garden 2024 - the done list

We all know that I am a terrible blogger, but this does still serve as my personal archive of what projects I have gotten myself into, and when.  So before I totally forget what happened, here is the done version of my 2024 garden wish list. 

• impatiens in the window boxes ✔️
• flowers in pots on the porch ✔️
• bring out the houseplants to the porch ✔️
• small herb garden by the back door ❌
• cutting garden - zinnias ✔️
• fertilize azaleas & rhododendron ✔️
• fertilize boxwoods  ✔️
• another raised bed ❌
• replace camelia  ❌ - 2025
• replace gardenia ❌ 
• move peony ✔️
• new peony ✔️
• move Cramoisi Superieur rose ✔️
• butterfly bush ❌ (I got one, but it died)
• design & plant new hydrangeas and possibly boxwood ❌
• Clean out back garden ❌
• treat all hemlocks ❌ - I got one treated, and have more treatment for 2025
• creeping phlox  ❌
• transplant some rock iris ✔️
• transplant some hosta ✔️ (In pots, but thriving)
• make garden spaces to the right side of wooded path - ❌ - waiting on Sally Sue

pond project - recap

 Slow and steady wins the race.  ;)  

October 2022 

Where we started

Where we are 

December 2022

Where we started

     

       

October 2022

December 2022

 

Where we started

October 2022

Where we started

October 2022

                             

Where we started

Where we started 

October 2022

pond project - december 2022 adventures

I have always had big plans for my view of the pond.  My house sits up  on a small hill, and the deep southern porch is one of my favorite features.  When I moved in, there was no front yard, and the hill had grown up to the point you couldn't see the pond from my yard.  Over the past 11 (!!!) years, I have done some work to improve the view, but it turned out that my Dad's plans were even bigger....and dare I say it, more impactful.

Dad's plans called for heavy machinery, and he surprised me by bringing "Sally Sue" to my house.  Sally Sue is a combo Backhoe and Bulldozer, and I like to say that she built interstates in a previous life.  For the past few weeks, Sally Sue has been working and living at my house.  She has made easy work of removing dead trees from the pond and clearing around both the pond & my driveway.  She has dug new drainage ditches around the pond and fixed some major potholes in my driveway.  The brush piles are growing, and Sally Sue will be a big help when we burn.  

     

Blogger is a pain, but switching to a new platform is harder.  Captions would read: Before view from the porch, and after some clearing out by hand.

After working with Sally Sue

I still have quite a to do list for Sally Sue before she leaves... clearing more around the pond to improve the view, pre-digging some holes so I can amend the soil and plant hydrangeas this spring, transplanting magnolias & native bushes, planting some evergreens, and taking down some dead Oaks from around the property.  It's a lot of work, but very much worth it! 

december bloom day 2022

I have a bloom in December!  I bought my first Camelia this year (it's still in a pot, don't judge), and I have blooms!   It's so nice to have blooms this time of year, and I'm looking forward to planting it in a prominent spot near my driveway this spring. 

march bloom day 2022

Happy Bloom Day!  Thanks to a nice snow this weekend, my daffodils have lost their blooms, and the the hellebores are the stars of my garden right now.  I quite enjoyed the snow this weekend.  It was my favorite kind of snow, a fluffy 3 inches, and the ground was warm enough that the roads were dry and clear. Enjoy the hellebores! 

PS:  It's been quite a while since I've posted here.  I like this corner of the internet, and hope to be back more often! 

may bloom day 2021

I'm a little late....BUT here's a look at what was blooming in my yard on or around May 15th, 2021.

The Iris bloomed for the very first time, and the peonies were putting on a small, but beautiful show. Out of 5 plants, I had 4 blooms this year. This is what happens when you live in the shade, oh well. I'm enjoying what I had, and planning for new peonies in a sunnier spot.

Iris

Peony - Pecher

   

Peony - ? 

My antique roses are settled in and doing their thing. It makes me happy that Buff Beauty is starting to full out and really show off. I also found a Cherokee Rose that must have been planted by my great grandmother. It is in the woods off the driveway, and very close to some of the trees that came down last year in the tornado. I've been in my house almost 10 years now, and this is the first year it's had enough sun to bloom. I'm hoping to take some cuttings, well see how my propagation efforts go!

Rose - Buff Beauty

Rose - Cherokee

Rose - Cramoisi superieur

new plants 2019 / 2020

SURPRISE! I bet you didn't expect to see me here again.  Spring is the time that I most miss my blog, and this year, after conversation with Dava (@davastewart), who I first met at a Chattanooga Blogger's meetup years ago, I got nostalgic.  I miss the blogging community and really getting to know people online in a way that doesn't translate on 'social media platforms'.  It's also really nice to be able to have an archive to dust the cobwebs of your memories.  I was nostalgic enough to say to myself, well, I do have a couple of things I could blog about....so let's see if I can do this again.   

My conversation with Dava got me thinking about 2 things I loved about blogging... being able to look back on how far my house/garden have come, and getting to know some of the amazing people in the blogging community.   I'm hoping to bring those both back into my life.  If the pandemic has taught me anything, its to put my needs first, and that good online relationships are just as nice as in person ones.

So even though this post is supposed to be about plants, I have to acknowledge 2020 as the year that will go down in history as quite the year.  I spent the spring dealing with the aftermath of a tornado and adjusting to pandemic life.   My mom had a hip replacement just before Covid, and my grandfather passed away in May at age 93.  As soon as I was ready to turn my attention outside to something normal  - maintenance and garden work.... I herniated 2 disks in my neck.  Plans were interrupted, and much of the heavy garden work was put on hold.  I picked up a few houseplants, and started propagating some of my grandmother's houseplants (mistletoe cactus and spider plant, both 40+ years old), but that was it.  

The biggest project was a May 2020 unplanned mowing of the underbrush in my front yard.  It more than doubled the size of my front yard, and makes me anxious to complete my dream project of being able to see the whole pond from my front porch. 

Looking back past 2020 to 2019 is hard.  2019 a blurry and distant memory.  I can't remember much of what I planted.  I know I was gifted a peony by my sister that bloomed from a large pot on my front porch this year.   My Instagram tells me that 2019 was a maintenance year. I cut back ivy and laid pine needles on the front steps to the pond, mulched, pressure washed, and cut back "volunteer" bushes.   It's nice to look back and see how nice it looked, but it's crazy to see how quickly things grow back after even one year off.  2019 was also the year I re-discovered embroidery.....more on that another day.    😊

New plants 2019/2020

• Peony, from my sister
• Mistletoe Cactus, cuttings from Grandmother
• Spider plant, cuttings from Grandmother
• Baby Jade
• Mini Orchid
• Wandering Jew, from Clemson
• Ponytail Palm
• Monstera, from my sister
• Snake Plants, from Clemson

new plants 2017

2017 was a hot mess, wasn't it?  My focus wasn't really on my yard, other than trimming out some undergrowth to help the view of the pond. 

There are 3 new plants from this year that stick out in my mind

1) A new antique rose - Buff Beauty.  This is my second attempt at growing this rose.  I have some animal roaming around that thought the first one was pretty tasty.  I planted this rose in the spring, and by fall I had a couple good 4' canes - despite my lack of regular fertilizing.  I'm hoping it will continue to grow, and will bloom this year.

2) Three white Encore Azaelas by the pond.   This was definitely a discount find, and a pretty big risk.  Azaelas like sun - of which I have very little - and hate wet feet.  Planting them by the pond was not the smartest thing I've ever done, but I would love for them to grow, and be the first thing you see when you turn in my driveway.  I planted 3, and 1 survived and bloomed through fall.  I'm calling that enough of a win to consider building a retaining wall and trying again next year.

3) Magnolia cutting from my grandmother's house across the street.  In my quest to improve the view of the pond from my front porch, I'm also improving the view of my house from the road in the winter.  I like my privacy, so I'd like to add some more evergreens to this section of the woods.  Trees that I can 'limb up' over time and still see the pond, but will also provide screening from the road.  Well.  I looked at magnolias at our local nurseries, and let me just say they're crazy.  They have very nice trees, but there is no way that I'm paying $200 for a magnolia that won't even get very tall.  They grow wild here, so I took a rooted lower limb from one of my grandmother's trees, and put it into my holding bed.  If it survives the winter, I'll check its root situation, and see if it's ready move it into the woods. 

Here's to enjoying my yard more in 2018!

hostas and ferns

Ever wonder what your go-to plants are when you life in the woods?  Hostas and ferns.

I have one guiding principle when it comes to my yard: if it was happy in my yard when I moved in - plant as many as you can!  Since my yard was fairly neglected before I moved in, this translates into drought tolerant natives, and southern standbys.  For example, I had one beautiful azaela when I moved in, now I have 7.  I also had a bed of miniature hostas, and a few wild wild ferns scattered about.   Enter the theme for this spring - hostas and ferns EVERYWHERE!

I have wanted to edge one section of woods for a while, and this is the spring to make it happen.  The vision is complete in my head - it's just a matter of finding time to make it happen.  My hope is a fairly naturalized look.  No formal edging, a variety of plants, spaced fairly far apart, following the natural curve of the treeline.  I started a couple of weeks ago by transplanting a few clumps of daffodils, and finally planting my Amber Gem hellebores.  Sunday, I added miniature hostas and two types of ferns, leaving room for larger hostas, more ferns, and possibly some additional hellebores.  The minature hostas are divisions of a 15+ year old hosta, so one plant became 10.  The ferns are a mix of cheap Autumn ferns & about 6 smaller, wild ferns from around my blackberry fence.

I've stolen from this minature hosta bed by the woods twice.
I'm hoping to find some new varieties to fill in the holes.

Because I had extra divisions, I took what was going to be a one area project, and doubled the scope into an area that has potential, but has been on the back burner for a while - expanding the bed along the driveway/rock wall.  I've always planned to widen this bed, and now is the time to do it.

This area looks great in the spring when the daffodils are blooming, but after they're done, there's nothing but moss.  I'm proud of the lack of ivy, but it's nice to have something to look at along the driveway when I come home.  So I sketched out what I hope to make as a swoosh-y the shape of the bed, and got to work.  The ground is not so bad on the top layer, but the clay starts about 5 inches deep, so planting was a process - breaking up the dirt, watering the hole, digging a deeper hole, mixing in soil conditioner, watering again, and finally planting.  With some supervision, I spaced out the plants and got it done.

This bed is going to be gigantic, and I probably filled in 15% of it.  I just have to decide what will do best here...probably more hostas and ferns, but maybe a balloon flower and some fall blooms.  I do know one thing, this is an area that needs some soil work, so it will get heavily mulched in preparation for whatever finds its way into the ground.  All in all, I could plant another 30 hostas this year, and still have room left over.  SOOOOOO, if you or anyone you know have hostas that need dividing, and/or a new home.....let me know & I'll do the digging!

march bloom day 2016

This is one of those springs where it's mid March, and we've already seen 80 degree temperatures multiple times.  It makes me happy, but the daffodils are not fans of the heat.  I wasn't smart enough to cut the daffodils so I could prolong their lives inside.  Oh well.

Anywho, this is what was blooming in my yard on Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, the 15th of the month!

Front Walk:

Vinca Minor

Daffodils:

 The heat got to these just before I took my pictures.  This wide shot does not do my rock wall justice.

 

 Hellebores:

 Midnight Ruffles is my first 'fancy' hellebore to bloom.

 The rest of the hellebores are standing tall and taking the heat pretty well.

 

  Wildflowers: 

 

 Bloodroot, trillium, and bluets.  

The spiderwart below doesn't count as a wildflower on most lists, but I didn't plant it, and it comes up everywhere on its own.

 Azaleas:

My first azalea bloom of the year!