china shepherdess

Mystery landscaping (alternate title: No, I'm not sick of hipstamatic yet)

It was fall when I bought my house so I paid little to no attention to the plantings in the front and back yards. There was also regrading work to be done around the foundation, which I thought would mean I'd have to kill all the plants. Besides, I thought landscaping would be easy. How hard could it be to rip out plants and put in new ones?

Well, this whole yard work thing is a lot more time consuming than I expected. My grand visions of ripping everything out, regrading around my foundation and planting just the right blooms and leafy things to suit my taste have gone out the window. Life being what is, just mowing my lawn has been time consuming (I won't even go into the drama associated with the craptastic, now broken mower I purchased). 

Instead I have been enjoying the weirdness of finding out which plants sprout things I like and which ones are actually just dreaded weeds. There were massive peonies in the front and side yards and a giant thicket of raspberries in the back (I should be out there picking a bowl full of them right now!). I quite liked my giant Martian spiky plants until a friend told me they were weeds. The purpley pink numbers pictured above form a large hedge between a neighbor's yard and mine. Until last week, it was just a slightly homely green leafy mess, but now it has bloomed and is quite lovely.

So for now, I'm mostly letting it languish. I figure interior designers often advise people to live in their home before they take on massive renovations. I'm going to do the same with my landscaping, but just wait until next year!

Super Hyper Micro Link: Vicious Hogweed Plant Could Star in “Little Shop of Horrors” Sequel

via blogs.discovermagazine.com

Hey kids, get off my lawn!

I saw this on Gawker yesterday and was inspired. I've had trouble with little brats (and big ones) who cut through my yard and leave a trail of candy wrappers in their wake. Perhaps a hedge made of giant hogweed, a plant that can burn your skin and cause blindness, would put an end to their littering.

Even Genesis knew to fear this plant (video embedded below)

Planting an herb container garden.

With all of the work around my house and yard I decided to cut myself some slack and hold off on the square foot garden this year. Instead I found some great fiberglass planters and filled them with all sort of herbs.

Many of the plants I bought were already pretty far along (especially the two kinds of parsley), so I had to do some trimming back after I snapped this photo.

The containers are pretty big and I used them to their full advantage by planting a whole bunch of different herbs.

Basil
Sweet Basil
Thyme
Lemon Balm
Spearmint
Peppermint
Rosemary
Parsley
Italian Parsley
Chives
Cilantro

I planted these last Monday and they seem to be doing well. Now I just need to read up on how to avoid killing them!

Snapshot of something pretty.

I grabbed this shot with my iPhone yesterday (love that CameraBag Helga filter). My peonies and roses have started to bloom. I didn't even know this crazy green bush was a peony until it started to bud. It makes me happy to have a bit of pretty in my yard.

Last weekend.

A lot of hard work went on last weekend, but there's not much to show for it yet. I spent a good four hours tidying up my front yard. The backyard seems to be a lost cause and the weather isn't cooperating with my plans for applying weed and feed (sorry organic friends, but if you saw it you'd agree). It's all adding up to much more work than I expected, so I gave myself a pass on doing a proper garden this year. I'll probably do a couple container plantings of herbs and call it a day.

Work continued indoors, as I prepped my hall for paint, taped around the endless number of doors (because I'm not the tidiest of painters) and slapped a fresh coat of white on the ceiling and scary attic hatch. It was fun to see that at one point the hall was painted nearly the same shade of pink as my bedroom. If all goes according to plan, I'll have some color on the walls by next weekend.

The weather over the weekend was crazy with thunderstorms and high winds. Then all of the cottonwoods let loose their fluff and it gave the odd feeling that it was snowing on an evening with temperatures in the high 80s. 

Planning for my Square Foot Garden

Slightly wild and untidy English cottage-style gardens are beautiful, but not for me. As you probably noticed in yesterday's post, I like landscapes with a modular style. This feeling is also going to carry over into my vegetable garden.

I've decided to go with the Square Foot Gardening method for my little vegetable patch. This is really fun for me because my dad built my mom a rather large Square Foot Garden in the backyard of the house we moved to in the suburbs. I remember watching the show with her and getting to plant my own small square or two. I wish she was well enough to take part in the planning of my first garden, but maybe I'll bring her to see it once it gets going and it will strike a chord and bring up some of her older memories. 

The square foot frames seem easy enough to build. However, I have projects aplenty and decided to purchase two directly from the Square Foot Gardening Foundation. The only thing missing is the fabled Mel's Mix and some wire mesh to put under the boxes just in case of critters that like to burrow (gross).

I've found a nice, mostly sunny spot in my backyard and now I get to decide just how I'm going to fill up all 32 of those squares! I'm a little intimidated by the whole process, so we'll see how it goes.