Garden Renovation Chapter 4

Today is November 23rd and I am still gardening! There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that Patty and I took eight days to attend a destination wedding in Aruba in the middle of the Fall season. That delayed my gardening schedule. But don’t think for a moment that I am sorry about that. The trip was awesome! The second reason is that the ground is still unfrozen and the construction of the new long perennial border is not complete. Global climate change is mostly bad for most people, but in this case it is helping me out.

There has been a whole lot of planting going on. The long border is 130 feet long and six feet wide. It mirrors the curve of the driveway. The first go-around of planting was with woody perennials such as three azaleas and three rose bushes. These were end of the season purchases from Home Depot at greatly reduced prices. I am ever the frugal Yankee. These bushes were joined by transplants from other garden beds on our property. Fountain grass, heleniums, hardy chrysanthemums, phlox and irises began to fill out the beds. This was a lot of work but I was very fortunate that my brother Walter joined me for a day of planting. We combined a 50/50 mix of peat moss and my own compost to amend the rather heavy topsoil before we transplanted in.

About at this point you may be wondering where most of the plants are in these pictures. We just have to go on faith because at this end of the growing season none of the plants look terribly inspiring. My hope is that by next summer I will be pleased with how it looks. But this plan (yes, I did put it down on paper first before planting) is just a first stab at a design and I wholly expect to be lifting and moving some plants next year as they begin to bloom and I say ”What was I thinking?!”

A great deal of the planting work was fitting in the forty large day lily plants I had rescued from the poison ivy infested remains of the former perennial garden. On top of that I had sixty one pots of Stella De Oro day lilies, also rescued from the former perennial garden. The Stella De Oro were chock full of perennial weeds and so I had to completely separate them into their individual tubers and then rejoin them in a pot of six or so apiece. They are shorter and so were planted in blocks at the front of the border. I then transplanted dwarf purple irises in blocks between the Stellas. But wait, there’s more!

Earlier in the season I had used sifted compost to mulch several established perennials in other garden beds. I did not realize that the compost was full of foxglove seeds. They germinated well so I decided to leave them until I could find a good home for them. Now was the time. Just in time too, as the ground is about to freeze up for the winter in the next day or two. After moving them into the bed I covered them up with empty pots to protect them from the next stage in the operation.

If there is one thing I have in abundance here in the Fall it is leaves and pine needles. So I have begun putting them through my shredder to produce a mulch to cover the long perennial border for the winter. In the spring I will move the mulch slightly to the side of each plant to cover the ground and reduce (one can never totally eliminate) the weeds that will inevitably grow.

I am looking forward to the border providing a variety of blooms next Spring. In addition the newly planted fringe tree should provide a backdrop of cascading white flowers. I have wrapped the trunks with a barrier to discourage voles from gnawing on the bark under cover of the snow this winter. The trunk flare is still exposed though so I think I will be adding a mound of moth balls as a stinky barrier.

This project has been a labor of love. The cost in terms of money, time and effort have been significant. But of course it is not done. Gardens are never done. They are always a work in progress, perennial or not. That is part of the enjoyment I get from gardening. So Stay tuned to this blog site for lots of flower pictures in the next growing season, and our next landscape transformation.