Our Garden Has Heart

We've always put a lot of heart and soul into the gardens (it really is a labor of love!) but at the moment the garden specifically has a heart someone made out of bricks. It's up in the dog area, slowly being overtaken by weeds enjoying our winter sunshine. Stop by and enjoy a moment of 'heart' in the garden. You can also join us at our workday, Saturday February 7th to keep the garden in good shape.

Go see it in person; stunning combo
of rosemary and Chasmanthes

There are always reasons to visit the garden, and right now a bunch of flowers are bursting onto the scene; our daffodil collection is just starting to get going, and many other bright and cherry blooms can be found. Every year when the rosemary covers itself in light blueish-purple flowers I think about what an awesome plant it is - drought tolerant, fragrant, edible, showy, structural - and why I don't see more of it as a landscaping plant!

Birthday project

It's my birthday today and Matt and I decided the perfect way to celebrate was hit the garden for a little project.

On the way up there we weeded PRG and pruned a few things. Then we set about our task. We've been noticing that the Euphorbia mellifera in the middle front bed always looks ratty in midsummer, as it really needs a bit more water than it gets where we planted it. This year it looked rattier than ever, and finally half of it died. Time to go.

I pulled it out while Matt cut off the lower leaves of Moby Dick, the Agave americana variegata in that bed whose leaves that were crushing other plants nearby.

Then I rescued the Aeonium nobile remnants from the middle back bed and pruned them to shape to plant where the E. mellifera was. That bed is fast becoming the Aeonium showcase!

I grabbed some cuttings from a nearby Senecio serpens (Blue Chalksticks) and ta-dah! All done. Lots of before (left) and after (right) pics above.

Volunteer day lite

Today Matt, Anna and I had one volunteer at the volunteer day, but she was magic! Emily (not the usual Emily) has gardened before, and set about weeding the steps of yarrow, oxalis and all the other annoying weeds very skillfully. Quite a feat, given that they mingle so closely with the 'good" plants there, but the area is transformed.

Anna weeded the Triangle Garden, and I turned the compost and noted that next workday we'll have a full bin or maybe two to dig out and spread around the garden. I had wanted to rent a wood chipper so we could reduce the big compost heap behind the bins down to something more manageable, as all the branches there take years to compost. I'm betting there's 3' of compost under all that, which has built up over the last 6 years (!) but we can't get to it. Sadly the rental company didn't get back to me yesterday. Next time...

After that I planted three Aloe maculata in the middle back bed near the spot Matt improved today by adding rocks where the twig border had given up the ghost. I think the rocks look great - we should get more for areas like that.

Matt also pruned one of the Prunus cerasifera (Cherry plum) trees which hasn't been done in a long time - lots of nice straight branches available now for twig borders.