leah's Blog

Entry for May 12, 2007
May 14, 2007 | 10:40 PM PST
Tags: mr k , peppers , blueberry , azalea , primrose , sedum , corsican mint , horseradish , chives , variegated peppermint , bamboo windchimes , zen garden

So Mr K got home on Saturday and off we went to Peppers.  I *love* that place.  They don't accept plastic, and every time we go we end up spending every last dime we have on us, and sometimes we have to go to the grocery store a few miles down the road and get more.

This time we came home with 2 blueberry bushes (a Mother's Day gift for my mother), 2 magenta colored azaleas, 2 evening primroses, a black pine, 3 pots of Dragon's Blood sedum, a dozen pots of Corsican Mint, a pot of horseradish, two pots of chives, [to be edited when I get home and can look at the pile].  Oh, and a huge set of bamboo wind chimes.  I have a weakness for bamboo wind chimes.

He set to work planting things as soon as we got home, while I ran back out to Lowe's to fetch him some more cedar mulch.  I picked up 3 more trowels, too, since it seems like I'm always looking for one.

The black pine went in over where the Zen garden will be.  They're such slow growers, we figured we may as well go ahead and get it in now, with a nice healthy dose of compost, and get it growing.  His mother used to have two of them out in her front yard, but she didn't like the way they looked and chopped them down.  I haven't been over to see what else he put in over there, but when I dropped off the mulch, he had about a 6' diameter vaguely circle-ish area cleared of sod.

It's too bad he got home so late, we ran out of light not too long after we got home.

First mosquito bite of the season tonight.

 

Entry for May 11, 2007
May 12, 2007 | 12:03 AM PST
Tags: home depot , scottish broom , lowe's , sedum , relocating , new bed , aesthetics , photos , mr k

Went back to Home Depot today and bought the Scottish Broom I looked at yesterday. It was so beautiful I couldn't resist! Then back to Lowe's to pick up more cedar mulch, and more cedar chip bedding for the dog kennel. And some sedum, don't remember which cultivar, for the front yard, the bed around the crabapple tree.

We relocated a few plants, mostly oriental lillies, that were too close to the foundation out front. We're extending that bed, making it deeper, so the bigger plants will conceal them where they were. I mowed the grass while he did some planting, took the rest of the sod out by the front porch, and mulched all the new stuff.

One of the many ways our aesthetic tastes differ is that he *likes* the look of wide expanses of mulch. He didn't realize what the way I had him plant the sedum meant until he was almost done. He stood straight up and said, "ARE THESE THINGS GOING TO TAKE OVER THIS BED???" Too late now... I hope it doesn't take long for them to fill in. I love the way the ajuga has spread under the plum tree. If I'm remembering correctly, that started as a 6-pack, little tiny plants, planted evenly spaced around a circle about 15" from the trunk of the plum tree. It's filled in nicely on the side that gets the most shade. I guess I need to pick up something a little more sun tolerant for the other side.

Mr K works tomorrow morning, and hopefully I'll wake up around the time he gets home. We're going to Peppers tomorrow afternoon to pick up some more plants. :) I'm going to try not to spend too much money! I'd like to get the aforementioned groundcover for the other side of the plum tree, an azalea or two for the front of the house, a different groundcover for out front of the house, maybe more than one, and probably a few more perennials to fill in some empty spots.

I hope Lowe's hasn't changed their policy. The last few times I've been there they haven't had anything good on clearance, or anything at *all* on clearance. I'm still thinking about going back there and picking up a few more dwarf fruit trees, which I almost certainly won't find on clearance, but they're pretty reasonably priced, about $16-25, depending on the type.

I have been uploading more photos to the May album every few days. I would rather be gardening than working right now.