Sorry, this is going to be a bit of a "Dear diary...." to myself about my yard. 😋 An update about how gardening went/ or didn't go last year. From what I can remember...😉. Although, this year I was keeping track of what I was doing on a calendar and started keeping a spreadsheet of trees, some shrubs and roses.
My main goals have been to continue to improve the soil, the backyard is clay, and the rest of the yard is sand. There is no in between. 😆
Incorporating new trees, shrubs, and perennials to fill in, and keep improving the watering system.
In March I put down wood chips on the north side of the house, and I'm leaving this area alone for now, although I planted a Japanese Zelcova and a Blue spruce that is supposed to stay smaller, (I don't know if that actually can happen, but whatever) There is a good chance the cats killed both.
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| (April 2016) |
I put leaves down and then spread wood chips over, trying to get the soil amended over here.
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| (April 2016) |
I also started the task of installing brick borders separating the flower beds from the lawn.
My plan had been to transplant the two Mugo pines on the upper left of this photo, to the south side of the yard, which we did, bottom picture on the left.
It was risky to start with, but then we waited too long (as far as hot weather), and it didn't take long for the pines to die. 😓
The three Mugo Pines. We had transplanted the one on the far left the previous fall, it seemed to be doing fine, but then started dying one branch at a time. There were still a few branches living by the time winter hit.
I started with 15 rose bushes on this side of the house at the first of spring. We ended up with Black Spot fungus and I ended up losing 8 rose bushes before I figured out what was going on.
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| (May 2016) |
The snowball bush (Viburnum) that usually struggles with chlorosis, looked great this year, still a few yellow leaves, but I'm still slowly working at improving the soil.
This mock orange bush that we had transplanted in fall 2015 looked a lot better this year too. It had previously been on the verge of death from chlorosis, it's main issue now is that because it was really close to the plum tree, it was growing sideways, and it still looks pretty tilted. 😏 You can see the pines dying in this photo.
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| (May 2016) |
One of the things Cary loves about me is my ability to start a project and finish it...😁
Ha.
This was as far as I got with the bricks and said I was done for the year. That was partly because I ran out and we didn't want to buy more bricks this year. I do finish my projects eventually...
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| (May 2016) |
(May 2016)
I posted this photo above of the snowball bush on social media, and one of my neighbors loved the picture and wondered where I took it.😅 And then they were shocked that it was in my yard, so, yeah...😔
My yard is not pretty, but there are pretty things in my yard... that has become my motto the last few years.
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| (May 2016) |
This David Austin 'Mary Rose' bush was the first to bloom, and it's a bush that I inherited from mom (mom got it from Karma, who got it from Ryan, who brought it from California) but it was not doing well at all where it was, so I transplanted to a different spot.
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| (June 2016) |
David Austin 'Madame Hardy' rose, same story as rose above, but it was even worse condition than the other bush. I'm happy to report that they both did really well this year, and the 'Mary Rose' got way bigger than I ever expected! I'm actually questioning where I placed it because we had never seen it get this big before.
Yay! The peonies lived, grew, and bloomed.
One of the miniatures I saved from Black Spot, I haven't figured out what it's name is yet.
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| (July 2016) |
That's a weird looking flower in that bush...😸
Oh, that's just one of my cats destroying all the plants in my yard!!!
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| (July 2016) |
We go down south to Cedar City, more than we are north (with the exclusion of Cary, but he won't shop for plants for me. 😁) and it is interesting that they sell a different variety than they do north. So, all that to say....they had an Italian Cypress tree (the little evergreen tree in the photo above) for sale, it's not really a tree that is supposed to grow in our "zone", but I decided to risk it anyway after reading that a few gardeners have successfully grown them up north. (The only area in my life that Cary would say I take a risk!😆)
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| (July 2016) |
In the photo above, you can see that I ripped out the two dead Mugo pines, and the last one is struggling. Moving on to a new plan for this area, I planted a Smoke bush and another Blue Spruce (supposed to stay smaller).
Oh yeah, I bought more roses. 😉
I did start planting other perennials over here (like Lavender, Cat Mint, Echinacea, Black eyed Susan, other things that are supposed to attract bees, etc...)
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| (July 2016) |
In the front, I transplanted (and planted more) Hostas on the left side of our porch, and for now I just have Columbines on the right side. When I was teaching my horticulture class, we planted the Columbines for a lesson in transplanting, so for now I've just been letting them grow, it's a nice filler.
I am experimenting with different types of Hydrangea's, just see if any can survive our weather...
This area is starting to fill in slowly.
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| (July 2016) |
In this front corner, I planted an Iris rhizome that I found in the neighboring yard (they needed them gone so they could install a new lawn) the first year we lived here and it apparently likes that spot because it really grew. I transplanted the barberry bushes from the front of the house to this spot, it gets a little bit more sun, but the dirt in this area is almost pure gravel, sigh. The bushes did suffer quite a bit from transplant shock and took awhile to recover, but they ended up looking great this year.
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| (July 2016) |
In this corner (that I dread working in because of all the clay soil) I planted a Kentucky Coffee tree, two Mock Oranges, Purple Sand Cherry, the Forsythia I had transplanted from my Grandpa Bob's yard, and then a few juniper ground covers. The small Mock Orange in the corner was chlorotic before I moved it, and is struggling.
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| (July 2016) |
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| (July 2016) |
I worked in the yard quite a bit March-July. Britton and Clara were at school in the mornings so I would get some yard work done, then when school was out for the summer, I was waking up at 6-6:30 in the morning (whenever there was enough light) and then working until the kids woke up and then Clara usually came outside looking for me, 😊 she was my alarm that it was time for breakfast. I did that until the first part of July, and then it's too hot and I just want to enjoy the yard, so I took a break, other than occasionally spraying the roses, or occasionally fertilizing. I would typically start up again after school starts, but we were busy working on the office at that point, so I really haven't done any work in the yard since the first week in July.
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| (July 2016) |
I ended up transplanting some Snapdragons into a few of the spots where rose bushes had died. I'll always have room for Snapdragons!
A few photos of the rose blooms. This one was one that I inherited from mom, she doesn't know the name of it, but I *think* it's a 'Dick Clark'.
This was 'Cherry Parfait' and this is a first year bloomer, so it was interesting the way it had a bunch of different looking blooms. I'll show more later in this post.
Sometimes with young rose plants, it can take a few years of blooming before its' "true" colors appear.
'Tequila Supreme'
'Angel Face'
You can barely see it, but there is a little tree in the foreground of this picture. That is a Prairie fire Crabapple, and ended up being one of the three plants (the other two were Japanese Zelcova, and a Pee Gee Hydrangea) that survived from the batch of nine plants that I ordered from Arbor Day Foundation. I ordered them in the fall (2015) so they got here in December and that's when I planted them, apparently that didn't go so well. 😀
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| (August 2016) |
Not a very good photo of the Rose of Sharon blooming, but it was beautiful this year!
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| (August 2016) |
Another shot of 'Tequila Supreme'
(no pun intended. ha. 😉)
'Cherry Parfait'
lavender
I think this is 'Purple Splash'
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| (August 2016) |
The drawback to growing plants that attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds...the Tarantula Hawks like those plants too. 😕 I knew the Tarantula Hawks liked the mint, so I try to cut that back before they flower, but the TH like these other plants too, ugh, they are so creepy! I see quite a few in my yard everyday and I particularly don't really want to be in close contact with any bug that if it stings you, you are supposed to lie down and scream for 5 minutes because the pain makes you go out of your mind. 😱
In the above photo, Reese is chasing a Tarantula Hawk...
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| (August 2016) |
'Mother of Pearl'
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| 'Cherry Parfait' September 2016) |
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| (September 2016) |
All of the three above photos are 'Cherry Parfait'
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| (September 2016) |
Later in the summer/fall, the mock orange bush in the corner died quickly! Not sure what happened, and the tree is not looking so good. Hard to say if it was stressed, or just changing colors in the fall. 😛
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| (September 2016) |
Another Rose of Sharon bush (with Asters) this dies back every winter and is so much slower to bloom than the other Rose of Sharon, but this particular year, I was just glad it came back up at all. I had transplanted it the previous fall.
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| (October 2016) |
I'm hoping that by next summer, tearing my plants and trees up has lost its' appeal to my cats.
This didn't transfer, but it was a video of them destroying this tree.😯
