Friday, April 20, 2007

DIRT

There is nothing quite so rewarding as a good dose of diggin' in the dirt come spring time. By mid summer I am sick to death of garden work, but this time of year I delight in turning over soil and planning what to plant.

For years now I've hated the ugly strip of nasty grass & weeds that lie between the sidewalk and the road along the side of our house. So we finally decided to reclaim it. The area is 20' by 100'. We've spent the past month preparing the area. We killed off all the grass with round-up and then tilled, raked, sifted, tilled again until we had all the old junk out. Then my beloved did the serious work of totally reworking the irrigation. He dug trench along the entire length of it and laid pipe. Connected to that pipe are drip hoses every four feet.

Tomorrow we get to go shopping for trees and shrubs. We'll get the big stuff planted and then lay down landscape fabric. Next will come several truck loads of bark and a few big rocks. Then will come the color splashes - two whisky kegs to be filled with bright annuals and a couple of wrought iron shepard hooks to hold hanging baskets of wave petunias. The final touch will be a series of bird feeders and a bench.

For trees I'm planning on two dogwoods (one pink, one white), a weeping cherry and two SOMETHING (haven't yet decided between magnolia, pussy willow or something else)

For smaller plantings I'm putting in holly, lavendar, purple sage, some varigated ground cover and a few other things I'm still undecided on.

In the fall I plan to plant about two hundred bulbs - lots of tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, giant alium and some red-hot poker.

No more mowing and it should turn out looking pretty nice.

I'll have blisters for sure before the weekend is over, but I'm looking forward to doing some serious work on the project. I love spring time when everything starts growing again.

Once we get done on this we are going to completely re-vamp the vegie garden - put in some raised beds and possibly experiment with HANGING tomatoes plants.

I'm sort of an upside down girl, I suppose I can grow some upside down tomatoes. I like the idea of having them up off the ground, not having to fight weeds or bed over to pick them.

We'll see how it turns out.

5 comments:

layne (herman) said...

Will the little pond be staying??

Where would Andrew through rocks and sticks if that were to leave??

Oh I know... my car.

Belladonna said...

Hey Papa H,
YES, the pond stays, although it is dismantled at the moment as we are reworking the filter and redesigning the rockwork. But once I get it up and running again, Andrew is welcome to come throw rocks and sticks ANY TIME.

Now that Lent is over I say it's high time we had you guys over again for a barbecue. You could bring your didgeridoo and jam with me on my PVC pipe!

Marie said...

Sounds beautiful -- post pictures when you have it finished. I love dogwoods, and I didn't think they grew in Utah, but I spotted one today on my walk -- a pink one. It didn't look happy, but it was blooming.

I get to tour my plot in the local community garden tomorrow. My very own dirt! Yippee!

Deb said...

For some reason, working in the garden and getting my hands in the earth makes me feel so calm and alive at the same time. There’s a therapeutic something or other about it. The only thing is, I cannot work in the sun. I only plant in the evening when the sun is about to go down. I’m allergic to bees unfortunately. But, your home must look gorgeous. My favorite things to plant are vegetables, however, I can’t grow tomatoes for the life of me! I buy those tiny tim plants---they’re great!

Kelly Sedinger said...

Someday we'll own a plot of land of our own, where we'll grow...something.

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