osprey94's Blog

Woke up this morning to...wait for it...SNOW! Just a dusting, but geez, enough is ENOUGH. I'm not going to get much done in the garden this weekend, either, because I'm coming down with the "crud" finally. My throat is so sore that it kept waking me up last night. It always seems like I make through cold and flu season just fine and catch a bug right in March when everyone else is fully recovered. Hopefully, this won't go into my chest like it did for my husband. I need to get out in the garden pronto.

My big project this summer is to plant a large, raised bed in front of the deck. Since the trash cans are right by the deck, I want to plant clematis up that side to hide them from view. I found a plan from a book on garden designs that I think would be really nice. I'm going to have some topsoil trucked in and pile it up right on top of the existing ground. Our soil is too rocky and clayey to bother planting right in the ground.

Here is the plan for the deck garden from Northwest Home Landscaping by Creative Homeowner Publishers:

 The descriptions of the plants sound good. They all should do well in our climate, so after they're established, I hopefully won't have to do much fertilizing/watering/pruning. I'm trying to think of Ann Lovejoy's theory on gardening. She likes her garden to be full of native plants and their allies so that after her garden is established, she's spending more time enjoying her garden than slaving over it. I don't want to fight nature. I want to work with it, like Ann does. I've GOT to take one of her classes on Bainbridge Island one of these days.

Back to the plan. My concern now is how to find all these plants. I know I won't be able to buy them all at one time, but that sure would be nice! I'm going to try to buy the trees first and get them in. The planters can be done much later, and the rest, I'll fill in as I find them, I guess.

I found the most beautiful and yet useful outdoor daybed to put on the deck. I'd been searching since last summer for a piece of outdoor furniture that we could lie down on and be shaded by on the hot, sunny deck. That deck just never got used because it was too hot and had no comfortable seating. Now, with the daybed and the garden, I should have a really liveable deck.

This is the daybed...

I found it on Walmart.com after seeing it in a Better Homes and Gardens gardening magazine. The second I saw it, it was like someone read my mind when they made it. Perfect. It was pretty easy to assemble (only took maybe 40 minutes or so) and looks so great. It's just waiting out there for the warm weather. I'm TOTALLY napping on this sucker this summer. The hammock out in the yard will be lonely, I think.

So, that's the plan. Conceal the ugly trash cans from view of the deck and plant shady, beautiful vegetation all around the deck. Might take me a couple summers to complete it, but that's fine with me!