“I want to dig out the boulevard garden”. That was my answer when Ted asked me what I would like to do on our 12th wedding anniversary. This was our second spring in our fixer-upper home. And, Ted had no idea that our yard was about to become a garden. “You want to do what!” He was in shock. The idea of spending a beautiful spring day removing the weedy grass and several pickup loads of soil did not at all sound like a romantic way to spend a 12th anniversary. But love can be displayed in so many ways. Sometimes with a twinkle in his eye Ted tells me, “The impossible we do immediately, miracles take a little longer”. That morning the impossible started.
Our boulevard garden or street facing garden or “hell strip” as Lauren Springer, renowned author of “The Passionate Gardener” calls them, is 8ft by 50ft. It is dry, hot and sits in full sun. In the winter after a snowfall the snow plow spreads sand and plows the streets. In doing so, sand and gravel gets thrown onto the boulevard strips of grass, eventually raising the level of the grass until the grass sits above the curbs. That was the case in our very old yard.
So we went to work. We dug out several pickup loads of dirt and gave them to a friend who was building raised beds. Ted then spread sand as a base for the stepping stones that we placed in the garden.
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There are 2 “pods” on each side of the center walkway. Notice the Mock Orange (philadelphus)
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Drought tolerate plants like Lambs Ears(Stachys), Salvia and Coreopsis flourish in this garden
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In the summer purple, white and pink Echinacea bloom along with the a tall yellow Heliopsis. Next to it on the left is Perovskia (Russian Sage) On the right you can see Achillea (Coronation Gold Yarrow).
The boulevard strip was the first garden. This spring I will show you the low maintenance changes I have made to the front garden.
In the beginning… Our front yard was lawn and more lawn, scraggly bushes and weedy trees. I’ve been posting a series that I tag “Making a Garden” where I show the “afters”. The time has come to show the “before” .
Our house was built in 1929. We moved in during the winter of 1992. Inside we stripped and finished the floors, painted and did what you do in fixer-uppers. Later we knocked out a back wall and enlarged the kitchen. We also added 2 dormers to the attic making an upstairs bedroom and a new bath. That spring I started in the garden.
Our first spring: Ted removed a couple elm trees. To the right in the middle of the lawn we kept a large elm tree that serves as shade. The two existing shrubs are double mock oranges. They are very fragrant. Take a look at them after a few years of getting care.
Nothing is constant except change.
I 
The previous post is on our Pink Limestone Pathways. This picture shows how very pink the flagstones start out. In time the stones turn a softer pink. If you scroll down the blogroll to the previous post you’ll see more examples of this pathway in our garden.
You can walk all through the garden on pink limestone paths. Throughout our county here in South Dakota we have pink limestone. Hot Spring’s historical victorian buildings were built out of a pinkish sandstone. You can take a peak at our named “2009 Distinctive Destination” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. When we bought our house 18 years ago, I did not have a set plan for how my garden would look. I just knew I wanted a “secret garden” filled with flowers, fragrance and pink limestone paths. So, Ted and I set out to find and “mine” our pink pathways. We found places were we could dig up some flagstones. This was a job of hard work and patience. I don’t mind the hard work, but patience, I have to work on. Ted excels in both being fearless in the face of hard work, and he is patient. After finding our site, we had to carefully remove all the loose stone and any weight that sits on top of the potential flagstones. The stones are laid down in layers. When we found a good layer we used a sharp crow bar or shovel edge and slowly, carefully pried and lifted the top layer. The goal was to get as large a flagstone as possible before it would break. Then we lifted the stone onto the pickup. Our largest flagstone is 3 feet by 7 feet and about 2” thick. While Ted and I were pondering how we would ever get such a large, heavy stone onto the pickup, friends came by and helped us load the stone. I, the inpatient one had been ready to break it to fit. It took 6 men to unload the stone and place it in the carefully leveled spot where it has remained for years. If you go through my past posts you will see many examples of our pathways. As I removed more and more lawn and planted gardens, Ted added arbors and structures. When I would say, “Ted, you know what we need?” he would say “One more load!” and so off we would go. What a workout!
I worked with passion and determination to lay the pathways. Notice the rocks that line the back wall. I fancied they looked like fish.
There are groundcovers and there are what I call “ground huggers”. The ground huggers are the carpets of the garden. The tighter and lower a groundcover hugs the ground, the less chance a weed can sprout. I mulch these xeric plants with gravel. The natural limestone holds a bit of moisture making an ideal culture for these lovely purples.
At about 11 o-clock you can see Globularia cordifolia dwarf. It’s flowers are little puple pom poms. In the middle you can see a prickly ball which is, Prickly Dianthus, Acantholimon hohenackeri. Blooming up front is Bressingham Thyme
The lovely, larger purple flower is: Silky Rock Jasmine, androsace primula “chumby”
This is a view from the back garden. On the left you’ll notice the purple kool-aid scented Variegated Iris. Next to it our native white Penstemon Grandiflorus. Up close on the right side is a Meadow Rue, Thalicturm . The fragrant purple rose is Reine de Violettes. But the “star” of the post is the Lavender Thyme (thymus preacox skorpilii) growing in between the pink limestone path. The Lavender Thymes started with two or three tiny plants. It is a delight.
I previously did a post on this 33 Foot Long Arbor. The beautiful purple ground cover is Blue Wooley Speedwell, veronica pectinata,
One day a friend gave us a 50 gallon food safe barrel. And, like what often is the case I had an “ah ha moment”. And said to Ted “Let’s cut in down, and I’ll dig a hole and sink it into the ground and have a little pond”. And that is what happened.
Water Lettuce and little goldfish added to the charm of this little pond. My garden paths are lined with local pink limestone. The limestone edge hides the barrel.
The next year or so, after reading books on how to build a pond. I came up with this idea. I ordered the liner and a little pump online.
The water circulated from the lower pond up through the upper bog. The left side of the bog was filled with washed gravel. I washed it and ran it through a plastic colander, bucket by bucket. Then planted a ribbon grass in the water. This worked for a few years, but the gravel eventually got messy and I wanted a bigger pond. Water quickly evaporated from this pond. A fragrant Roman Chamomile volunteer can be seen in front. Last spring, we ordered a new, better liner and picked a spot where the pond is visible from our kitchen-dining room windows. The old pond spot became a raised bed created by the dirt taken from the new pond. I made sure to put the poorer dirt in the bottom of the bed and the richer dirt on top.
Ta-da! I think I like it!
Gardens need destinations. And if that destination is slowly revealed even better. An arbor not only is beautiful but it can fill a need. In this case give shade and shelter and a place to rest. And, less you think it is all work and no play for Ted, I have found him asleep on the comfy cushion swing bench., that sits under this arbor. When you first enter the garden you cannot see this arbor. You have to walk down the path and turn to the right behind the Little Pink and Yellow Garden House.
At this point there are hops growing on the arbor. They rise from the 2 front post. The arbor sits on the north west corner of the garden. The problem was that hops want to follow the sun as they grow. So every few mornings I would be out turning them back to the north onto the arbor. And, hops leaves have little hairs on them that are irritating to some persons. I found them to be very irritating. So a couple of years ago, I dug them out. What a workout!
BressinghamThyme carpets the area around the arbor. I love this low growing thyme. Notice the, recently planted hops.
You can see the design in the just finished arbor
I removed the hops and have let grapes grow over the arbor. I’ll show better pictures later this year. Yes this is my arm. I didn’t like the rest of me in the picture.
It is a delight to see the response of guests as they open the gate to the 33 foot long arbor. It is partially hidden by a large lilac and juniper tree. A few years ago this narrow full sun side yard was hot and dry. It was while visiting the Denver Botanic Gardens that I got the idea of putting an arbor that would run along the side yard that leads to the back garden. And, of course, Ted designed and made this arbor. I promised him that it would be the last arbor I would think up and so far so good. I still have 2 more arbors that I have not introduced in this blog, so indeed enough is enough. But, this arbor is a delight. I don’t think I want vines to cover it. It is fun to be able to look down and through it from from our upstairs bedroom.
Blue Wooly Speedwell (veronica pectinata) is one of my favorite ground covers. It is a true zone 4 xeric. It is also not attractive to deer or bunnies. I have it in several places in the garden. On the left side I have been letting the raspberries spread. The yellow painted gate at the end says “Welcome to our Garden”. I love it when first time visitors say as they open the gate “It’s a secret garden”
A William Baffin Rose Blooms in the summer with a bit of re-blooming later in the season
Trumpet vines bloom in the summer. I have been taming the growth on the right side creating spaces for vegetable to grow
White flowers and a white arbor brighten the grey wall that encloses my first “garden room”. Our neighbor’s grey garage wall sits near the property line of our garden. I wanted some white to brighten the area. So, as is now the tradition with Ted and me, after enjoying a nice meal together, I ask him if he has any arbor ideas and he pulls out his paper napkin and proceeds to sketch the design. The biggest claim to fame that this arbor has is as a photo op. Ten years ago, I hosted a wedding shower for my friend Dell and later she was married in our home. I have an enlarged, framed picture of 26 friends sitting on and standing around this arbor.
- Behind the arbor, to the left is smoke bush, cotinus coggygria. After a few years of caring for the garden, the very large elm tree that shades the house, also came to shade the smoke bush. I dug out the smoke bush. The hydrangea and dogwoods flourished. Change is the one constant in a garden.
This arbor is very sturdy. I first planted it with a kiwi vine, with dreams of harvesting nice plump kiwis. The kiwis, if you can count 2 kiwis as a harvest, were like big marbles. After a few years I removed the vine. In this picture, the vine growing is hops. Hops die back every winter, but in the spring grow so fast. They quickly cover an arbor.
Weeds and an open yard. That describes our garden 18 years ago. I explained to my husband that a garden has “walls”, and the sense of security, enclosure, maybe a bit of secret whimsy. What we had a 3 1/2 foot tall chain link fence. But, where there is a will there is a way.
In 1929 when they made our house and our neighbor’s house, they built the detached garages right on the lot lines. For me each garage became a 36 foot long wall on the north and south side of the garden. Our house made a third wall. We just needed the fourth wall. My husband came up with the idea of using one “cow panel”. A cow panel is about 4ft by 16 ft long. He hung it between two 7foot posts set about 14 feet apart, creating a bit of a curve, stabilized with a metal post in the middle. The panel was hung high so that my divider was about 7 feet high. Perfect!
Until the plants grew, I decorated the panel with weaving. I went into the woods and picked willow and wove them into a pattern.
You can see in the background my weavings of willow. The Squirrel never did learn to ride the bike.
- House view side of divider. Notice the iron twin bed headboard turned sideways.
- From the back side of the divider. Roses from the right: Golden Showers, The Blaze Rose. And on the right one of my favorite fragrant reblooming roses, Madame Isaac Pierre
This was the view from the front of the divider. Amur maple, feverfew, Bonica Rose and the vine that dominates is Autumn Clematis.
This is a follow-up post from the previous espalier apple post. Our 1929 bungalow came with a neglected yard. It had several weedy elm trees,large chokecherry bushes, weeds and overgrown lilacs. One lilac was even blocking the entrance to the garage. This little crab apple flourished as I removed lawn and added gardens to the front. The only problem was that as it grew larger it gave even more tiny, tiny crab apples. The apples were without flavor and even the abundant deer avoided them. Then in the fall they would all fall. Sometimes 2 or 3 wheel barrows full of squishy apples which would also stain the side walk. I told my husband I was sure that the reason this tree was named a crab apple was because it made their owners “crabby” I certainly did not enjoy cleaning up after this beautiful one time blooming tree. So as part of my lowering the maintenance of the front yard, we cut it down. Yes, we did that! And we dug out it’s stump making room for my ground cover gardens. My being “crabby” was not the only reason for getting the chain saw out. The large shade elm had also flourished and the yard looked overcrowded.
Now the reason for this very public confession is that this crab apple was a good pollinator for my neighbor’s apple tree and my grafted espaliered copy of the same tree. About every apple needs another type of apple as a pollinator (except for, I learned, Queen Cox which is self-fertile) The recommended maximum distance between pollinators is about 100ft, some say 50 yards. This seems to be the distance that bees will travel with pollen from one apple to another. My neighbor does have a pollinator maybe 175 ft on the other side of his yard. But, my little espaliered apple has nothing close. So every spring, I pick a bouquet of crab apple flowers and place them in a bucket under the little espalier. Am I doing penance? The bees work both flowers and we have apples. Ted says that maybe we should add another espaliered apple variety. We’ll see. I don’t know where I would put it.
When we moved here 17 years ago we fell in love with the taste of our neighbors apples. Small snacking apples with not much “keeping” or canning properties. But, so fresh and sweet and delicious. Our neighbors didn’t eat them, so Ted would pick them by the small basket and we’d eat them and share them with anyone who came around. My garden has more plants than space. So years ago we decided to add this tree to our garden by means of grafting a branch from our neighbors unknown variety tree onto dwarf root stock M26. This gave us a miniature version of their tree. My goal was not a particular pattern. Just a narrow, space saving tree. I planted the M-26 root stock, which came as a small tree, the summer before. In late winter while the neighbor’s tree was still dormant we took some branch cuttings. I kept the cuttings in the refrigerator crisper in a plastic bag with moist peat moss. In the spring when the M26 root stock tree was breaking dormancy, Ted’s strong hands cut the notch for the graft, matched the neighbor’s branch to the root stock and I taped it together and voila! We have our own apple tree. This picture was from this fall. You can click on the picture to get a better look at the tree.
I was looking in my files for a good picture of my Quince tree (Cydonia Oblonga) not to be confused with Flowering Quince (chaenomoles spp). Not finding one, and without logic, I chose this picture of Queen Victoria Rose. This rose sits across the pathway from the Quince. It is a beauty. A hybrid perpetual from 1840, it re-blooms and is fragrant. I have over 50 roses in my garden. I never spray and rarely have a problem. Our area is pretty low in humidity so black spot is not a problem. In the spring I work into their soil a bit of banana peels, alfalfa pellets and compost. My biggest challenge is that the deer love the roses that are in the open front yard. My solution is that I am removing the most “tasty” varieties.
Now about the Quince – I have a Quince tree. And unlike the Quince trees that I grew up with, this tree is a bit of a wussy. But, I love quince! So, every year, I experiment with this tree. The fruit are attacked by the same insects or diseases that affect apples. Plus, we get at least one good hail that regularly knocks the fruit off. This year, I covered one of the fruit with a tiny paper sack, tying it carefully with a wire tie. The fruit was pristine! So next year, I plan to tie little paper sacks on all the fruit. A funny looking tree you think? Yes, but the most fruit it has ever had is 12, and it is tucked into a fairly hidden southwest corner by the house.
This year a friend gave me a sack full of quince. I was able to make a quince lemon marmalade. I got the recipe from Cooking Light. Delicious! It takes, quince, lemon and sugar and water. Since I had about 8 lbs of quince. I made enough to ”put up”. I had already peeled most of the fruit, when I thought that this would be a good subject for a post – so here are 3 quince.
Looking through cotoneaster
Birds must enjoy being the “middleman” in the planting of cotoneasters. For they plant many. I enjoy them. They make great plants to clip into shapes. They also grow well in pots. This one I clip into a fan shape and of course there are the berries in the fall and the birds that will enjoy them.
So what do we do when after the snow has fallen, and the leaves are raked? We garden for a bit more. The night temperatures have been in the teens and twenties. But there are always days under a bright sun that warm up to the sixties. Yesterday Ted and I went out and harvested the Sunchokes which are also called Jerusalem Artichokes. You’ll see in the picture that they are like odd shaped potatoes, tubers attached to the long sunflower stem. The problem with sunchokes is that they do too well. Even a little bit of the tubers will spring up sunchokes. But, they do make a fast growing, sunflower-like-screen. I have moved some to the outside of the fence. Then there is the moving of perennials. One of my garden mottos is: “There is only one thing constant in a garden, and that is change”.
Digging up the Sunchokes
We live in Zone 4 – This is my before and after. If only the snow and cold had held off 2 days
But I did find this favorite ground cover, blue woolly creeping speedwell.
This is it for fresh blooms! I do not despair, because I know they will awake. Gardening is such an act of hope and sure faith. Spring will come.
Here in my Zone 4 garden we usually don’t harvest tomatoes until the middle or end of July. This year spring was cold and wet. We didn’t get to enjoy a tomato until the beginning of August. But, a couple of years ago on March 24, I started tomatoes indoors and in late May, I put them out in the protection of my little unheated garden house. To my joy I harvested 6 tomatoes on June 1st and another 7 tomatoes a week later. All summer these 2 potted Oregon Bush tomatoes produced beautifully. I started the tomatoes by seed, placed them under fluorescent shop lights, fitted with a warm and cool bulbs. As the tomatoes grew larger I added a fan set on low to blow gently on the tomatoes. I set both the fan and lights to run 14 hours. The fan, I added because I felt the slight air would strengthen the tomatoes.
Here was the tricky part and the solution. As the tomatoes grew, I popped them out of their little pots into bigger pots, planting the tomatoes deeper each time. Eventually they got quite tall and the moving of the tomato from the smaller pot to the larger pot caused the tomato to snap. Not a good thing. Fortunately I had quite a few plants to work with. Notice that only 2 tomatoes survived the process. The solution: I started lining the larger pot with a plastic grocery bag, with a small hole cut in the bottom. This made it easy to slip the whole bag into the larger pot. By the time the tomatoes went outside they were gently tied to stakes and living in 2 gallon pots. Outside, with the steadying help of my husband, I slipped them out of the 2 gallon pots. Voila! Tomatoes 2 months earlier than normal!! Last year I again started early tomatoes, but only used cool fluorescent bulbs. The tomatoes started fine, but did not flourish and set fruit. They needed both the warm and cool bulbs.
November – My project today is to try to grow tomatoes and some peppers indoors that I can harvest during the winter. My first decision was the choice of plants. I wanted a short stature, determinate tomato. www.containerseeds.com has some great choices. I chose Red Robin. It’s description reads: “A true miniature with great “real tomato” taste…This is a very cute little plant – everyone likes it. Will only grow about one foot high. Has the ability to set fruit under fairly low-light conditions, making it a good choice for indoor growing.” I am in love! I am also a starting Feher Ozon Pepper, “a sweet, candle-flame shaped sweet pepper” and Sweet Banana Pepper, “excellent for salads, frying and pickling”.
I started the seeds yesterday. Use a seed starter mix, directions are on the package. I first hydrate the mix with hot water. Dry soil is very water repellent. I think warming the soil helps with germination. Years ago, the first time I started indoor seeds, I started several hundred. After they sprouted I didn’t have the heart to throw them away, so I ended up starting seeds for friends and neighbors. No more! Modesty is knowing your limitations.
Last week Ted and I went to Southern California to visit my two brothers and their families. They both have the “gardening gene”. Both their homes have not yards but gardens unique to their families. We came back home with one of their plumerias that I will grow in my upstairs window. Our upstairs bedroom window in the winter grows a dwarf lemon, a dwarf kumquat and now our new plumeria. As soon as spring comes, I will lovingly put them outside.
While it was snowing here in South Dakota , Ted and I took a sunny walk with Susan along a pathway by the ocean by homes with flowers lining their walkways. I was fascinated with the arrangements of succulents. I will always look at these pictures and feel warm.
While we were in sunny California, some 30 bags of leaves fell in my garden. New rule to my self: Do not go on vacation in the fall until the leaves have fallen and been raked!
A couple of weeks ago, about noon, my husband came into the house and said, “hurry grab your camera and come with me”. Just a block away from our house, right in the middle of town, we saw seven very contented deer. Five bucks and two does. I took many pictures of them. They were resting in the yard of a vacant home. The pictures above face towards the vacant home. The pictures below point towards the very nicely cared for home. We have a home where the “deer and the buffalo roam” The deer roam in town, the buffalo roam at Wind Cave National Park about ten miles of town. The seven deer refused to pose, but didn’t mind my taking their pictures.
One of my future post will be on growing plants deer find less tasty. My back yard is enclosed by a seven foot high arbor. The front is open to the deer. In the future I will show you pictures.
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