New Fence 2019

I keep record of garden work for my own sake, not so much for others' since I'm not a True Gardener. As a holy relative reminds me, "It is your season to grow children, not plants!" Let's just say that it is good our HOA requires landscapes to look "woodsy and natural" because I can't tend to much.

The work this week centered around replacing the split rail fence. I have resisted Chris' reminders for approimately five years because that is how long I had been growing my beautiful, yellow-blooming Carolina jessamine vine along my front fence. If we replaced the fence, I'd lose my vine. However, the year finally came when even I had to acquiesce about the rotting, falling down fence.

BEFORE PICTURES: The vine and shrubbery at the top of the driveway had created a complete privacy wall to the back yard.

I spent a morning cutting off the vines. I was able to save the two actual plants, keeping them two to three feet high so I can train them on the new fence. I also trimmed away the shrubbery because the fence company told me that their men needed a two to three-foot wide clearance to work.

The end result of all my crawling on all fours and pruning was a handsome, but very naked fence.

The next morning, I tackled the much longer, 100-foot span of fence adjoining our neighbors. I took no photos of that project, but it involved even cutting down a small tree, cutting back overgrown trees, and trimming back a privacy hedge.

Then 109 bags of bark arrived to refresh our paths and add padded safety beneath our swingset. I think we've only updated the bark twice in 11 years here and, with this many toes running on them, it could use updating a lot more than that!

So, on the third morning, the children and I spread the mulch, which was hard work physically but sweet for my heart. At times, I would catch my kids singing folk songs together while they worked, and that pretty much makes life worth living for a mama who generally hears way too much bickering.

Give a three-year-old a trowel and he will busily occupy himself for a long time.

Chris pointed out to me that, come fall fire season, we will have to clear a 10-foot radius from the fire pit. But for now, I will leave the pretty wood chips.

Wood chips too close to fire pit

Shady lunch table out back

Oregon grape and Lenten roses

I was plumb tuckered out after all those mornings and was very grateful to sit in the soothing back yard drinking coffee with my feet elevated so I could read my current obsession: "Pudd'nhead Wilson" (1894) by the inimitable Mark Twain.

On the fourth day, the workmen arrived to demolition the old and install the new fence. It was difficult to teach school that morning!

Watching workmen out the window

The new gates may  not match, but they do automatically close, which means neither my neighbors nor my children will ever have to listen to me shouting, "Shut the gate! No, SHUT THE GATE! Why do you never shut the gate? Your baby brother is running down toward the road again!"

Gardening Project 2018

I began to transform the front bed alongside the driveway back in May, when I finally tore out the shrub roses that had been afflicted by Rose Rosette Disease for the last few years.

Rose Rosette Disease has no cure.

I ripped out the plants during the last week of school in May, and then we had big strong guys replace all the diseased soil down to 8".

Empty bed

The blasting heat of the Southern summer is not the right time to install new plants, so I counted the weeks until September. With Chris having taken a spontaneous trip this weekend, on one hand, I could have said that I couldn't do my project. On the other hand, my plans were now changed and I had a blank slate of time, so I determined--interestingly in the first week of school!--that I would install the plants I'd been thinking about for so long.

I rather foolishly departed the house at 3:30 on a Friday and without knowing that President Trump was in town, causing rush hour traffic to be even more shocking than usual, so it took me an hour to drive to the nursery. By the time I got there, there was a deluge of a rainstorm and the nursery was almost closing, but I am stubborn to a fault, so I marched in with my four boys in tow and got my plants.

I chose Heuchera 'Forever Purple' (coral bells) for the center, with a muted green Heuchera outside of that, and finally a purple-ish Euphorbia hybrid. When they come available in two to three months, I plan to finish my design by planting some purple Helleborus (Lenten roses) to cap both ends of the bed. As a background to the look will be chartreuse Lysimachia nummularia (creeping Jenny), a fast-growing ground cover that will fill in all the blanks.

These plants are perennials (because I don't have time to deal with annuals), can tolerate or love part-shade, are deer-resistant (important in our yard!), and are tough.

The next morning, right after breakfast, we got to work. Joseph quickly felt the rigors of removing the pine straw and collapsed in a heap, as if dead, while three-year-old Thomas kept up his good raking work.

I laid out my plants, studied this way and that, consulted with my Master Gardener father 3,000 miles away, and then we all got out our shovels.

David (1) observed from his stroller while Thomas (3), Joseph (5), and John (11) helped me dig. It was hard, hot work, but we installed 34 plants in under two hours!

Two hours of video sped up to one minute!


Ta da! The plants should grow together to create masses of purples and greens, while the creeping Jenny will take over as ground cover beneath it all.

Renovation of Marian Garden

At the tail end of the month of May, in which we honor the Virgin Mary, I renovated our Marian garden--an afternoon which was such a delight to me. Gardening is in my blood, born and bred (by father, mother, and aunt), but I have been unable to much get my hands in the dirt for these last couple of babies. My yard has slowly been dying of neglect for a few years.

In fact, all of my Pachysandra surrounding our Mary statue died--and Pachysandra is indestructible! I think we had a problem with that zone of our irrigation and, when one deprives a plant of all water and all sun (in our shaded back yard), even Pachysandra will die.

Before renovation

All that was left was a circle of rocks, two grasses, a few straggling Pachysandra up front, and the Lenten rose behind Our Lady.

Helping Mama

The soil was incredibly challenging for me to break up. It is dense clay filled with a decade's worth of fibrous Pachysandra roots entangled in a web fit to stop the strongest of tools (and, in fact, it broke one of mine).

Helping Mama

One can't see well in the "after" photo but I have high hopes for how the garden will fill out.

I was seeking plants that are hardy, love the shade, tolerant of drought, deer resistant, and bonus points for having a Marian symbolism.

I transplanted one of the grasses (the Liriope, "monkey grass") to the left of the statue so that it is flanked on both sides by a grass plant. Monkey grass, with its sweet purple bloom, is everywhere in the South, so I wasn't surprised to read in an article that it is "the South's favorite ground cover."

Those are full grown plants, then to either side of those is a Thriiller Alchemilla (Lady's Mantle--so appropriate!), which will grow 12-15" high (larger than the grasses), bloom small yellow flowers in late spring, and is very hardy and tolerant of different soil types and part sun.

In front of the statue are three Convallaria majalis (Lily of the Valley) plants: they are hardly to be seen right now, but will bloom in mid- to late-spring with "dainty white, fragrant, bell-shaped flowers followed by striking, tiny orange berries." They are tolerant of drought (if our irrigation malfunctions again) and clay soil, they resist deer and make an excellent naturalizing ground cover in sun or shade.

Lastly, I planted a dozen Pachysandra within the circle of stones--although I may buy some more to fill in the space better. Pacyhysandra grows in deep shade, is highly deer resistant, and is an aggressive ground cover. Even with a household full of children running over it every day, it doesn't die.

Seventeen new plants to honor Our Lady

Lady's Mantle

Lily of the Valley

It was a real joy for me to get into the ground for two hours, even though I will be so very sore tomorrow. The children played around me, including the baby, who happily crept about the back yard with me the entire time.

Maybe, just maybe, my hiatus from gardening is over, and I can resume this lovely hobby.

Spring Flowers

I enjoy so much the spring flowers around here! Our property is almost entirely deeply shaded woodland, so spring--before the trees are covered in leaves--is the only time I get to enjoy flowers.

And sometimes I step out in the gorgeous sunshine to check on the children and find escapades, such as their creating a "net trap" in which a willing victim--sibling--gets encapsulated and then swung in an enclosed hammock.

No children were harmed in the making of this net.

Fall Planting

This week, I got a surge of inspiration to plant annuals, which I do only for the occasional spring or fall.

72 pansies, 9 kale, 12 snapdragons, 35 tulips, 15 daffodils, 30 Spanish bluebells, 40 crocuses

We scattered throughout the backyard woods 30 Spanish bluebells (12" high, purple, pink, and white mix, late spring blooming).

Along the walkway to the side entrance, I interspersed 12 snapdragons amidst the creeping phlox and decorative rocks.

At the top of the driveway, I've decided I should stop trying to plant a vegetable garden. I have just enough sunlight to grow the leaves of the vegetables, but not enough to grow the fruits. So, this fall I planted 9 decorative purple kale surrounded by a sea of 36 white and purple pansies. In a curved swath in front of this purplish sea are 36 yellow and burgundy pansies.

I am hoping all these tender annuals don't become delicious snacks for the deer.

In the wooded island in the front yard, we planted 40 crocus in purple, white, and yellow (6" high, early spring blooming) with the 15 white daffodils (12" high, late spring blooming) and 15 white and purple tulips (12" high) behind them.

And if the deer eat all my annuals or I don't have enough hours of full sun for them to grow, at least I have a bunch of cute punkins' decorating our front steps.

John put a temporary tattoo on his forehead because that seemed like a good idea.