osprey94's Blog

Oh, the aphids love my trumpet vine and honeysuckle. They can't think of anyplace they'd rather be. All across the land, the tiny aphid call trumpets "go to C's garden and you will be rewarded" and they come in droves. I spray them off and they laugh at me as they crawl back onto the blossoms in greater numbers. I spray them with insecticidal soap and the surviving aphids laugh as their compadre's dead bodies turn the blossoms to sticky black slime. Why oh why must they taunt me? I don't mind if a few feed on my plants, I can share. But holy mother of god they attack! The ladybugs we bought and released on the trumpet vine were ALL GONE by the next morning. Again, the aphids laughed at my feeble attempts. It's my fate to live with them. I am learning to be patient! Ha!

On an unrelated note, D and I made six loads of wood chips the other day and I dumped half in the veggie garden to finish covering bare soil between beds and the other half under the hammock in the grass between three huge douglas firs to start the "grass smothering effort". Eventually, I will add soil to the area around the trees and plant some shade tolerant things there. It will be a little hammock haven. Then, I would love to create a bed in front of the deck too. I think I will just mound up good soil on top of the actual soil a la Anne Lovejoy's method, rather than try to ammend the rock hard clay soil that exists there.

I'm excited to pick out the plants that'll go there. I know I want it to mimic the look of natural plant communities as much as possible. I know I want mostly natives and other plants that flourish here. I know I want a lot of evergreen in the mix so it looks good all year. I want lush, green, naturalistic plantings and an irregular shaped bed. I want anything that will attract hummingbirds and ANY other wildlife. Any ideas?