Blog de Puree » Gardening/Yard

Protected: M shares with his brother, Bouche

paul — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 02:28:50 +0000

Our boxwood shrubs-a year later

paul — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:00:15 +0000

After purchasing and planting our ‘Winter Gem’ boxwood shrubs from Lowe’s last year (See last year’s blog post here), we are happy to see that our border experiment is working.

To start, we planted what we called the “Boxwood shade gardens,” one on each side of our front steps to fill in the area that was formerly taken up by overgrown Yews. We planted a variety of flowers and flowering plants to provide color from early spring into mid fall. You can read about our shade gardens here.

Once the flowers were planted, life with these two gardens became a simple matter of routine maintenance, such as weeding, chipping and so on.

Now, more than a year later, the boxwoods themselves are thriving and we have nearly achieved the look we were going for in the original post, which was to have a continuous line of boxwood to server as a planting bed border. The boxwoods have not completely filled in yet, but we expect that to take another year or two because we did not put them in root ball to root ball. However, the ‘Winter Gem’ varietal does grow to three feet spread, so we’re not too concerned about the space filling in. Also, they were trimmed in the spring and already will easily need another trimming in the spring of next year.

A closeup look at the Boxwood shade gardens

paul — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:27:35 +0000

The Boxwood shade gardens at our house, which flank the front steps, are the final vision for our replacement of the original Yew hedges that were here when we bought our house. I’ve blogged about them before, but wanted to provide some links to images and show the original plan we worked from.

Each item on the list above is linked so you can see what all the flowers will look like. Randye even created a plot plan for us to work with in order to maximize the season color from early spring to early winter. That way, there will be visual interest for the better part of the year. Here’s what they will look like from a planning standpoint.

A new front walkway

paul — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:46:41 +0000

Red square pavers are kind of boring for a walkway. At least, we thought so.

One of the many projects this spring was to replace the lame red stone pavers in the front with irregular shaped pieces of gray slate, some with orange streaks and tinges. This was to create a more organic looking walkway.

After looking through tons of gardening and landscaping books and catalogs for inspiration and ideas, I settled on a simplified design for typical stone walkways. Simple because I’m just one man, and also because anything more would start to get a bit price prohibitive. What we ended up with as a cross between an informal woodsy stone pathway and a softened formal look with the creeping thyme and the use of single stones.

Here’s what we did.

Took out the old red brick pavers.
Widened the walkway area with a pick mattock and a shovel.
Dug trenches along both sides and inserted bendable landscaping borders to separate the walkway from the lawn. This will keep the grass from invading the walkway space and help to keep the mower off the chips for now. I also took the edging and wrapped it around the Boxwood shade gardens, but I’ll get to that in another post.
Installed the slate. Each piece sits on a bed of fine send to keep them from wobbling and moving. Our walkway consists of 14 pieces of gray slate that are slightly offset from a center line to give it a more organic feel. We set them off from center because we did not have a enough for a more typical stone walkway that uses more pieces and allows more flexibility of design.
Along the sides and between the slate, I planted 40 seedlings of Creeping Thyme, which we grew for two months this spring in a special seed-starting Bio Dome. (These are great for buying seeds on the cheap and planting your own flowers, shrubs, etc.) This will eventually fill in the dead spots, surrounding the stone with a bright green and durable carpet of scented thyme. You can also mow over it–a bonus.
Filled in topsoil around the slate and thyme.
Since the thyme is new, I added mulch to protect the plants, soil and give it a natural brown color to mix with the earthen green and gray.

Here’s the fruit of our labor for the new front walkway.

The new stone walkway. The dirt patches are filling in dips in the lawn.
They are seeded and we’ll get a thick bed of grass.

Finishing the shade gardens

paul — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:37:32 +0000

Save for a few final touches, the Boxwood shade gardens and the Maple shade garden are finished.

Last week, the top soil (Loom/Loam) finally arrived and I was able to fill the raised Maple shade garden planter. Once that step was completed, I planted the flowers and bushes that had previously arrived and which were waiting patiently on the font porch.

The Maple shade garden, which resides in the front corner of the yard under our gigantic Sugar Maple Tree contains the following which provide seasonal to semi-evergreen color:

We’re still undecided as to a final plant for the middle area of the Maple shade garden, but we’re in no rush. Everything else should fill in quite nicely within the next couple of years.

The finished Maple shade garden.

Viewing the Maple shade garden from our front steps.

And we even put in the information tabs that you can stick into the ground so that those walking by on the sidewalk can see what they’re looking at.

The east and west Boxwood shade gardens are also almost complete, save for a few blue poppies. These two gardens reside at the front of the house, flanking the front steps. Soon to be peeking out behind the low-cut Korean boxwood shrubs will be:

The Boxwood shade gardens were planted for maximum seasonal color in mind. Theoretically, we should have vibrant color in front of the house from early spring into early winter.

They’re hardly sprigs now, but wait a few months, or even a season or two!

I suspect that everything will be a bit scant this season, but if these flowers and shrubs perform the same way as our side shade garden, next year should be a phenomenal show.

A jack-hammering, planter-box building, flower planting weekend

paul — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:57:08 +0000

This weekend, I tackled a number of yard projects that had to get done early this spring in order to be ready for other projects to come when the weather warmed. While it was a bit chilly (40 to 50 degrees) and there was still snow on the ground, it was warm enough to break a sweat.Here’s the breakdown of what needed to be done.

Remove the cement walkway that extended from the front of the house and went around and along the side yard.
Transplant some of the Korean boxwoods to enlarge one of the front planting beds in the front of the house.
Amend the soil in the two front planting beds.
Build a planter box under the sugar maple tree in the front of the yard for a shade garden. (Top soil should be arriving later this week.)
Plant some of the perennial flowers that have already started to arrive by mail.

Saturday morning started early. I shot off to Home Depot and rented a demolition jackhammer for four hours in order to blast through and break up the 6 to 12-inch thick concrete walkway. Here’s a quick video of the project that lay before me as well as some during after photographs.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The cement was a bit ornery. The recent snow-melt had created a good, wet suction that made it tough to pull up the chunks. It was a wet, messy day.

This is about 45 minutes into the job.

Just over two hours in. The entire sidewalk along the side hasbeen
turned to rubble and just the front portion remains.

Randye takes a quick shot of the handsome, iron workhorse. Um, that would be me.

And done! Three hours later and not a moment to spare.
I quickly cleaned the gear and returned it to the store.

It was about 2 p.m. when I came home from returning the jackhammer and a couple bags of top soil. I snarfed lunch, pounded a liter of water and moved boxwoods, which took about an hour-and-a-half.

Moving the boxwoods at this time of year probably wasn’t the smartest thing I could have done, but flowers had already started to arrive and we needed to make room. When transplanting the shrubs, I used copious amounts of water and fresh soil that was created for trees and shrubs.

End of day 1. I took two Advil, a luke warm bath because I’m a nimrod and started laundry before drawing water for the bath, ate dinner and collapsed on the couch like a sack of jelly.

Day 2 was less windy and felt warmer, although the thermostat told otherwise.I started with a trip to Lowe’s, this time for garden soil and those special super-sized popsicle sticks that you can use for labeling plants and flowers in the garden. Upon returning, I started the raised planting bed that here-to-fore will be referred to as the maple shade garden.

The wood used was recycled from a neighbor’s fence. I snagged five square fence posts and six 12-foot pieces of clapboard. I cut the posts 20 inches tall, so that after the entire bed was finished, only eight inches of post and board would stick up from the soil line and so that it would be secure enough below-grade.

This is the new maple shade garden, viewing it from the front steps. It will be painted a dark blue green color to stay with a natural tone but offset the greens, yellows and reds of what will be planted. Blend but accent!

This is how the maple shade garden would look if you were walking up the sidewalk and saying, “Gosh, Paul that’s fantastic work there. The yard is really staring to come together!” Then I would say, “Awww, it’s nothing, but thank you kindly, neighbor.”

With the planting bed finished, it was time to snarf lunch. Then it was on to toiling in the eastern front flower garden because the one on the west side was still frozen. Ahh, the pleasures of gardening in March in New England.

With our flower bed plot plan in hand, I staked out where the flowers would go, labeling those that I was able to plant immediately.

Nah, we’re not organized! But this super-duper plan-del-e-icious is going to
guarantee flowering interest from early spring through early fall.

This innocent little sprig-of-a-Liriope will eventually turn into…

…this beauty!

To this point, we’ve planted Merrybells, Jacob’s Ladder, Liriope, and Mixed Columbine.

With the flowers on hand planted, I dragged my tired, aching behind into our home for a hot shower and to spend the rest of the day with my wife and son. And some Advil.

A dash of Gloucester granite to the stone wall

paul — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:40:24 +0000

We made more progress on our stone wall this week.

A colleague and good friend of mine lives near some deserted granite quarries in Gloucester. After talking about the slow progress of our stone wall, she offered all the rocks I could fit in my car from the huge pile of rock and granite near the back of her property. I was amazed at all the deserted rough chunks of material from the old quarries, some of which was dug up during her yard projects and the rest which was just strewn about the area from past quarry operations.

After a little research, I discovered that Gloucester had a booming granite trade in the 19th and early 20th century, with over 25 small quarries around the Cape Ann peninsula. Once residents and businessmen realized that the precious stone could be quarried from the area, granite became another mainstay of the Gloucester economy, in addition to its fishing industry, until the 1930′s. However, there has been no major quarrying in the area since. Today, there is only one functioning quarry in the area.

According to the Annisquam Granite Company website, much of it is now “extinct, overgrown, paved over, filled with water, fenced off, taken for municipal property, buried under condo developments, or otherwise generally lost.” I also discovered that most of the granite for the Charlestown and Portsmouth Navy yards was from Gloucester.

I was like a kid in a candy shop. The only thing that stopped me was the need to prevent the tailpipe of my car all the way back to Amesbury from Cape Ann.

Once the rock and granite was safely back at our yard, it was time for a bit of wall reorganization. I took the pristine river and beach rock from the bottom middle rows (There’s only one row at this point) and used the Gloucester granite to take it’s place as base stone and filler. Then I started completing the final outside row. Now the bottom layer of the entire wall is almost finished.

I can also now brag that we have a stone wall made of famous Gloucester granite and finely smoothed sea and river rock.

(Sorry, no pictures. Did you really want to look at a pile of rocks?)

Finally, the boxwood shrubs are planted!

paul — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:14:24 +0000

Two months after making my original order for 25 boxwood shrubs with Lowes, they finally arrived. It was the wrong cultivar and size, but as it is August, with the growing season closing fast and the fact that this variety is still evergreen in our particular zone, I threw up my hands and bought them anyway.

Despite the fact that it was one of the worst customer service experiences I’ve ever had, which includes a pathetic lack of communication from the manager who made the order and his poor handling of trying to ship the plants I wanted from other stores, he did right by me in the end, and sold me 3-gallon $19 plants for the price of the 1-gallon $6 plants.

So, instead of the Buxus microphylla japonica ‘Wintergreen’ boxwoods, which are very cold hardy, great for creating hedges and great for pruning, we now have the Buxus microphylla ‘Winter Gem’ variety. The Winter Gem is almost as hardy as the former, and is also great for hedges and trimming. While the differences are small, especially as you compare other details between the two, they are important for serious and semi-serious gardeners and growers.

When we went to pick them up, the manager who had sold us the shrubs asked us if we had a pickup truck to bring them all home. “Nah,” I calmly said. “I’ve got a VW Golf.” He raised an eyebrow and offered to watch those that couldn’t fit in the car for the first trip, until we came back for the 2nd trip. The employee who helped us load them from the rack to our VW Golf told us that his buddy, who happened to be hanging around, was skeptical that we’d be able to fit them all in at once. But they didn’t know what our little bat could do. (That’s what we call the black Golf.) In the end, we squeezed 24 in the back, creating a small boxwood forest and fit one, well, check the pictures.

(24 3-gallon boxwood shrubs crammed into the back of our trusty VW Golf.)

(And the final shrub in the front of the car, with Randye.)

In the end, Randye and I are quite pleased with the outcome. I spent five hours on Sunday morning planting all 25 of them in front of the house, in the spot where the gigantic yew bushes used to grow. Now we have two rounded border areas for planting tall and colorful shade-tolerant flowers that will bloom from spring to late summer. And when those die back, we still have the evergreen color of the boxwoods. Of course, it’s all according to our master yard plan, which I’ve included at the end of this post. Here’s how I planted the shrubs. (Queue music, please.)

(The front of the house, before I started, and how it looked for weeks before the shrubs arrived. Bare and ugly.)

(Another shot, before I started at 8:30 a.m. The growth that you do see here is weeds.)

(I started with digging the ditch on the left side of the front steps, battling my way through residual roots systems from the old yew bushes)

(Then I dug the ditch on the right side of the front steps. The ditches on both sides were about a foot deep—the height of the 3-gallon pots. As I was planting so many shrubs together, about 4 to 6 inches apart (almost root ball to root ball), it was easiest to just dig a trench in the shape that I wanted to plant the shrubs.)

(The finished product, about 4-and-a-half hours later. The shrubs make a gentle curve around the sides of the house, creating deep planting beds behind in which to grow tall and colorful flowers. The shrubs will grow in, creating a continuous wall of shrub that creates a solid evergreen border for the new flower bed.)

(Here’s a layout, courtesy of the magazine Cottage Living, where we got the idea to have flower beds outside the windows bordered by evergreen boxwood shrubs.)

(With a year or two of growth and some careful pruning, our shrubs and flower bed should look a little like this photo, also courtesy of Cottage Living. We’re going to plant a variety of tall flowers that will bloom in the spring, mid or late summer. We’ll also probably plant a low purplish ground cover in front of the shrubs to create a sense of colorful depth and drama.)

Planting wintergreen: Our first experience with ground cover

paul — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 11:56:56 +0000

There are some interesting dynamics around the perimeter of our yard because we live on a corner lot. Along the two sides that face the street, there is a lot of foot traffic, dog walkers and people who like to park their cars partially on the grass.

The people walking around the neighborhood aren’t an issue, but I’m quite tired of stepping in dog waste when I walk around my yard and trying to regrow patches of grass that have been decimated by car tires.

On the west side of our yard, I have yet to come up with a solution, but the front yard is starting to come together. We’ve started building a stone wall by slowly collecting rocks from the woods, the beach and Craigslist when someone is trying to get rid of theirs. Behind the stone wall will be a chipped border that will be planted with tall flowers such as foxglove and lupine, depending on the sun/shade conditions with the huge Sugar Maple tree there. In front of the stone wall, will be wintergreen ground cover.

Wintergreen is an interesting plant. It produces oils that are used in candy and gum and the leaves can be used to make wintergreen tea. It is also an evergreen plant that keeps bright red berries long into the winter to feed birds. Wintergreen grows to about six inches tall and creeps along ground, thus its other name, Creeping Wintergreen.

In addition to giving our home more street appeal and providing food for the local critters during the long New England winters, our hope is that the wintergreen will prevent local dogs from defecating in front of the stone wall.

(The baby wintergreen along our front yard.)

Retraining the leader of our Japanese Cherry Tree

paul — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:35:38 +0000

Trees often have a mind of their own, as our Japanese Flowering Cherry tree demonstrated when it was planted on the east side of our yard, in our front lawn. The leader, or main part of the trunk that typically extends straight up was disappointingly small and one of the branches grew large and strong toward the east to get out from under the shade of our gigantic Sugar Maple tree. (A poor location choice on my part when originally planting the cherry tree.)

As I blogged earlier this summer, I transplanted a number of trees around the yard to better locations and the Japanese Flowering Cherry Tree was moved to the top corner of our driveway. Once the tree was moved, I was hoping that the leader would get a chance at more sun and grow quickly. It did, but not as much as the other main branch, which went gang-busters, causing me to have to restake the tree for better support.

I observed that the point where the large branch and the leader separated was not a perfect angle, in that the leader did not go straight up at that particular point, but pointed off to the side a bit, then straightened where I had it secured to a stake. I decided that it would be OK to make the large branch the leader.

I took the large branch and gently straightened it, securing the now-upper parts of the branch to the stake. The branch is still young and supple, so I was able to move it fairly easily. There is a bit of a bow where it branches from the former leader, but that has actually lessened and began to straighten over the last two weeks.

The new leader is growing tall, straight and strong and the tree looks better and healthier. I also won’t have to prune the largest and most prolific branch this next spring.