baby tomatoes!

While replacing the tomato stakes last weekend, I discovered I had baby tomatoes! There are baby Roma’s, and Black Cherry tomatoes. Still no fruit on any of the pepper plants or Big Boy and Mr. Stripey, but all have flowers. I think I’m still on track to be harvesting the first tomatoes at the end of the month.

The status of the herb ‘garden’ is virtually unchanged. I did have an opportunity to use some mint in a recipe I tried last week, Jamie Oliver’s ‘mini shell pasta with a creamy smoked bacon and pea sauce’ from his book, Food Revolution. It turned out quite well, click here for a link the recipe.

The Hollyhocks are still blooming (all white) and while I get annoyed with the mint most of the time, it is nice to have something covering up the Hollyhock’s unsightly legs. Also in the driveway planting bed, there are many flower buds forming on the Rose of Sharons, and the butterfly bush and black eyed susan’s that I relocated to the driveway bed are also doing well.

Out front, the Hellebores still have flowers, and the Oakleaf Hydrangeas are doing so well. This seems to be a particularly good year for hydrangeas in our area. ‘Not of this World’ is the first of my Daylilies to bloom, and the tiger lilies are still going strong. In the west side planting bed, the sedum is also about to bloom.

I’ve only had to water a few times all season, thankfully; that has saved time and money. I’m still fertilizing the veggies and herbs once or twice a week with a liquid fertilizer, but that’s really the only maintenance I’ve had time for lately.

longer days, more gardening adventures

Last Saturday I worked in the garden until after sunset, which now is almost 7:00! Thanks, Daylight Savings Time. I weeded, planted, divided, relocated, mulched, and watered. I worked mainly in the planting bed on the west side of my house (picture). With almost due west exposure, this bed gets the most sun of any of my planting beds and eventually this bed will be home to my future tomato plants.

An early goal of mine was to screen the a/c unit on the left and for that, I choose Euonymus 'Green Spire'. [Normally, I am NOT a proponent of Euonymus in general, but these plants look pretty good all year, are very cheap, and as far as I know will not become invasive.] The Euonymus hedge has been planted for a few years now with an initial investment of less than $50.

In front of the Euonymus hedge are ornamental grasses (still dormant), and a new patch of sedum that replaces the Black-eyed Susan’s (Rudbeckia) that I just relocated to elsewhere in the bed. The large shrub, butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii), which now reaches the top of the brick wall, is a personal favorite. In fact I plan to do another blog post specifically about this plant.

In front of the butterfly bush is Lambs Ear (Stachys byzantina). I believe I have the variety called ‘Big Ears’. This is a neat perennial with silver-green foliage and I can’t help but feel the soft leaves every time I’m nearby, they really do feel like lambs ears. In between the butterfly bush and lambs ear are my beloved peonies (which are just now starting to poke through the soil).

You can barely see the corkscrew willow (Salix matsudana) under the electric meter. This is a very cool, graceful plant with an extremely fine textured, medium-green leaf and yellow bark. Between it and the butterfly bush is my recently planted climbing rose (no clue what variety). There is a small trellis for the rose now, but I will probably run some wire for it to climb on this summer. The climbing rose takes the place of another butterfly bush, which I cut back and relocated to the planting bed across the driveway.

Near the middle of the bed, there’s a medium green groundcover that has basically taken over this portion of the planting bed. As of yet, this Sedum has remained unidentifiable. I have probably 10 different sedums growing throughout my various planting beds; they’re great low-maintenance perennials that come in a variety of foliage and flower colors (I’m a huge fan). But this one grows faster than any I’ve ever encountered. I’ll probably remove portions of this to make room for my tomatoes!

The blue pot will eventually be planted with herbs and/or seasonal color, and probably won’t remain in the bed. Behind the pot, against the house are a row of tiger lilies (Hemerocallis fulva), which will bloom creamsicle-orange. This plant is also fondly called ‘ditch lily’, and is a fine example of what I call a ‘native invasive’.

In the right corner of this bed is a newly planted upright rosemary, although the variety name escapes me now. I’m so excited about this rosemary and once it fills out (about 4’ tall) I think it will really help to anchor the space. My kitchen door is right around the corner, and I’m looking forward to using this herb while cooking!

Behind the rosemary is a patch of Pachysandra terminalis ‘Green sheen’. It’s an amazingly care-free evergreen groundcover, probably deserving of its very own blog post. Pachysandra has beautiful shiny dark green leaves of a medium texture. While no one buys this plant for the bloom alone, the dainty clusters of white flowers are quite nice; mine are in bloom right now!

This is my favorite planting bed because of the variety of foliage and bloom colors that all work so well together. I’m also really pleased with the year round presence the pachysandra, euonymus, butterfly bush, lambs ear, sedum, and now rosemary will provide. But in the summer, this bed literally comes alive with all of the warm flower colors of plants that haven’t even come up yet.

Throughout the bed are Black-eyed Susan’s (Rudbeckia), Tennessee Coneflower (Echinacea tennesseensis), other sedums, and various daylilies (from my uncle). I’ll take pictures along the way to document the bloom/growth progress. Bottom line, the garden doesn't look like much now, but i promise, an amazing transformation is in the works!

the Greek word for Rainbow

This past weekend brought us beautiful spring weather and I was able to spend about an hour working in the yard on Saturday. The area I focused on is the small perennial bed next to my mailbox at the street. This planting bed sits at the start of a swale that runs along the front of my property parallel to the street. It’s an odd sort of depression that’s difficult to mow; from day one I envisioned a sinuous planting bed of perennials and shrubs to replace the grass in the swale and provide a colorful front border for the house.

Several years ago I was renovating my grandfather’s Iris bed in Knoxville and the process of dividing his Iris yielded several mulch bags filled with rhizomes. The flower takes its name from the Greek word rainbow, referring to the wide variety of flower colors available in the genus. Now I know that the Iris I planted bloom yellow and white. But at the time I planted my rhizomes, I had no idea what I might end up with.

Iris prefer full sun to bloom well, and they can grow very tall. I have seen some flower spikes reach 3-4’ in height. At the time I didn’t have a spot that I thought would work well for the Iris, so I decided to start my ‘swale’ planting bed. Turning a patch of grass into a planting bed is HARD work; when your lawn is comprised of Bermuda grass, it’s even harder.

I added a few daylilies to the front of the bed as well, given to me by my day-lily breeding uncle. The effect is quite nice with blooms from spring through summer. They actually bloomed well the first year, which was surprising. They had a good year last year, but I didn’t keep up with weeding very well. That’s why I pulled out two garbage bags of weeds (for the composter). Then I cut each Iris fan back to three or four inches from the ground. That is a maintenance task best performed in the fall, but I suppose it’s better late than never.

Next I’m going to mulch the bed with soil conditioner. Most Iris growers do not recommend mulching, because the rhizomes can rot so easily (especially in our humid climate). But I think a light top-dressing of soil conditioner improves the soil and looks really good. I’m still debating whether or not to fertilize this area since I don’t want to give the grass (weeds) a head start. Regardless, I’m looking forward to better maintaining the area and lots of blooms this year.

The attached picture was taken in 2008, and I sent my grandfather a copy of it. After my grandfather passed away last summer, I found this picture framed in his bedroom. Every time I see the Iris blooming, I think of him and his love of gardening.