Where did Fall go?!

Well... as you can see it's been very difficult for me to do much of anything other than work. I haven't done any posts since I started work. Hopefully I can change that and up-keep this blog more. I want to, but I find that I don't even have time to water my plants while I'm working! Not good for a aspiring gardener!

So, a while ago, I can't remember how long, I actually made my own garden. It's on the side of our house - the North side. So right now, in the winter, it gets probably no sun at all. Quite a few of my plants have been struggling the whole time, and the others have simply stopped growing.

Since I had so much space, I bought a few new plants to add to the garden. I bought a Hydrangea, Black Bamboo, and 2 different types of ferns.

First, this is the old garden, filled with weeds and brush:



Here's what the new garden looks like now:


I would say the garden is about 10 feet long and 3 feet deep. I found out right away that we have clay soil here. I was planning on digging up 6-8 inches of ALL the soil then amending it all and then putting it back, and then planting in it. But digging up any of soil took such a long time that i decided, per Ryan's advice, to dig up only the necessary holes and amend only that soil to plant with. Even so, I had to have Ryan dig most of the holes. I wasn't heavy enough to get the shovel in the soil very far. Yep.... definitely all clay soil.

There are 10 plants in the garden right now. Here are close ups. I don't know the names of some, but will say if I do.

This is the Black Bamboo. The culms are supposed to turn black as they mature and grow. They start of green and yellow but will eventually turn black with bright green leaves. A very cool contrast.
The first picture is of the half that survived. I wanted to cut the plant in half to have more tall background plants. Well... after about an hour of laborious work, I had it divided. But one half actually survived. I guess the other half didn't get the "good roots".
The second picture is what's left of the other half. I trimmed all it's branches and leaves in hopes that it would grow stronger roots and eventually grow back..... not sure it will survive at all:


Haha, just a stick in the ground, basically!! Maybe it's roots are still good?



This is the "survival" tree. Ryan's had it since before we were married. I used to keep this one on the porch in an 8" terra cotta pot. Thought it would do better in the ground. It actually hasn't grown or died an inch. I am hoping that's because of the lack of sun and cold weather - so hibernation?

This is my Hydrangea.... my poor, poor hydrangea. I bought this brand new, along with the bamboo, and it was so beautiful when I first bought it! I trimmed down some of it's leaves and limbs so it would promote stronger root growth. And it was doing SO well!! The trimming didn't affect it at all. Then, one day it started getting small purple-ish dots on it's leaves. I ignored it for a long time, since it was difficult enough to water the plants. Well.... when it started covering almost the entire plant.... I decided to get a fungicide. I think I was too late. The fungicide I got was Ortho brand, "ecosense" garden disease control. The type of disease it has is Cercospora leaf spot. At least, according to pictures on the Internet and my research. And this "ecosense" spray is supposed to help with that. But I think I let it go on too long and the spray didn't seem to help at all. I haven't sprayed it in probably over a month, and this picture was taken about 2 weeks ago, and it looks significantly better then than it does now. It's leaves are now curling up and turning brown or black. :( Sources say that this leaf spot doesn't usualy kill the plant, but I think this one was so "young" and new and I didn't do anything about it when I first saw it. Bad combination I guess. Any suggestions or knowledge about this would be helpful - but I may be too late to save it. I've kind of "let it go". The purple leaves are the fungus... it started as spots and turned the whole leaf purple.

Maybe I will try spraying again. Also, I haven't watered it in over a week... so I will try that too. haha! i'm not a very good care taker of plants yet, especially while I'm working. It's just so tough. And now, when I get off work, it's already dark.


This is one of my ferns. It's really pretty. I think it's a little hard to see in this picture - but It's really elegant, in my opinion. The ferns grew really strongly at first, probably because they were getting a little bit of sun when i first planted them. Now that they don't get any sun, they have stopped growing. But at least they're not dying.



This is a plant I bought at Home Depot. My Hosta died, and I had extra space in my garden, so I bought it. It is a shade plant and requires "bright, indirect sun". So I thought, perfect. I also thought since Home Depot was selling it - it is meant for my southern california climate.


I bought this plant at Home Depot too. A long time ago, though. I came in a cute 1 1/2 inch pot and I put it in my 3 inch terra cotta pots. It did really well when i watered it frequently. And it was really pretty. However, It hasn't grown AT all. I've probably had this since before I went on disability - so before August. It seems to like being watered often. But it's supposed to be a shade plant, full shade. We'll see.

This one too I bought at Home Depot. I bought it the same time as the yellow and gold spikey one. This one seems to be doing OK. No growth, no dying. Same old story. Story of my gardening career. haha :)



This is one of the plants I ordered online, probably at the beginning of the year. This was first in my wine barrel pot on my porch (recognize it?) and I decided to move all of those to my garden. This is the only surviving one. And it hasn't grown since the day I bought it. The only change that happened when I transferred it, was it turned more of a red/purple color instead of it's pretty caramel color. I thought that might be due to it getting more sun than the porch. But... hasn't changed. I'm hoping it won't die - I think it has potential to be a really pretty plant.



This one, oh this one! This comes with a story! This is one of the plants that was in the garden before I did a "make over". It was all brown and ugly, and I thought it was a weed!! My neighbor, whom we don't really like or get along with, saw me digging up all the plants on the side of the house. I happened to be "trimming" this one to prep it for digging up. She asked, "Oh, are you taking that plant out of the garden?" and I said, "yeah.. .it's a weed. I'm digging up all the weeds so I can plant here." and she said, "it's not a weed... i planted it there over a year ago." I was shocked! And I didn't know what to say. I said, "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry, I had no idea, i thought it was a weed!" She said it was OK, it wasn't doing well anyway. She left in her car and I went in the house to tell Ryan. He said I should keep it in the garden anyway. I didn't really want to since it was right, smack, dab in the middle of where I wanted to plant. But, Ryan was right. So when she came back, I told her I was going to keep it in the garden. She said, "Oh... thanks. I brought it over from my grandmothers house to plant here." ....... wow. I sure would have felt stupid and horrible if I had actually dug it up. So I said, "Oh.... well I'm glad I'm keeping it. I think it needed a little pruning anyway, and it might grow back really well." she agreed with me and went in her house.

Lo and behold... it turned out to be one of the best growing and prettiest plants in my garden. With the pruning and a little watering, it sprouted bright green leaves and bright yellow flowers. Who would have thought !?!? It's such a pretty plant for a shade garden, and seems to do really well without sun.



Lessons learned:

- Plants can come back to life, sometimes more beautifully than before, with a little care.. but not all will.
- Treat suspected diseases and problems when they first arrive, or you risk losing the plant.
- Watering really does help plants grow! :P
- You have to have failures before you have success... at the rate I'm going - I expect to be a very successful gardner in the future!!

I hope that when I quit and am home more, I will have more time and incentive to take care of my garden better. I still have a passion for it, and a desire to learn more about it. I try to not let my failures (due to my lack of effort sometimes) discourage me.

Keep pushing forward!!

Fungus???

So, about a month ago I noticed some yellow shoots growing up out of my soil.

I immediately dug them up and a few days later this, full blown "mushroom"? showed up! And in a completely different area than the original shoots.


This died in 1 day, it showed up that morning and was dead by the end of the day. Weird, I know! Then the next day I noticed these different "mushrooms" growing in another completely different spot.

(oh and in this picture you can see it's right next to the Hosta.... so maybe that's what's killed it?)

Anyway... the yellow, spongy mushrooms have shown up regularly now. They only last a day or two then completely dry up. I have NO idea where they came from - and they don't seem to be harming any of my other plants... so weird. I haven't looked up what it is yet. And I plan on mixing in compost soon anyway, so I will do a good "digging up".

Any ideas though? Has anyone seen yellow, spongy mushrooms before?

Porch Garden Update

So, these pictures are a little old - but they're the most recent pictures I have.

The tree:

So, the "tree". As you can see the "grass" is dying. So what i've done is moved it to more shade (actually, mostly shade but with plenty of natural light), pruned it of all it's dead leaves, and then consistently watered it. The side that gets the most sun is doing much MUCH better now. But this is about as bad as it got.

(Grass & Evergreen)

(Total)


Porch:

The porch is doing OK. For the most part it hasn't changed, which probably isn't really a good thing. I've just read that if you have too much bark, or "barky things" in the potting soil, it competes with the plants for nitrogen. And my homemade soil is 70% bark. So I"m going to start fertilizing it with compost (which is nitrogen enriched) and maybe something else.


Wine Barrel:
(Primrose)
I had moved this to the porch steps thinking it would get more sun there.... I was wrong. And it wilted and turned dark. This is only 1 day after moving it back to it's original spot - and it perked right up. However, it's now wilted again. Maybe because it's hot and it's in a terra cotta container (which evaporates water through the walls). I might try watering it twice a day.


(Hanging)
As you can see the hanging pot is growing slowly. I think because it only gets 1 hour of direct sunlight. It might also be because of the soil! (goodness that soil!)





(Heuchera)
Seems really perky and the leaves aren't dying, so I'm taking that for a good sign. However, no new growth is coming in.


(Hosta)
This plant... this poor hosta.... is almost completely dead now. Worse than this picture here. These leaves in this pictures are big compared to the small 3 leaves that are left. I'm hoping I can still save it by mixing in compost with the soil. That is my goal!



(Brunnera)
This was doing really really good for quite some time. New growth coming in the center, spreading out, etc. But now it's stopped and all the leaves, not just the big ones are browning. So I'm thinking it may be too hot for them and I forget to water it every day.



Moms:
I did my very, very best to try to bring this back to life. It's not happening. I tried pruning it of it's dead leaves and branches and watering it when I was supposed to, and I even fertilized it with the other plants. Absolutely nothing has happened. It may have already been dead by that point though, but I didn't know because some leaves were still waxy. I think I am going to chuck it... sorry mom!



It's a little frustrating with the growth rate and dying ratio, but I do sometimes laugh about it. I keep reading and will try new things. I just feel like so many things are going on in my life it's hard to focus on gardening. But I always come back to it.

I just read about succulents...

I have a subscription to Better Homes and Gardens and the last one I read talked briefly about succulents. The article was mostly about pretty containers, but there was some brief introduction to succulents. So thought I would share, because they sound like just what you need!

"Succulents are the perfect plants for forgetful gardeners. Molly grows them in cactus mix for good drainage and gives them a thorough soaking every week or two; more water than that risks killing them... Succulents grow slowly, so a combination may last years in the same pot".

Some they list with pictures:

- Fuzzy Echeveria setosa
- Smooth leave hens and chicks (Sempervivum tectorum)
- Pink flowered Sedum matrona
- Kalanchoe 'Flapjacks'
- Kangaroo paw (Anigozanthos)
- Euphorbia 'Sticks on Fire'
- Sedum spectabil 'Brilliant'
- Echeveria 'Perle von Nurnberg'
- Echeveria imbricata
- Sedum morganianum 'Donkey's tail'

I think they would look great!! And less watering :D Good luck, i'll let you know if i find more information.

Succulent Garden

So I am trying to figure out what to do with a couple of places at my house. The first place is by the street (outside the gate) on a hill. I need to do a sprinkler system down there, but I want it to look nice...instead of dead. So I was thinking succulents. Do any of you know anything about succulents? Can they stand full sun all day long? And what about drought tolerant? I don't want to have to worry about it. I have never done succulents, but I know a garden of them can be gorgeous. Any help would be awsome!! Thanks

Abby's Plot of land

Abby that's awsome!! There are a lot of pretty shade plants that could work there. Are there automatic sprinklers? or would you have to water by hand? also, You could use a shovel to get the bush out, but eventually I think you will have to use your hands. Maybe you should spray some spider killer on it REAL GOOD and wait 24 hours before you pull it out. I have some landscaping books you can look at some time. All you need is the measurement of the area, how much sunlight and you're good to go. So..............you're good to go! HAHAHA! You can come over some time and look at my books. It's fun!

A plot of land...

I'm not sure why I haven't thought of this before... but there is an extremely shabby "garden" outside my door. It wraps around to the front with only a few sorry looking rose bushes and weeds.

My neighbor, who lives in the front, just started putting new plants on the part closest to her. So, I thought "Hey! If she can do it, so can I!." In the 4 1/2 years that Ryan has been here, no one has done anything with this dirt. We used to have a manager who tried to take care of the rose bushes, but that's it.

So, i have a plot of land to garden on now!!! I'm going to seriously garden! I'm going to dig up all the weeds, and turn out all the soil and get going.

Here is what it currently looks like...

This is a bush that I want to get rid of ASAP. It's always full of cobwebs, it's ugly and it's right outside our window and front door, yuck!:

























Here is a picture of all the space I will have.

I plan on planting up to the fuse box which gives me a good 10+ feet long and 2-3 feet deep to work with.

As you can see there are quite a few weeds, some big and small. My only worry is that it's on the North side of the house. I don't think it gets 6 hours of sun, maybe 4. But I haven't paid too much attention to that. My worry is that it will end up being a shade garden :(. But..... if it is - it gets more sun than my porch!

Any suggestions for planting on the North side of the house? It has a lip on the roof that may block sun from above - especially the part closes to the side.

Also! Any suggestions for how to cut down and uproot the bush? I don't want to stick my hands in there to try and break it down manually. (I have MAJOR arachnophobia...) haha :)

When we move - I will simply dig up the plants and pot them. Hopefully this garden will be more successful than my current porch garden.

Any advice is welcome!