G.M.,

Good morning! It is cool and foggy here this a.m. but I am going outside as soon as I finish this post.

If the crape myrtles have survived for several years with less sun, maybe they will be OK. The early leaves on many crape myrtles have a reddish tint in the spring, and it may be that the cold weather has made this reddish tint stick around a bit more so it is more noticeable than in past years.

I love all aspects of gardening, including the many challenges that arise and seem so daunting at times. Remember that there is a solution for every problem. Landscapes are constantly evolving.

For example, when you buy a new house, often there will not be a lot of trees because the developer of the housing development has had the ground scraped bare and graded before building, often removing all the native vegetation in the process. So, new homeowners begin putting in their landscapes and everything they plant pretty much has to tolerate full sun.

The years pass and they find themselves removing some understory plants that no longer get enough sun and replacing them with plants that thrive in partial shade or dappled shade.

More years pass and the trees are now much larger, and the landscape has to be modified to include more plants for full shade. That is just how it goes.

Of course, it can happen in reverse when a homeowner suddenly loses huge, mature trees to disease or maybe a severe windstorm or tornado, and their landscape goes overnight from being shady to sunny.

I think one of the things I enjoy most about gardening is encountering these types of challenges and trying to figure out what to do about them. It makes me think, and learn, and grow....and expand my horizons.

If it is any comfort, every gardener I know has more plants than they have improved soil in which to plant them! I hope you find a home for your lamb's ears.

If you are looking for a ground cover for shade, tell us what kind of shade....heavy, partial or dappled? And, if partial, what time of day does this area get sun? Morning? Mid-day? Afternoon? Late afternoon? And do you want a tall groundcover or a short one?

Dawn

Well it has been good day productivity-wise. Not so good pain wise...I really did a number on my low back/hip this morning and have been hobbling around all afternoon.
This hip almsot got me back surgery in 2004 and I was in a wheelchair for a while with it...so when I set it off again I get spooked.

We got LOTS done today...the yard is looking so much better in only two days of work.

Got the rest of my garden seeds planted too.

I came up with an idea for behind my cottage...we have a lot of ceramic tile...just stuff we have had for years. Not even sure why we have it as we never used it inside any homes...haha. Occasionally we use some of it for an outdoor project. We plan to lay that in a path between some type of wood frame and use pea gravel between the tiles making a path going behind the cottage. The tile will look nice as it is a golden brown color with a bit of design but not some color which would look out of place outside. Then I think I will try to do some cuttings from my vinca ground cover i already have around the back of the house and plant them in the shady areas there.
Does anyone have tips on planting cuttings from the vinca?

I may also put cuttings of the vinca under the photinias as well...if I can get them to root and take off easily.

Today I found some holly which had sprung up behind some of my front landscaping and we dug and moves it to one side of the house where we had nothing. I kept finding all kinds of stuff coming up in flower beds and landscape areas and will have to find out what they are so I can see if I want to keep any of them.

Wonderful wonderful day. I loved it. Except for hurting myself that is. I can barely walk now so I should have not kept pushing. Just popped an extra pain pill and kept going. But it was such a perfect day to be out working.
So did you all get lots done today?

Any ideas on getting the ground cover to root and take off would sure be appreciated. I have done it with English Ivy lots but it has the hairy roots...will this stuff root easily if I just plant it or does it need to be rooted first?
Okay I gotta go REST a while and watch the news.
G.M.

G.M.,

If I tell you that I was in so much pain last night that I couldn't sleep, doesn't that alone tell you that I got a whole lot done yesterday!!!

I think we need a 'Gardener's Workout' we can do inside the house all winter so our bodies are ready for all the standing, stooping, squatting, digging, lifting, hauling, etc. when spring comes.

The hardest job was removing the 115 5-gallon buckets, pails and jugs of water that I had used to keep the plants warm during the recent cold spells. I had one container of water snuggled up next to each tomato plant, with a stake in between each tomato plant and the bucket or jug (to keep the darn things from falling over and crushing the plants since my garden is on a slope). I had left them in the garden for a few extra days just in case Old Man Winter was going to send one more cold front our way. It is nice to have my garden looking green and pretty again without all those plastic buckets and things in there.

I planted a lot and pulled up some of the endless four o'clock volunteers that spring up everywhere in the mulch.
I thinned fruit from the peach and plum trees again for about an hour. All I have left to do now (I think!) is to get up on a ladder and thin the highest branches of the peach tree. On the limbs I thinned last week, the remaining fruit is already noticeably larger than the largest fruits on unthinned limbs.

This morning is mine to spend in the yard, and then late this afternoon I think we will go up to the fire station and mow and weed-eat. I did notice that the wild plums growing right along the creek on the north side of the fire station are just covered in wild plums. I hope they make a good crop. If they do, I will pick them and make wild plum jelly for all the firefighters.

I have an abundance of wildflowers in the wild portions of our property. This is the best wildflower year for us in 4 or 5 years. In the garden the poppies are blooming and my tall verbena (Verbena bonariensis) is about 3' to 4' tall and began blooming this week. The two 'Pink Lemonade' honeysuckles are huge this year and are so covered in blooms that the hummingbirds just stay there all day and don't even go to the feeders. More and more roses are blooming daily, and the Dutch Iris are really putting on a show this year.

I'm going to plant annual flowers today (1 flat each of red salvia, red/white/purple salvia, mexican heather, and orange marigolds). I interplant flowers with all my veggies. They attract insects and make the vegetable garden more attractive. I suppose I don't even have to tell you that my old farmer neighbors always give me a hard time about 'wasting' vegetable gardening space on 'weeds' (that's what they call my flowers and my herbs). I always tell them the flowers are for the pollinators and that shuts 'em right up!

I love my farming friends, but their ways (row cropping with heavy machinery and chemicals) are not my ways (wide raised beds with improved soil, mulch, companion planting, and organic).

By the time the weekend is over, I hope to get the winter squash, summer squash, pumpkins, all kinds of melons, and the peppers into the ground. It is too early to plant the ornamental peppers. I started them late and they won't be ready to go into the ground until about mid-May.

The raccoon is coming by daily to check on the corn and to wash his food in the cat's water dish every night. I make sure no pet food is left out at night, but they come around looking for it anyway. If they are really hungry, they climb up on the porch furniture and look inside the windows and even tap on the windows to get our attention. They are crazy if they think I am going to put food out for them!

Last year we trapped and relocated 2 racoons who got every bit of the corn. This year I am determined to get the corn before they do. I am interplanting it with pumpkins (I didn't do that last year) and may put a temporary electric fence around it in a few weeks. One of our neighbors who lives closer to the river than we do trapped SIXTEEN racoons in his garden last year, and they got all of his corn.

I have never rooted vinca, but I think it roots itself wherever it makes contact with moist soil, so it ought to be easy to root.

My main groundcover here is Virginia Creeper, which is native here. It seems like I can't get it to grow well where I want it to grow, but it comes up everywhere I don't want it (like in the veggie garden).

We have seen a huge explosion in the grasshopper population this week, and my guineas have exhausted themselves running through the tall grass out back and devouring the hoppers.
I don't really have bad grasshopper years nowadays because the guineas eat them up. I love my guineas!

Dawn

Dawn, I am sorry for how sore you were with all that work! How in the world you were able to do all that in one day! Oh my! Moving all those heavy jugs and bottles. I am not even close to being able to do all that, but I sure wish I could.

And I TOTALLY agree with the 'winter gardeners work outs' if I were only smart enough to stick to my exercise program all through the winter I wouldn't be so out of shape and easy to injure myself in the spring. I am still learning...at least I hope I will learn! lol

I have degenerative disease of my spine and spinal stenosis, arthritis, fibromyalgia, and early osteoporosis to name part of my issues. So although my doc wants me out and about and loves that I like to play at gardening he has set some limits on what I should and should not do. I did some of my biggest no-nos yesterday and am paying the price. I am not supposed to squat at all. Doc has told me "just don't do it"--how on earth do you do any gardening without squatting I would like to know? (I love squatting...haha..have always been able to sit in a squatting postion for long periods of time...not any more). And I not only squatted a LOT yesterday morning, but also sat down on the concrete sidewalk to trim some nandina which was out of control around our front walk. lol I knew after doing the front yard I should stop but I stubbornly kept going the rest of the day...not smart...but at least I have seeds in the ground and my plants are planted too. lol.

What kinds of annuals do you plant with your veggies? I have always planted marigolds with the tomatoes...but so far I don't have any in with them this year. I am sure that eventually I will add some. Sounds like you plant flowers with all of your veggies?

I had to pull out one tomato plant yesterday...it had something wrong with it and I am hoping the others will be okay. Planting and then digging them up and replanting did not make them happy at all. The most healthy looking plants in my garden beds right now are the squash plants we bought and planted Wednesday...haha. But I am hoping and praying with some sun and warmth the others will perk up.

Your place just sounds so awesome...you are truly blessed to have a place like that. Enjoy it all you can. And all that work should make you strong and healthy if you are careful and will not over do it. haha. Yeah right..like a gardener like you is not going to over do it all the time.
I so enjoy reading all your posts and hearing all about your place and all that you do. It is sort of like that you are living my dream life.

Enjoy! There is nothing like beings outdoors.

I used to love to pick wild plums and make jelly. It is just the BEST jelly to be had. Lucky guys to have you make jelly for them. I bet they love to see you coming !

I have one of the funniest racoon stories. If you want to hear it one day remind me to tell ya...even have a couple of pictures of the funny critter.

Have a great day everyone. Dawn slow down and pace yourself...Take time to smell the flowers and don't wear yourself out doing it all in one day.
(Talking to you like I do my niece who is close to your age...I became aunt at the ripe old age of 4...lol) We are more like sisters actually. Grew up together.

G.M.

"I have degenerative disease of my spine and spinal stenosis, arthritis, fibromyalgia, and early osteoporosis to name part of my issues."

G.M. - I, too, have lumbar spinal stenoses and cervical stenoses as well, herniated discs in neck and lower back. I had surgery in June 2004, and wow! Did I ever feel better. If you ever decide to have surgery, make sure you get a neurosurgeon to do it, and NOT a orthopedic surgeon. With an ortho, they don't know as much about the nerves as neuros do. My doctor was AMAZING!

However, it is degenerative (I have degenerative disc disease, osteopenia, and all that, too). Mine is starting to bother me again a bit. Before, though, I could barely walk. I'll have to have surgery again one day, but have had all those epidural injections, and they don't work for nothin'. Doc won't give me pills - wants me on the patch and it just makes me sleepy all day which I DON'T like. So, I just bear with it.

Dawn - your 4 o'clocks are the host plant for the white-lined sphinx moth - they are SOOOOOO gorgeous! And Virginia Creeper is a host for the eight-spotted forester moth and several sphinx moths as well.

Plums and cherries are hosts for the beautiful Red Spotted Purple butterflies, Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, and probably many others I've forgotten.

I bought a new salvia today - it's new on the market - called Salvia nemorosa 'Pink Friesland'. Now, I bought it because a Red Admiral butterfly was all over the thing at the nursery! Never pass a plant that a butterfly has proven to like! Ha Ha! Also got some Dusty Miller for the Buckeyes, parsley for the black swallowtails, fennel for the same, callibrochoa and pentas for the sphinx moths. Also had to buy my proverbial proven chicken manure. Love that stuff. It has more NPK than regular steer manure. And, got my Espoma plant food, too!

Susan

Susan
Thank you so much for sharing your back experiences with me. I am most interested in learning more about what docs you saw and especially the doc who did your surgery.
I have only seen rheumatologists for mine and keep wondering if I would be better served to see someone else. I have seen docs in OKC several times for other things so that is not a problem.
All my doc does is treat me with meds and make recommendations for certain types of exercise or activity.
All this stuff for me started early in my life...and was getting limiting to me by the time I was in my late 20's to early 30's.
This current flare I am in now is one of the worst ones I have had since 2004 when I was finally reduced to having to use a wheelchair. I am so disappointed to be like this now just when it has finally gotten warm enough for me to get outdoors.
I am so happy to hear that your surgery was helpful to you. I know a number of people who were not so fortunate to come out in better shape...and some just got worse so I have been afraid to even consider it.
I can give you another email address if you would be willing to share any other info with me.
It looks like a beautiful day out there...I hope to find a way to get outdoors a little today even if I have to borrow a wheelchair to do it. I am already using my 90 year old mom's walker. She has two and my oldest sis is currently using one for an injured knee...haha. My family is a mess. Thank God mom is doing okay now and doesn't need them!
Have a great day!
G.M.

Good Morning All!

It is going to be a perfect gardening day here, so I plan to wear myself out AGAIN for the third day in a row. lol

Merry Heart, Moving all those buckets and jugs of water did wear me out.

I interplant any and every type of annual in the veg. garden. I usually start out with 3 or 4 flats of purchased annuals and supplement them with seed-raised annual flowers and herbs. In the vegetable garden I have planted the following as companion plants, so far, with many more to come: sweet alyssun, wax leaf begonias, dusty miller, several different salvias, marigolds, Caribbean Cocktail nasturtiums, dianthus, Mexican heather, dill, several basils, and several parsleys.

I use the companion plants to: (a) beautify the place where I spend so many hours all spring and summer, (b) attract beneficial insects. My main vegetable garden consists of many raised beds. Some run north-south and some run east-west. They are arranged this way to halt erosion and slow down rainwater runoff because my entire garden is on a slope. Each raised bed, no matter what vegetable crop it has, has an edging of annuals along the sides of the raised bed. It is truly a sight to see by late May or early June.

What happened to your tomato plant? Was it developing a foliar disease or did it just suddenly wilt? By the way, I noticed yesterday that one tomato is starting to turn red. Yippee! We should be having the first BLT sandwiches of the season in a few days. Hard to believe it, since we had 32 degrees and a frost just last weekend.

I admire very much how you (and you too, Susan!) do not let your health problems keep you from pursuing your gardening passion. I think my real problem is that my body gets lazy during the winter and then it takes it a while to get back into shape for gardening in the spring. As I get older, though, my body does rebel when I spend too many hours working outside.

Susan, I think the four o'clocks are one of the reasons I have so many sphinx moths. It is somewhat annoying that the reseed everywhere with reckless abandon but I do love them. Even if they didn't attract anything, it would be worth it to have them as they perfume the whole area at night.

Sounds like you went on a successful buying expedition, Susan. Do you use only the Holly-Tone, or some of the other Espoma fertilizers as well? I have chicken manure, but I have to sweep it out of the coop and compost it first! I prefer it to cow manure...less weed seeds.

Y'all have a wonderful day!

Dawn

Dawn, I bought the balanced fertilizer (Garden Tone) this time (2 5-lb bags at $3.86/each). It is 10-10-10. I have used the bulb fertilizer, too.

It doesn't provide micronutrients, though. I was wondering if I could mix some molasses in a gallon of water and put it around my plants. I heard it gets the all the living organisms that are good for soil, get started. I will have to read up about that on the Soil forum. I could also get some fish emulsion or kelp.

Chicken manure is much better than cow or steer manure. The steer manure only provides nitrogen, and the chicken is higher in PK than steer manure is. I attached a chart that I find interesting to use when determining what is good in the compost pile, or even around plants.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: NPK of Things

Susan,

That's a great chart. :)

I don't even bother composting my banana peels. I take them out to the rose beds and, using a trowel, bury them in the soil around the roses, where they break down fairly quickly and feed the plants. If you are using compost, though, you shouldn't have trace mineral deficiencies, in general.

I alternate back and forth, using compost tea for one feeding and then liquid seaweed. I'm sure that molasses tea would be great too. I also like using Garrett Juice, developed by Texas organic gardening guy J. Howard Garrett. You can mix it up yourself, or (at least if you are in Texas), you can buy it premixed in a condensed form by the quart or the gallon and then dilute it to the strength you need. I've linked the recipe below. Sometimes I make alfalfa tea too.

I make the basic 4-ingredient Garrett Juice for general feeding. Then, if there is a specific problem like disease or fire ants or whatever, I add whatever he says to add for that particular problem. You can apply it to the foliage as a spray, or pour it onto plants/the soil beneath them as a drench. It is really good stuff. You can even pour it onto your compost pile as a compost activator.
Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Garrett Juice

Ooh, thanks for the recipe, Dawn. I just need to get the seaweed and I'll be set.

Susan

Susan,

You are welcome. I love Garrett Juice. It is versatile because you can customize it for different purposes.

When you have free time to surf the web, check out Howard Garrett's website, dirtdoctor.com. It is simply wonderful. When I first began transitioning away from chemicals and trying to do things organically, he was the beacon of light in the darkness. I have learned so much from his radio show, books and websites. Even now when I am stumped on what to do about something, I just go to his website and seek solutions.

Dawn

He's not the same guy that they refer to as "Dr. Dirt" is he? I have seen that guy on Gardening by the Yard before. I believe he lives in Louisiana or Mississippi.

I saw my first hummer today - of course, I know everyone else has probably been feeding theirs for a month now. But, it was a Ruby-throated male. So, Kenna and I mixed up a batch of nectar, cleaner the feeder and put it out. It has a leak, though, so I'm gonna have to invest in a new feeder.

Kenna trimmed the grass with my pruning scissors (hee hee!). Yesterday, she planted Vinca leaves. I am wont to discourage her from doing the things she thinks are helping the garden, so I just allow her free rein - well, almost. She accidentally whacked back my jasmine vine, but I'm sure it will be better for it. She dug and transplanted two campanulas from the flower bed and moved them to an area I thought nothing would ever grow, and they are growing! So, who am I to say?

Susan

Susan, I think Dr. Dirt is Leon Goldsberg. The Dirt Doctor is J. Howard Garrett. He lives somewhere in the D-FW metro area.

Well, isn't Kenna a big help! My DH is helpful in that same way. Last year he was trying to dig up some cannas to divide, and he dug up and destroyed half of a 'Pink Lemonade' honeysuckle (my hummers' favorite plant) in the process.

Just yesterday we were looking at the two honeysuckles and I remarked that they were thicker, fuller and more floriferous this year than they have ever been before, and he said "That's because I haven't gone anywhere near them with a shovel, pruning shears or a weedeater". It was hard to keep a straight face as I thanked him for leaving my plants alone this year. :)

My DH will do absolutely anything in the yard or garden that I ask him to do BUT it is safer for all the plants if I keep him and his tools away from them.

I think gardening with a child is the most wonderful thing. Just think of all the memories you two are making together.
I loved the times I spend in the garden with my dad, my grandparents and my aunts and uncles. They are mostly all gone now, but the memories are mine forever. Kenna will remember how you gardened with her and encouraged her and, oh, it will be a precious memory for her always.

Dawn

Yes, I have trouble with my lawn guys, too. They whacked off the top of my new sasafrass tree, right after I had pointed it out to them and ask them not to whack it down! So, now I'm waiting to see if it will still put out two stems, one of which will have to be air layered, so I can make a new leader out the other. Ah, well. I'm not going to let them mow the back yard at all. I like to keep the weeds agrowin' there, cause the butts love the wildness of it. They have all but crowded out any grass now. I have some really nice patches of white clover, which is the host plant for sulphurs and other butterflies, and I cut a wide swath around them when I am touring the yard so I won't step on any butterflies in the making.

I also have lots of coniclinum coelistinum (Gregg's mistflower) growing there, and some other wildflowers I've yet to ID. Tons of dandelions, which are some of the first nectar plants to appear in spring. Tons of Queen Anne's Lace, and something that looks like a plaintain, but doesn't have the ribbed leaves like plaintain, so don't know what it is yet. Sprouts of Virginia Creeper, and a little heart-shaped plant that is growing either like a vine or a tree, but can't tell yet. Then another plant on which the new foliage is kind of a reddish-gold. There are these pretty little wild daisies in late summer that the butterflies LOVE! Something in the asteraceae family anyway. I wish I could get rid of the liriope back there. I just hate that stuff.

My little pinellias are up - they are so cute, and I let them seed, so hopefully I'll get a huge patch of them. My Ariseaema triphyllum is up about 6" tall now; I guess the other one didn't make it. My arum italicum is looking so good. I love this plant because it is green all through winter (with the white mottling). I hope the acanthus mollis blooms this year. It sometimes doesn't, but is an architectural plant in and of itself. Blue Angel and Sum & Substance hostas are HUMONGOUS already. I really need to divide them. My 3rd year 'Titanic' is looking really, really beautiful!

Has anyone noticed how bad slugs are this year? I have two little hostas that have been eaten to the ground already. My petasites is just looking awful in just the last week! Slugs! I have some DE but I just hate to use it right now because you have to put more down after every time it rains.

After 5 years in an apparently "bad" location, I moved my cardiocrinum giganteum to a new spot in much more friable soil. It is up and the foliage looks so much better in the new space. I am hoping it will bloom in the next year or so now.

I am getting flowers on my Aristolochia clematitus for the first time. This is their 3rd year in the ground. They are so tiny, and no noticeable odor at all. So cute! This is a great little plant - groundcover! Mediterranean, so it will take our hot summers. A. serpentaria is doing well, too, but I won't be getting more of it. It is said that it takes 25 plants of this to sustain one pipevine swallowtail.

Oh, my Hops are up. I have one that is a golden variety, and it is gorgeous. It is growing by leaps and bounds, too. The first day, it was up about 2", the next 4", the next 6". I have to check today to see if it has eaten the shed it is planted next to.

I have a clemmie (violaceae) in a 3" pot, and it is 3' tall. Think I should pot it up? LOL!

Dawn, thank you for your encouragement in regard to my GD, Kenna. I hope she will have precious memories. I remember my grandmother who loved iris, and my great grandfather who loved 'tunies, or petunias. But, they never let me garden with them. That was back then, you know. Kenna loves to garden and she really loves to help collect the butterfly caterpillars and watch them grow.

Susan

Susan, that is great. Isn't being a grandmother just the greatest thing. My grandsons will go to the garden with me but they are not much into gardening unless I decide to water, then I have them all over the place.

Just a little bragging---the oldest who is 10 has volunteered at school to help autistic classmates. They are teamed up to assist with the mainstreaming of some of the kids. My grandson says he really enjoys it and his new friend is really a "nice kid". His words.

It certainly makes you feel like somewhere along the line you may have actually done something right in raising his mother.

Anyway, off topic but I am so proud now if one of them will just have a little gardening interest. They would rather go fishing or play soccer.

Steffie

Susan,

Sorry to hear about your sassafras tree. I hope it comes back OK for you. I think we shouldn't let men with weedwhackers in their hands anywhere near our plants!

Have you ever tried Sluggo for snails and slugs? I just love it. The active ingredient is Iron Phosphate and it is safe to use around pets and wildlife. You don't have to reapply it after rain or after watering your garden. It also seems to be effective in reducing the number of pillbugs and sowbugs I have....and I have billions of them anywhere that I have mulch. It is only labeled to control slugs and snails, but it appears to work on the pillbugs and sowbugs too.

I saw a question mark butterfly today. Then I saw another one a little while later. Or, maybe I was seeing the same one twice? I don't see them very often, so I was excited.

I have been seeing lots and lots of different cats everywhere, so think it is going to be a good year. I have tons of wildflowers of all kinds in bloom. We haven't had a whole lot of rain, but it must have fallen at just the right time.

Steffie,

That is wonderful news about your grandson volunteering to help mainstream the autistic kids. I have a friend who has 2 autistic sons and the other kids can sometimes be so cruel to them. You must be so proud of your grandson!

I don't have any grandkids to garden with yet and I guess it will be a while (hopefully) since my son is only 22 and single. My niece is expecting a baby in July and we all are pretty excited about that.

Steffie, want to get those boys more interested in gardening? Add a small water feature, or get a couple of carnivorous plants...like a venus flytrap or something. Boys can't resist water (and fish and frogs and turtles) and they can't resist any plant that eats bugs. lol

Dawn