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Ilona's Garden Journal




garden planning

Making Your First Garden Plan

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 I’ve been holed up at home because I don’t like to go out in the cold when I don’t have to, and I made my first infographic. One of the benefits of spending a little time on Twitter was the link to this site where I could try out a program that promises a good looking infographic even for beginners.

It was a lot of fun to do, and maybe someone will be inspired to try making their garden plan for 2013.

infographic

There are lots of posts on making a garden for beginners, and tips for making gardens for the experienced. I’ve written a large number myself. It is a little different looking at an infographic representation.

Mostly it is a mindmap organizing the steps and covering the many aspects involved. You will still need to have in depth guidance on design choices, figuring out your climate and soil information, choosing the plants etc… but there probably isn’t anything better to get kick started.

A picture might not tell you everything, but it gets past the general confusion that too much spoken or written information tends to foment.

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© 2013 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal by Ilona E. An excellent blog.

Hard Decisions

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My garden, like myself, is no longer young and freshly planted. We have been here awhile, and the signs of maturity are equal parts dignified and disconcerting. Once this property was almost a blank space with few trees and mown grass, now it holds almost thirty years worth of plantings, some grown quite large. Large enough that it is time to consider whether to keep some of the less stellar choices I have made.

This year had seen the apex of neglected gardens and the aftermath of some of Nature’s affronts. January’s ice storm had drawn down the branches of the trees with a merciless hand, showering the house with crashes and clatterings of broken branches throughout a night of fierce-some pruning. The spring and summer were times to reshape the willow, and pull out the broken off branches of the large Arborvitae, tasks only finished this past week.

The willow may actually be the better for its massive pruning. But the Arborvitae, a tree of some age, is looking like a balding and scruffy personage after huge branches broke under the heavy weight of the Northwesterly ice which had coated large arms of its stature with a burden that it could not withstand. Although many other trees had lost a good deal, like the pines especially, nothing took the brunt so greatly as did this particular Arborvitae.

Past experience with these plants is that they come back well after such mishandling by either nature or the gardener’s hand. Some globe Arborvitae (much younger in age, but all the more roughly broken) had suffered from snow weighting their branches to the breaking point and were severely misshapen. The globes looked split down the center; surprisingly, they recovered within a year. I thought I would have to remove them, but procrastination on my part worked in their favor, for once. I now expect the regrowth to fill in the tree in a few years.

The other age related wrinkles in my garden are not so optimistically regarded.

looking toward the unsatisfactory driveway some years ago

This past week, as I mentioned, I have trimmed and pruned many shrubs and trees, and while there is still much to do, the garden is shaping up… but the mistakes of the past years are all the more exposed. I really have to remove some fringe trees which have not thrived in the too dry conditions of the driveway, and the Doublefile viburnums are trimmed within an inch of their life, but still do not fit within that same area. It was a grand mistake I made that I hoped could have been mollified with efforts on my part. It is obvious that I need to remove them…. I just hate to do it, because I doubt if I can save them once they are pulled out. That area has been a challenge for me in more than one way. It remains to be seen if I learn to understand what answer it requires.

An old garden will tell you what doesn’t work for it, but will still make you dig for answers on what does.

There are other parts of the garden that are not aging as well as I had hoped. The Lavender walk is suffering from the enthusiastic growth of the rue, the encroaching grass, and the awkwardness of the surviving lavenders. I’ve debated taking it out, although perhaps removal of some of the rue and replanting with new lavenders might be all that is needed.

The worst part of an old garden is the way weeds come to make themselves at home within the older plantings. A newly planted space has none of that.

The longer I live and the longer I garden, the more I find one tip that works for many a problem. That is the power of a consistent attention to what is needed. If every day I work for a few hours or even a few minutes, if I bend down and pull some weeds here or there as I pass…. and not leave the garden neglected until there is a marathon amount of work to accomplish…. I sustain some form of victory. A garden is made of little attentions given often…. much like every other relationship we may desire to cultivate.

And with that nugget of wisdom I leave for another time, my friends.
~Ilona

Arborvitae trees and Willow in better days

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© 2011 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Making Moss

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mossgraffiti: “Moss Graffiti” is something I’ve tried before, but not with such an easy recipe. Time to try again. there are times you want to dress down your pond area and things like that…. gardeners like things like moss and lichens:)
moss art

The basic recipe is as follows, with more detailed instructions here:

1 can of beer
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Several clumps garden moss

a plastic container (with lid),
a blender and a paintbrush
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To begin the recipe, first of all gather together several clumps of moss (moss can usually be found in moist, shady places) and crumble them into a blender. Then add the beer and sugar and blend just long enough to create a smooth, creamy consistency. Now pour the mixture into a plastic container.

Find a suitable damp and shady wall on to which you can apply your moss milkshake.

Along with the unique idea given, a gardener might want to hurry up the ‘moss process’ for any number of decorative projects. Giving character to pots and urns, a natural appearance to rocks around ponds, fountains, or making a rock or wall look like it had been there forever.

In growing a moss garden, Joni Blackburn, in Mad About Moss, said,

although I was curious to see if the often prescribed blended-buttermilk-and-moss method would work, I couldn’t bring myself to sacrifice my only blender to a botany experiment.

She does, however give a springtime “tonic of manure tea”; also recommended was a book, Moss Gardening: Including Lichens, Liverworts and Other Miniatures.

Ferns and moss naturally grow together and make a peaceful green garden. As long as there is little foot traffic, I think it would make a very low maintenance garden for the right conditions: a shady side yard that has sufficient moisture. Add a few stones, a fountain or garden ornament, a bench, and it could become your favorite place to sit and meditate… a small Serenity Garden.

TIME LIFE PLANT ENCYCOLPEDIA

True mosses grow 1/16 to 24 inches tall. They have many tiny flat leaves and stems that are often too closely packed to distinguish. The leaves expand when wet and close up when dry. Thousands of plants bunch together to make a patch of moss. Like ferns, mosses grow from spores. The spores develop green threadlike branches called protonema, which push into the ground and eventually develop leaves. The plants do not have true roots but attach themselves by tiny rootlets to the material on which they grow. By absorbing water, mosses allow moisture to soak into the ground gradually and help enrich the soil when they decay.

More ideas for growing and decorating with moss

Tags: moss, serenity garden

Garden Planning in February

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My garden is in the throes of February. It thaws, it freezes, it is ice, it is puddles, it is whatever February wants to be!

I am hesitant to start seeds because I have so many irons in the fire at this time; yet I know I will be sorry if I don’t. Maybe if I keep my plans small (unlikely once started) I can manage. I would like some pansies to set out in the spring, and really ought to start some osteospermums, because they have gotten so expensive and I am addicted to having some in pots at the front porch.

Plants I Like

Let’s see…what else do I want? I really would like more Echinacea. I started some from seed a couple years ago. They are fine for me that way, but they don’t multiply so well in my garden. It was not what was expected. They are Prairie plants, which should do well here, and they are reputed to be easy for most people. Maybe I crowded them or something.

I want more blue flax, but those are best started in situ. You have to renew those every once in awhile. They will reseed if the ground is kept open, but in an established perennial garden they tend to evaporate over a couple years.

Maybe I should put marjoram in my list? I love marjoram, and used to grow enough of it to make pretty herbal wreaths. It became expensive to buy at the nursery. They enlarge the pots so you have to spend more per plant, when what is wanted is more plants at less cost…. even when they are smaller. This is especially true for one-season plants, like marjoram in Zone 5.

Marjoram is easy to grow from seeds, so that is the solution to that problem.

I have no real plan yet. I want to expand the garden, but I still have time constraints this year. Besides this, I still have some matters that are not pure planting, and the garage area needs to look presentable.

Chores

Cleaning and clearing, planting hardy low maintenance things is needed. Right now there is a young white lilac surrounded by a rough box. That’s it. I did have a plan for a structure for vines in front… but that requires the aid of the Handyman, otherwise known as Overworked Husband. Regardless of how we work it, that area needs some screening, and it tends to become an eyesore catchall.

Must do something category:

Maybe just one side of the intended pergola-like structure could go up…. that would work.

P.S. to myself Morning Glories. Don’t forget to start some early in plantable peat pots. And seed some in March in the ground. A country garden needs ‘Heavenly Blue’ morning glories.

short thoughts

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Rainy. Cold. Blah. I will be forced to go out today. Doing obligatory things. Maybe this weekend I will set up my light stand for seed starting later in the month, that would be cheering. I really want to start some perennials for this year. Some of them are better and cheaper that way, but they do take a season to get going.

Decisions, decisions. February is the time for that, March should be beginning the actual start of the season. Although I have run late in the past few years. All my gardening took a back seat, as a matter of fact. But gardening is a marathon effort for all ones life, so it doesn’t disappear with the neglect. Just gets a bit weedy. Ha!

I don’t even know whether I want bright or pastel this year. Bright, I think. But maybe that is due to today’s weather. I will have to post my plant plans here. Just so I can look at them without my mind getting muddled.

Plans: the power tool of logic.