Monday, September 26, 2016

In bloom this week: Sept. 26, 2016

Veronica

We've had a few last gorgeous September days with many plants still blooming. Here are a few that I am especially enjoying because I watched all of these grow from seed! 

New growth on hollyhocks
White calamint
Pink dwarf catmint


Veronica

Nasturtium

Sunflower

Hopefully some of these will continue to bloom after the clouds and rain return!

Friday, September 23, 2016

Progress in the back corner, plus prepping for a meadow

Back corner now
I haven't given an update on the back corner since March because my plan for the year was to simply work on eradicating the knotweed and I didn't expect to have much else to show.

Well, the knotweed is still a struggle but I think I'm making progress. I chopped and pulled it all spring and summer and started digging some of the roots out this month. I won't know until spring how much of it is left; there is more outside the fence in the alley, which I'm not sure is even on our property but if we don't control it there it'll spread back into our yard.

Everything other than the knotweed is under control though. In the spring, I planted six hazelnut bushes about four feet back from the fence, and out of the way of the main knotweed problem.

Four of the hazelnuts

Then I got ambitious and decided to work on the whole bottom section of the yard, which is this back corner and the rest of the flat area to the north (below the sunny hillside). This was all grass and weeds. I really dislike the arborvitae that are along the whole fence line, but they do screen out the alley and the houses below it, and they're so big that I'd feel bad about killing them now. So I'm planning how to put in other plants to soften the monotonous wall of green.

The whole area, solarization in progress
I've been looking at mainly native plants, a mix of trees, bushes, and a meadow. I did a lot of reading about solarization and decided to try that for two large sections where I want to plant the meadow. The theory is that clear plastic will kill all of the grass and weeds and will also heat the soil enough to kill the seeds. The hardest part about planting a native meadow is keeping all of the seeds that are already in the soil from outgrowing the new seeds. The plastic is supposed to be able to get hot enough to kill the seeds - but that depends on enough hot sunny days. You use clear plastic, not black, because the soil will get hotter under it.

I started the solarization in early June, just before a couple of 90 degree days, so that was looking good. And then the weather turner cooler and cloudy, which I really enjoyed but wasn't helping the solarization. Finally we got some hot weather in late July and August, so I'm hoping it was enough.

Looking north from the middle
Now I need to remove the plastic, kill any vegetation that is coming back to life - there is a little, a sign that it might not have been hot enough - spread a thin layer of very fine mulch, and then plant meadow seeds. I have a meadow seed mix from a local company so I'm ready to plant.

I already planted a  native crab apple (malus fusca), a vine maple (acer circinatum) and a thimbleberry (rubus parviflorus) in the spring. I've been keeping an eye out for plant sales that have some native plants, got a couple of evergreen huckleberry last week. The Washington Native Plant Society has their fall sale in early October and I think I'll be able to get the rest of the bushes that I want there.

Looking north from the back corner

For the back corner, I already planted the hazelnuts and crab apple and plan to plant shore pines, just have to decide if I can fit two or three. I want three but have to convince myself that there's actually room. They can be planted fairly close together especially since I don't want them to ever get too big but I do want them to eventually cover most of this corner. I will plant meadow seeds in the part of the corner that is covered by plastic, but knowing that it'll become shady as soon as the trees start to grow and then I'll transition to other plants.

The middle, which is currently covered in cardboard, has all of my non-native bulbs underneath and I really liked those this spring so I'm not digging them up. I'll try to plant native flower seeds over the top, but not sure if the cardboard will have killed enough of the grass and weeds to allow that to work. If not, I'll end up with grass and weeds again, but I can deal with that next summer.

Update: I didn't take pictures yet, but I did remove the plastic this week, sprayed Roundup on a few stubborn weeds that were growing under it - mainly near the edges - and now waiting to plant seeds.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

In bloom this week, Sept. 17, 2016

Zinnias
Hello, fall, my favorite season! We had a little rain earlier in the month but I was away from home for most of it, so today feels like the first real rainy day. I was a little worried that it would be sad to watch my garden fade after all the work I've done this year, but I'm still excited to see what each season will look like. It's not all about flowers - but I'll enjoy them while I can.

I took these pictures in the middle of the week, so these are the last warm summer days. This isn't quite the end for summer flowers though, it will be fun to see how long all of my new plants bloom for. I know we usually have a few roses through October.

Zinnias along the street

New clematis 'Blue Light' in the rose garden

Same clematis





Hollyhock that has fallen over into the lavender

Balloon flower, reblooming


Dahlia

Delphinium, reblooming

Lupine has bloomed all summer

Unknown succulent

Sunday, September 4, 2016

Progress on the hillside, part 5


Harebell has been blooming all summer

As I mentioned last time, I didn't expect to do more work on this area until fall - but I've anticipated fall by a few weeks.

After a hot dry August, the poppies and other wildflowers growing across the bottom of the hill were done, so I decided to go ahead and dig them all up. This bottom strip had mulch and other organic material piled up, but I had to dig under it to remove the old landscape fabric. Now it seems so flattened, but the hillside is back to it's normal gradual slope at the bottom leading into very steep at the top. I did this work last week before the rains, so I was coated in dust!

Looking northwest

Looking southwest

I planted three new coneflowers, two echinacea purpurea 'Pow Wow Wild Berry' and one echinacea 'Double Scoop Cranberry'. The sale section at local hardware stores is nice late in the summer!

Pow Wow Wild Berry coneflower

Double Scoop Cranberry coneflower

I also moved two penstemon that were below the hot lips salvia, one is a Rocky Mountain, the other was the unknown variety. They were getting buried under the lupine, which has grown much larger than I expected (and is now suffering from powdery mildew, but I think that's fairly normal for lupine here).
Enthusiastic lupine, done blooming now

That leaves a lot of bare ground, but I'm waiting until I can get more meadow plants to see how far up the slope I want to plant them. I've been growing Oregon stonecrop offshoots in pots so some of those will end up here too.

Everything else is growing well and the raspberries have gone crazy, I'm picking a lot more than I expected for the first summer. They need wires, but first I have to drill holes for the fence posts. No pictures of the raspberries, apparently I forgot to take any on that side of the hill.

Red satin coreopsis

Thrift

Yarrow, reblooming

Hot lips salvia has bloomed all summer

Oregon stonecrop and wild strawberries

I like how the rock stream is turning out, need to plant the lower section and then I want to extend it across the flat below the slope as plants instead of rocks. Maybe a stream of native lupines growing across the meadow that I'm working on plating down there (thus the plastic visible in some of these pictures).

Rock stream growing in
New section of rock stream to plant

The grapes above the slope are also growing wildly, they're providing quite a bit more shade than expected over the top of the slope. They'll be pruned more aggressively next year, and I have plans to re-do the grape trellis to move it slightly back from the slope.

Aggressive grapes visible on the right

Now I just need to keep the weeds under control until some of my plants get bigger!