The Yard – Volume 1 Issue 1

I took picture today to post for this “first edition” – and then I remembered what our house looked like when we moved it.

Notice the dead grass, the random weeds and bushes (about 6’ tall) and below, the pond. Yes. A pond. A dilapidated, half-filled-in pond. Taking up almost the entire back yard.

Here’s some more of the front yard:

 

Again, notice the dead grass, and all the little quakies coming up everywhere – in the grass, in the flower beds, ev-er-y-where. They were pains in the rear to clean out, and we were still working on them this summer. (this picture was taken in October shortly after we first moved in)

 

So we pulled things up, we chopped things down, we dug things out, we watered, fertilized, and did the best we could (like I said, we moved in the house in October, so there wasn’t really any growing season left). But after some hard work, here’s what it looked like:

As you can see in the picture above, we got some grass to start growing (turns out the sprinkler system on the front part of the lawn wasn’t working – which is why the grass only started growing in the back).

In the backyard, we dug out and filled in the pond. It took a lot of work, and a really grateful neighbor (I say she was grateful because she did most of the work in return for all the pond equipment and those flagstones). We were happy just to get rid of that pond! She also eventually took the two evergreens back there (earlier in the spring/summer) and I moved the big hibiscus tree that was back there (probably a bit too late in the year, but oh well).

In the second edition, which I am going to post tonight as well, you’ll see all the work we’ve done!

Crocosmia

I finally found out what those blasted red/orange flowers were!

Remember these:

 

Well, it turns out they are crocosmia. Which variety, I’m not sure. But finally I know what they are! I can’t describe how much relief I get from having finally solved this puzzle…

I am thinking about putting a few of these in the garden, just for nostalgia’s sake.

Faith is like a Little Seed

I bought my son a plant at the nursery a few weeks ago, and he has been tending and taking care of it!

Every day my little Green Thumb asks if he can feed his plant. He tells me, “My plant is thirsty!” and goes around asking to water all of his plants – and every other plant he can find!

Sometimes Green Thumb feeds them sticks, too. Because apparently plants get hungry and eat sticks. We’ll have to work on that concept. He is only three, after all!

  

We also got to help Grandma plant some new bushes and flowers in her front flower garden. Paint brush flowers, marigolds, and a variety of other perennials. I have always admired my mother’s garden, and her green thumb. That’s probably where I got it from.

And probably where little Green Thumb got his!

Left Behind

When we moved from our dumpy old house in CA we were so busy trying to get out on time that we weren’t able to bring my bulbs with me. <tears>

So I need to go get myself a potted plant when I move to AR so that I can keep taking care of something and posting on this blog. I feel lame, because I haven’t been gardening, which is by far one of my very favorite things to do.

Also, I left my poinsettia behind in CA because I just didn’t have the heart to move it to UT and then to AR… I just don’t think it would have made the road trip.

So here is an ode to my beautiful plants, and to starting over again…

Oh sweet flora,

I tended you with a gentle hand

I watched you press upward

Through the dirt and sand

Oh beautiful green leaves

and sweet smelling flowers

I cared for you carefully

and tended for hours

Oh, sweet flora,

How short was our time

But there is always another day

Another garden

Where the sun will still shine.

Okay, now that I’m done being corny, I probably won’t post again until I get that potted plant sometime in May. Maybe if I help my in laws with their landscaping before we leave I’ll take pictures and post anything I learn about sodding or planting trees.

So… these aren’t what I thought they were

Anyone know what this is?

All I know is that it grows from a very hairy bulb, and the  leaves are rather sturdy. Also, the flowers blossom at the bottom first, and then then gradually blossom up the stem. The bottom flowers have often fallen before the top ones even blossom. There are two rows of flowers on the stem, on either side of the stem.

Please help me figure out what these are. It’s driving me INSANE!

More and More

My flower garden in the front yard is growing more and more beautiful every day. DH says that I leave a trail of flowers wherever I go. Isn’t he sweet?

My torch lilies are blooming (no flowers yet in this picture – this was taken a few weeks ago). I will take updated pictures this weekend. My peace lilies have been blooming since early December, and I’m pretty sure each plant has bloomed at least once (two are on their second flowers). They are just downright gorgeous. There are only three irises that are actually producing flowers. The others aren’t yet, and probably won’t because I’m going to dig them up in April and transplant them in UT. I’m enjoying their foliage right now, though. The flower garden looks so full and green.

Out in the back is my embarrassing vegetable garden dying from neglect. I still have a few heads of lettuce that we’ll be able to harvest in a few weeks, some spinach is still growing (what doesn’t get eaten by the deer) and my sugar snap peas are producing the biggest, juiciest, sweetest, snapping-est pods I have ever eaten. They make my taste-buds sing! Oh, and I have loads of cilantro. I probably didn’t need to plant as much as I did, but now I have a better idea of what our family will eat, how much, and how much I can get to grow.

I also harvested some carrots that were delicious, if somewhat small (I forgot to thin them when they were seedlings).

So the first vegetable garden has turned out to be somewhat of a success, even if the tomatoes and peppers were a failure.

There’s always next year!

The Other Plants

I’ve been so focused on the fact that I have iris flowers blooming that I have neglected to mention the progress of my other plants, the peace lilies and the torch lilies.

This is the a picture of the largest peace lily plant I have so far. I have about five peace lily plants, and they are all doing pretty well. I can’t wait for them to get big enough to bloom. The peace lilies have the most beautiful white flowers.

I don’t have a really good picture of the torch lilies. I have about 20 bulbs, and only 4 of them haven’t sprouted yet. The others are doing surprisingly well. Their leaves look a lot like the iris leaves, so you may not be able to pick them out in this picture, but the plant that is on the top left hand corner of this picture is the beginnings of a torch lily.

Hopefully all these plants will flower before we move in April. Thankfully, things will bloom all year round here if you give them what they need, so I’m pretty confident that by the time we leave, my flower garden will be in full bloom!

And did I mention that I’m taking all my plants with me when I leave? I need to start researching how to move bulbs and rhizomes (the iris is actually a rhizome, not a bulb, did you know that?)

White, Purple, and Golden Beauties

The hard work is still paying off. Three blossoms just appeared this week. And it looks like we’ll have two or three more in the next few weeks. I’m hoping some of the other plants start blooming as well – this is all from the same plant, and the same plant that produced the first blossom.

 

A Single Flower

 

My iris is a-bloomin’. The first flower on my front-yard flower garden has finally appeared! I was so ecstatic when I noticed that my iris was budding (only three even have flowering branch things right now).

The irises were blooming in the backyard (that’s how I found out they were irises). When we first moved in I thought the big clump of irises were just some kind of grass. Turns out once I started watering the backyard, the irises came to life!

It looks like we’ll have a few more blossoms on this iris before long! It makes all the hard work feel worth it.

my free flower garden

This is the front of our house. The management company advertises these house as having “landscaped front and side yards.” Well, let me just tell you what this looked like when we moved in. There was no lawn, it was just dried, old, patchy, weedy front yard. They mow the… weeds, but not very often (once every 2 weeks, if we’re lucky). Close to the house, there was nothing but dead grass and dirt – the pest control company sprays about a foot of the ground around the perimeter of the house to keep out the bugs… yes… a whole foot. In the front by our little carport lived a hideous, spider-infested bush.

This past weekend we did some major improvements (we’ve been watering the front “lawn” for a while now, and it’s starting to look much better, despite still being mostly crab grass, and the patchy appearance). We had a friend pull out the ugly bush in the front, we transplanted some irises from the back yard, and covered the front flower garden with wood chips from huge piles of woodchips that were heaped just beyond our backyard. The irises were all clumped up in one big bush, having never been separated for probably several years. They had a fungus, but I just chopped off the affected leaves, and they are doing pretty well. The friend who pulled out the big ugly bush also gave use a few peace lilies and torch lilies from their yard. The peace lilies were decapitated when they were pulling a huge aloe vera plant out of their yard, and the torch lilies had died a while back. I think they also had a fungus (from not being separated), but I’m hoping now that they are separated and have proper drainage, they will start growing again.

Total cost for our front flower garden?! Nothing!! All found, donated, or relocated material. And it looks SO much better. And by the way, our management company had nothing to do with it. So much for their landscaped front and side yards. And I’m taking my plants with me when I leave.