soaphouse's Blog

Great Gardening Week!
Mar 2, 2008 | 4:52 PM PST
Tags: daffodil , hellebore , green giant , thuja , arborvitae , blue spruce , weeping willow , creek , erosion , crocus , sedum , shamrock , fescue sod

I've had a great week in the garden! Spring just keeps on springing and I have enjoyed watching it unfold in my garden :) On Thursday, the order that I had placed on-line for the "bones" of the creek plantings arrived. I ordered everything from Direct Gardening (which I had heard bad things about, but for the price...I thought it was worth taking a chance) I ordered 3 Green Giant Arborvitaes, 2 Weeping Willows and 1 Colorado Blue Spruce. The total order was barely $30, so I pretty much expected the worse, but thought it was worth a try. Needless to say, when I received the order, I literally stood in my kitchen, laughing out loud as I unpacked the wee plants! The "Green Giants" looked like twigs with a few roots. More like the jolly green giant. HAH! But, I thought...for the price and considering they are supposed to grow like 3-5 feet a year, I will just take my chances. What's even funnier is that they were packaged in vacuum sealed plastic bags. My order did include 3 of those baggies for the green giants...but, only 2 had plants! So, I called the customer service # and they were quite nice (to my surprise) so, hopefully I will receive that 3rd arborvitae :) Funny thing is that those were the most expensive out of the order and they were the smallest...the willows (which were $1 a piece) were the largest. The colorado Blue Spruce was a fairly decent size too. The order also included some freebie bulbs labeled shamrock and exotica. These were about the size of raisins, so I plopped them in the ground by my irises in the back and we will see what happens :) On Saturday I got around to planting the goodies...

The green "giants" found a home on the back creek bank to hopefully create a nice privacy screen:

I topped with a good dressing of compost and marked it with a stake, so hopefully he will have a fighting chance!

Here is a pict of one of the willows, planted on creek bank to help prevent erosion:

The Colorado Blue Spruce found a home where we took out the maple earlier this winter...I have great hopes for this guy:

On Friday I had a great day helping my mom in her garden. She is a landscape designer, so she always has some wonderful project up her sleeve...on Friday, I helped her lay some fescue sod in a pathway. I had never worked with sod before, so it was fun to learn how to do that...and talk about instant gratification! Of course, she let me take some divisions of things in her garden too. I came home with a great bunch of hellebore seedlings, 2 autumn ferns, and a huge clump of sedum autumn joy! Love those freebies :) I got them planted around on Saturday also:

Hellebore
s landed amongst the liriope in front of the azalea bed with the other variety of hellebores. Will be very pretty when they grow up to start blooming:

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The autumn ferns went under the fig tree with 4 other autumn ferns I transplanted from under my redbud (they were not getting along well with the vinca) I know the fig will give them a nice shady home come spring:

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And, when they grow up all nice a fluffy...they will help hide all the utility nonsense! I am still thinking about where to put the sedums...

This Sunday afternoon, I just did a couple of odds and ends: some weeding, moved 2 artemesias from a shady spot to one where they will get more sun, and leveled out some ground in the back of the azalea bed ( the former owner of this house, used to dump his house plant soil in a mound back there). I also took a few minutes to take some pictures of the early spring bloomers:

Minia
ture Daffodils:

Larger Daffodils planted under redbud in the front yard. I love the white...just brightens up that spot perfectly:

m>I know...I got a little carried away with those picts...they were just so pretty and very photogenic!

The
Georgia Blue Bells are full of blooms and such a wonderful blue color:

And, the first crocus has shown itself:

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In the next few days, my husband will be working on the rest of the chicken wire surrounds for the veggie beds...planting time will be here before I know it :)!!!

Oh, and on a side note...turns out the "owl" in my previous post was actually a hawk! My mom noticed from the picture and then it was confirmed again when we saw him again this weekend! Guess we will have to come up with a name for him too :)