Garden Transformation

In 1977 we moved into our little cottage nestled into an apple orchard. By 1978 we were ready to diversify the fruit tree plantings and began with a Reliance peach tree. Through the years we harvested many more peaches than I could ever count. But alas, peach trees don’t last forever and so last year it finally died after declining health and I had to cut it down. This year I finally got around to renovating the daylilly/hosta garden surrounding the base of the peach tree stump.

(Note: If you click on the arrow between the pictures below you can then drag the arrow to the right and to the left to see the full image for each picture.)

The first step was to dig out the common orange daylily bed and common green hostas. Daylilies are so tough that it is not recommended to try to compost their tubers as they will just start growing up out of the compost pile. But I thought I would give it a try anyway. In the picture above at the edge of the woods the pile of daylilies can just be seen. I moved the hostas to a spot at the base of a large pine tree where our kid’s rough sand play area had been thirty years ago. In digging there I discovered a plastic toy from 1985.

The soil left after removing the plants was full of daylilly tubers, rocks, roots and weeds so I set out to sift the soil. That was a lot of work but well worth it as I took three and a half wheel barrow loads out. What I discovered upon removing the soil was my perennial nemesis in gardening here at the top of a rocky ridge, ledge. So I dug out my father in law Dan Smith’s small sledge and stone chisel. After removing some, but not all of the offending rock I thought of the saying, ”Perfect is the enemy of good.” So I decided that the future plants would just have to grow around the remaining rock.

Having taken out three wheelbarrow loads of day lilies, ten hosta plants and three loads of rocks, roots and tubers I was ready to add compost back in. Three loads were spread and dug in to add nutrients and humus to a soil that hadn’t had any goodness added for decades. I was finally ready to plant. The next step was taking iris, fancy daylily and hardy chrysanthemum plants from other places in the yard to plant in this new garden. Easier said than done!

Our old perennial garden has reverted to weeds and worse, poison ivy. So when I dug good perennials out of it I had to separate them from the weeds, not an easy job. At least the light yellow and light blue iris plants that came from my brother Walter’s garden were potted up and in good shape. My goal is to have color in this garden from early spring to late fall. Daffodils and dwarf purple iris will be followed by blue and yellow iris and then deep purple and dark yellow iris. July and August will have yellow, red, orange, pink and peach colored daylilies. There will be late (September blooming) pink, orange and yellow day lilies followed by three different colored chrysanthemums to bring us into October.

First I inventoried the plants to go into the garden. Then I calculated the space need for each plant and made a map of where each should go. My color sense is one of my weaknesses so I made sure to get Patty’s opinion as to what colors should go next to each other. The finished product is not impressive at this point in time, with the foliage trimmed back but I hope that the next growing season will fill in the spaces and we will enjoy an attractive garden, for many years to come!