ugh! yesterday was 100* (don't have a thermometer yet that's from online so I'm not 100% sure) 99% humidity and 76 dewpoint. yuck. At least I can slowly unpack inside with this heat because we have AC for the first time ever! My health hasn't been great with the move, but I'm going very slow and enjoying myself!