Adventures in the Shade Garden

 Drat! I forgot to take a "before" picture! This area- while still looking kind of barren- was covered in poison ivy and woodland asters. Hey! I like woodland asters as much as the next native plant gardener but they were the only thing in this section of the shade border and were threatening to swamp the few little Hostas that lived there. Originally, I was going to re-do this are last summer but thanks to really hot, dry conditions (and a low well), I had to wait until this year.

Fortunately, I actually had a selection of plant material (mostly Hostas *1) from previous birthday requests and plants that were scattered throughout the other areas of my garden so after I weeded and removed rocks, I was ready to transplant.

Yup! That's one of the more sizable individuals I wrestled from the ground! I dug up various lonely Hostas, divided others and started planting. I also moved several into the newly dubbed "Hosta-pital" behind the barn. These specimens need a bit of TLC!

I had a "Little Mouse Ears" that I easily divided into three, but they're going to the far end of the shade garden, which I'm also replanting. Little Mouse Ears had resided under the Sand Cherry that half-way died this spring. Suddenly, it was full sun and the Ears needed moving. Anyway they will all have a place in the Shade Border after recovering.

Further along, I planted Caladium to distract from all the weeds and mess in an area I haven't tackled yet. I will be the first to acknowledge that shade gardening doesn't come as naturally to me as full sun gardening. Shady gardens may be cooler to work in, but I sometimes get the willies as they tend to be moister and slimier and you can't always see what you're putting your hand into. Yick. But they also tend to take care of themselves more after they're installed so less time is spent fondling slime.

Here's the terminus of the Shade Garden. The lovely gate that Bob made me for my birthday several years ago is such a nice transition to the wilder world beyond. And the giant pale green Colocasia makes a terrific statement (*2).

And you know me! Can't resist a bargain and can't have too many plants! While shopping at our local supermarket, how could I resist rescuing two Hostas (on two separate occasions) that had been reduced to 1/2 price! Ditto at the big box store where I was purchasing contact lens solution. They look so happy now. More residents for my expanding and improving Shade Garden: Yay!!

(*1) Named varieties of Hosta that I have collected were "Island Breeze", "Guacamole", "little Mouse Ears", and recently added "Minuteman", "Rain Forest Sunrise" and "Blue Angel". I already had "Sum and Substance" and "Empress Wu" and "Sagae"-(these last 3 are huge varieties!), along with any number of delightful by unidentified cultivars.

(*2) Thank you to our friend Roberta who has a real knack for raising an astonishing assortment of Elephant Ears!

More Medieval Farm Fun!

 

Isn't it amazing that this lovely, halcyon woodsy vision is on our property? Is it any wonder that our friend the bear chose to stroll through, no doubt enjoying the view? This break in the trees leads to our stream which we are so fortunate have because it's now how we're watering our gardens. As I referenced in an earlier post, our well was presenting with low water pressure and we are being conservative with the hose watering.

Here's Bob down by the stream ready to dip in and fill the buckets. It's really quite pretty here... if one scares the bears (and coyotes and bobcats and probably a few stray mountain lions!) away. (*1) Anyway, this has become a daily event in our modern efforts to re-create how our medieval ancestors lived. Some things never change!

Fill those buckets! Tote that weight! And then we schlepp them up the hill to the awaiting water cart and pour the water into the bigger buckets. Bob is much stronger than me so he carries a couple of buckets at once; I can only manage one. But who's counting? It's all in good, clean medieval fun!

And then we push that cart up the hill (of course it's a hill!) and through the gate and away across the lawn to the various containers and vegetables that need refreshment. But all our hard work is paying off as nothing has died despite the continued drought. In fact the vegetable garden is really productive, serving up a bounty of Swiss chard, okra, lettuce, parsley, squash, peppers and the first tomatoes. (Soon to come: hazel nuts, grapes and beans.)

(This is a picture from earlier this year because I'm too lazy to go out and re-photograph the vegetable garden. It's too hot and I'm hungry. And I guess too honest.)

(*1) Not to mention watching out for ticks and leeches and variously infected mosquitoes... scary world we live in!

How Dry I Am

 

Well that's an unattractive picture to start out with! We are in the midst of a drought, which I think snuck up on us. Two weeks ago, our gardens looked pretty great... and then wowser! Everything is shriveled, crackling and dying. 

Bob and I were merrily watering away, keeping plants happy until one morning while I washed dishes and Bob watered the vegetable garden, our water pressure dropped rather alarmingly. We realized that with no rain at all in the forecast and how luxuriously we'd been watering the various containers and shrubs and vegetables all while doing laundry and taking showers the well's water level had probably fallen to new lows. You get the picture: suddenly we realized that we'd better be frugal for a few weeks. 

Things I've never seen wilt are wilting, like the Eupatorium above. We've been saving rinse water from doing dishes and Bob's been schlepping bucketfuls of water from our stream (also low) but it's no substitute for lavish watering or a day of rain. Forget the lawn: it crunches under foot. That I can live with as it's only temporarily dormant. But I feel awful about all those tender little seedlings that we started indoors- only to consign them to the eternal flames of hell. Gotta love Climate Change, right? at least we're not on fire. Yet.

So I just did an even stupider thing. The deer who are usually pretty well-behaved around her, actually consumed some of my daylily buds yesterday. (Ironically, of course, the daylilies were among the few plants that didn't seem to mind the heat and dryness.) So I announced my intention to spray the shade area with our homemade deer spray. I gloved up as it does smell pretty rank and proceeded to a through dousing of all likely deer delicacies- rhododendrons, daylilies, hosta, impatiens; I hit them all.

(The Long Border in better days. Notice green lawn.) When I came back into the house, Bob helpfully points out that I hadn't taken the deer spray after all, but the container marked Poison Ivy Killer. (I should learn to read.) Hahahahahaha!! So I went back out and re-sprayed with deer repellent, thinking maybe it'll dilute the poison ivy spray.  It's actually a mix of salt and vinegar and takes a few applications to actually kill the poison ivy but with my luck, it will kill all my plants in one shot as they're already weakened by the dry weather. 

So... Goodbye Garden 2022!!

Wet and Dry

Bob and I have developed a serious addiction to watermelon this year. No kidding- this has to be our tenth or eleventh entire watermelon; none of that pre-sectioned and sliced up stuff for us! It started when we brought one to a party early on. It began around Memorial Day and here it is Labor Day and we brought a watermelon to a party yesterday. The one above was chilling in our refrigerator for when we arrived home. (No, we didn't grow them. We actually bought them as they've been on special at one supermarket or the other all season.) Even Jules the Dog likes watermelon. Maybe it's a way to stave off personal desiccation because it's been so dry this summer.
Here's a patch of our lawn:

I admit the dappled light of the overhead trees make this section far more fetching than if I'd taken the shot in full sun, like this:

Not so appealing is it? And it makes that walking on shredded wheat sound beneath your feet. Bob knows a woman who has threatened to pull up all her lawn and replace it with crab grass as it's still green and nothing kills it. I believe that may be a bit of crab grass in the center of the picture above, proving her point. We have been spot watering; only the valuable things, like all those trees we have been planting. The annuals have blown out early and the perennials are sort of shot.
We have only experienced a couple of months of dry weather and many plants look stressed and are dropping their leaves early. Consider what the west coast must look like. California and other parts Oregon and Washington have been suffering from drought for years. I guess we're lucky; we'll just keep eating watermelon ntil it snows.