soaphouse's Blog

Moving the Mulch and Such...
Jan 31, 2009 | 4:43 AM PST
Tags: mulch , grasses , prune , clematis , weed eater , weedeater , creek

Last week I had what seems to be the largest pile of mulch in the history of gardening delivered to my yard! We are so lucky that we can get this free from the city:

Of course, my girl had a great time climbing the "mountain" as I set out to spread it on the side yard.

I did get a good bit done. This is where my hubby parks his truck and every winter, I spread a fresh layer. I have also been working on the usual winter clean up in preparation for spring. I had a lovely clematis armandii and wisteria growing on the side of the house. Well, the clematis had turned all crispy, which its not supposed to do since it is an evergreen. Well, it looked terrible, so Hubby helped me cut it way back to the base. Will be interesting to see if it comes back...I have my doubts.

Here is what it looked like in its glory, before turning brown:

And now, after the BIG prune :

Bummer! At least the fig tree will leaf out in spring to cover the ugly gas line.

Also, a few weeks back my trusty weedeater died! UGH! So, while hubby and I were at Home Depot pricing a new one (quite expensive actually), A stranger walked by and said he had a used one that we could buy for $10. So, we took him up on it and after a bit of tinkering, hubby got it working and cut back the grasses for me!

>HOORAY! Its a big job. We do have a lot of those grasses. I will divide the larger clumps and put some back by the creek before spring.

He did say it is a bit finicky, but it should hold us over for the time being :)

My little one had fun using her new camera to take pictures of daddy too:

Today the goal is to clean up the grasses from their hair cut and move more mulch.

Happy gardening!

Winter Chores
Jan 11, 2009 | 12:40 PM PST
Tags: knockout , double , bottle , tulip

My little baby and I had a nice afternoon in the garden this past Friday (while big sissy was napping). The two of us got a lot of the winter chores done:

We mostly focused on cutting back the double knock outs.

I cut them back quite a bit. They got SO tall last summer and that was only their first season in my garden. Our local gardening expert reccommends to cut them back to 1/3 of the height that you want them to reach, so I look forward to lots of blooms!

The new single knockouts will hopefully fill in nicely around this sculpture next season.  I think I will give them one more year before I cut them back. I also love the way the sun bounces off this garden art.

Then, while doing some light weeding and stick pick up, I captured these winter moments:

Winter
Jasmine in all its glory:

THe hellebores are looking great. This is their second year to bloom for me :)

And, I look forward to the wax mahonias every winter:

MIlo had fun eating the sticks as I picked them up :

MMMMM YUMMY!!!

Here is a nice shot of the front yard this time of year as seen from the street:

Also, some of the tulips from last year are coming back. They tend to be annuals here...don't know if these will bloom, but I just bought over 140 on 75% off clearance that hubby is going to help me plant this afternoon. I got a nice mix of pinks and purples. Last year I did 60 tulips (which I thought was a lot), but once they were blooming, I realized that i could do with double or triple that amount...so this year we will see.

And, last but not least, a nice shot of the bottle path in the back yard keeping things colorful for the winter :)

HAPPY WEEK EVERYONE!