Shrubs is a guy that can't get no love from me.

Psych, lemme stop. Shrubs get all the love.

I've been bugging Twig about planting shrubs in his back yard for MONTHS and today was finally the day. His backyard needs some lovin' because one side is up against the neighbors garage and the back is right up against another neighbors side wall. My idea was to use a mix of evergreens and flowering shrubs (in yellow, purple, and white)  to add privacy and (hopefully) general interest and beauty. Also it doesn't hurt that it will shrink the amount of grass there is to mow.

I forgot to take a true "before" picture, but here it is with the plants on the ground:

I made my plans based on what I could find about sun and water needs with some consideration for staggered flowering times. The plans relied heavily on Yew and Juniper for the evergreens and Forsythia, Azalea, and bulb flowers for color. This required some negotiating (apparently Twig hates azaleas) and we ended up working out some early picks at Lowes.

We wandered around for at least a half hour, hemming and hawing over different varieties. We decided to start with a few of the more statement, big shrubs so they could get more time in the ground and then add in around them later. In the end we picked up a Forsythia, a Coppertina, and two Boxwood, plus a bag of compost and a few bags of mulch. (Plus a cement bulldog, to ease my pain of not being about the have a dog. Sigh.)

 

After bringing everything back to his place we put the plants down about where we wanted them (to best hide eye sores in the neighbors yard) then measured a circumference based on the stated max plant size. I was surprised by how much space everything will supposedly take up in full size, especially since they look kind of dinky right now. Twig used some strong to draw out the required area and we pushed everything around until they fell into place. The Forsythia, and Coppertina are nearly 5' in front of the back fence, and the boxwoods are staggered behind them to help fill in some of that blank space.

After that everything was straight forward...

Dig a hole about twice the size of the roots and throw in some compost:

Tease out the grass from the dirt (plus break up compacted chucks, pull out rocks, etc.):

Tease out the plant's roots. Put it in the hole and fill it in with the 'clean' dirt. Cover the area with mulch:

Take very low quality photos of your new plant. Repeat.

It doesn't look like much now, but I'm excited to see everything grown into place, and hopefully we'll add more plants in soon. This week we might put in some Iris bulbs between the Lilac bush and the right side fence. (Eventually the whole area around the Lilac bush will be bulbs, I hope!)

gimmegimmeMOgimmeMOgimmegimmeMO

I ended up back at the co-op and picked up some more succulents - they had a bigger selection than I saw yesterday so I figured why not. I also got another snake plant to fill out the other parts of it I killed/took to my office. And here we go:

see ya, strawberries, hello succulents!

This summer has been really mild which has been great for me, but not so hot for my plants. The only thing I've harvested so far is one summer squash, and we couldn't even eat it because it wasn't ripe yet. Everything else is alive and healthy but about two months behind.

A few strawberries have actually grown, but every time I went out to pick them I found that the squirrels beat me to them. I moved them to a shepherd's hook away from everything to try to protect the berries, but even that didn't work. So to get rid of the awkward hook in my front yard I'm calling it quits on the berries - better luck next year!

Not down and out, I stopped by the co-op and found a bunch of succulents available. Last winter I tried a succulent terrarium, but I over-watered it once and it never recovered. This time I want to learn from that mistake and try a new one.

I used some drainage rocks and cactus soil I bought last year and layered it all in...

 dropped in the plants...

and gave it a bit of water. After watering I left the top open so some can evaporate before I close it up.

So here we be. I might go back and add a few more in because I gather you can pack succulents in pretty tightly, but they might also grown into it, too. We will see this. 

I also picked up another hearty houseplant to fill out some of one of my other pots. Hopefully it grows a bit to fill in the other plants I killed. Oops.

And last but not least, some new leaf lettuce for a fall crop. Yay!

Vacation

Sun. Sand. Surf. Surfing. Giggles. Ice cream. Family. Mini gold. Mani-pedis. Crab. No cell service. Karaoke. 1D.
This was one of the best, most well deserved vacations I've ever taken. I can't believe it's over so soon!

 

 

 

 

 

Defeat

OK, squirrels, you win.

After many battles, including several I mentioned here, I admit that the squirrels have won. I covered plants in chicken wire, moved them to a shepherd's pole far away from easily climbable structures, and cast voodoo spells on them (not really).

But after I saw that they had turned my pepper plant and eggplant (which had flowered!) into stalks surrounded by shredded leaves, I call it quits. I don't know if I did anything differently last year to keep them away or if they're just more brazen, but I hate them. I hate the squirrels. Good thing my garden at Twig's house is doing well:

garden in June

I know these pictures look crazy but forgive me - they were taken with a cell phone. At least you can see progress in so far as the plants are bigger than they were last month... right? right?

front row (l to r): swiss chard, lettuce; middle row: basil, beets; back row: eggplant, pepper

front row (l to r): swiss chard, lettuce; 2nd row: tomatoes; 3rd row: squash, zucchini; last row: brussel sprouts

squirrels: 3, me: 1

I thought I had taken more pictures of these battles as they occurred, but I was mistaken. Alas, I'll need to just explain to you how round two went down we can jump to present day.

You may recall I, or more accurately, my strawberries, had a run in with some squirrels. After the massacre I used chicken wire to cover the bucket and the other potted plants I had out on my deck. I went inside feeling so smug, like "I showed you, squirrels!" only to find the next morning that the squirrels had dug around the wire and into the soil/roots. In this round we lost our comrade, the dear brussel sprout. Squirrels: 2, me: 0.

RIP Rus

Undeterred, I rearranged the wire to better cover the exposed soil area in all of the pots, but this didn't leave much room for the plants to grow height-wise. I didn't have any more wire so I made it do and pressed the wire into the soil (as opposed to sort of floating on top) so that the squirrels would need to dig the wire cages out of the pots. It wouldn't have been hard, but it seemed to do the trick. Finally, success! Eat that, squirrels! ...No wait, please don't.

Fast forward a few weeks and it seems like the squirrels found everything they stored last fall and they aren't so interested in digging shit up anymore. Some of the plants are trying to grow through their cages, so I hope that means I can take them off now. I planted a new basil today and used the cage that had previously covered an eggplant - the eggplant was trying to grow up through it and the leaves were shredding in the process, so I'm sure it's happy to be freed. Let's just hope the squirrels really are done digging...

Lavender

herbs

Pepper

summer's coming!

so i planted some more stuff. Tomatoes, basil, summer squash, and zuchinni, to be specific.

BOOM.

Spring planting round two

Yesterday the Troy farmer's market moved back outside (yay!) so I went up to score some new seedlings. For about $11 I got one lavender, one summer squash, one zuchini, 3 spinach, and 1 parsley. Then I went over to the co-op to pick up 6 beets, 6 arugula, and an artichoke. It's still too early for some things to go in the ground, but the arugula, spinach, and beets are planted.

4 arugula

6 beets

3 spinach, 1 arugula

The beets had this weird white fuzz in the roots which I thought was mold. I looked it up in my gardening book and online and didn't find much beyond beet root rot, which may or may not be what this is. I took a chance and planted them anyway, so if the beets taste moldy or the entire garden turns into a fungus bed we know why.

The seedlings I already planted (lettuce, swiss chard, and brussel sprouts) are still going strong. yeaaaaaaa man!