Tornados, Inspiration Photos & Update

What a storm yesterday!  I got home from work just in time to make it inside before it started pouring.  It got so dark so suddenly, and then the wind picked up out of nowhere and blew so hard I thought it was going to tear our screen door right off when I opened it to head out to the porch to check on my plants.  I literally had to use all of my weight and force it back to a closed position.

I have several plants in various pots and containers along the ledge of our porch and I wanted to get them down onto the porch floor for protection – just in the short time it took me to get outside and close the door, one or two had already fallen.  Luckily they were okay.  I was a little worried about getting hit on the head by any number of large terra cotta pots, but I made it, and so did all of the plants!

There are trees down all over the neighborhood, though.  One tree fell over the subway tracks where the train goes above ground in a nearby neighborhood and the passengers were stuck for a while – bad time to be on a train.

It was kind of scary and a little exciting, and just a good reminder of what a powerful force wind is.  Wow.

Everything else in the ground is faring pretty well – at least nothing appears to be shriveling up and dying, so that’s good!  The hostas and the lamb’s ears  in particular seem to be happy to be in the ground and are thriving.

On Monday the wood will be cleared from the sides of the driveway and I’ll soon be able to plant the rest of the goods in there.  Last week I put at least a dozen (if not more) pieces of paper all around the yard in various areas where I’d like to plant, weighed them each down with a stone, and as of 8:30am began recording – every hour on the hour – what the light conditions were in that area.

I have a little map drawn of the yard and the driveway, so once my experiment was done I was able to write down on the map the number of hours of sunlight each location truly receives (in mid September, anyway) as well as what kind of shade – full shade, dappled, etc.

The driveway is shady!  I knew that, but it was still a little shocking to look at the  information and discover wow – only 2 to 3 solid hours of sunlight over here!  Some sections received only 1 to 2.

The yard is pretty varied – the most sunlight in any given spot was about 5 hours – and that’s really 3 1/2 hours of full sun and then partial sun / dappled shade for the remaining 1 1/2 hours.  It’s good to know.

I like having a shadier yard.  I prefer it to sitting in the full sun, and all of the trees provide interesting foliage and height and texture – it all makes it feel a little more cozy and enclosed – like a hidden place you stumble upon in Prospect Park.

I’ve been looking at a lot of seed sites, garden blogs, and gardening forums and have saved several pictures that made me look twice.  If I don’t write it down or save a photo, I’ll forget!  In no particular order, here are several that inspired me this week:

the colors in this photo above are a little bright / hot for my taste, but I love the feel and the height – everything seems so un-contained…which I like.

This is probably a little more picture-perfect than I’ll ever strive to be, but I do love this combination of textures and heights.  I adore the foxgloves, and those dark red asiatic lilies behind the roses are stunning.  I love the roses too, although I’m not sure I’d ever be able to grow them where I am – maybe in a container on the sunny concrete “patio,” which actually does receive full sun nearly all day.

I like this layout and combination.  Again with the foxgloves.  I like that there’s nothing uniform about the placement of the tall plants – it just looks more natural to me.  The birdhouse is sweet and the thing I might like the most is the stack of containers they’ve used to add some more height and let some color spill out.  Note to self:  use containers and pots in and among the other planted / growing plants!

How much do I love this little bowl of deliciousness?  A whole lot.  Everything from the blue pot to the different colors and textures of the succulents – love the little red-tipped one in the center.

More scrumptious succulents…love this arrangment.

Okay.  Now how does one do THIS?  Where are the pots? Where is the soil?  Are these plants going to literally weigh on each other and kill those underneath?  I love this idea and I think it’s really lovely how they look like they are spilling right out of the box, but I wonder how long something like this could last?

My new favorite, Ruby Crystal Grass.  So, so lovely.  It seems a little hard to find.  I don’t know if I’d have an appropriate place for this anyway – maybe at the end of the driveway?  It sure is a beauty, though.

I kind of like plain old terra cotta myself and must confess that none of my socks are this funky and cool, but I sure do appreciate the spirit of this idea.  Why the heck not?

Ahhh….this photo just makes me relax.  It’s one of my favorites.  I kind of love that it’s mostly green with the natural brown of the trees and fence.  The little splash of lavender and blue down in the bottom right corner is very simple and sweet.  I appreciate the space left between the stones for the ground covers to fill in.

We hope to do something similar to this in our yard in a shady patch where grass won’t grow (and who wants to mow more grass than you have to anyway?)  The previous tenants left behind 20 large square reddish-colored concrete blocks – each is about 2 inches high and about 12″ x 12″.  We aren’t sure why all of these blocks were left arranged in a rectangle right over the grass  under a fig tree…maybe it was where they set up the grill?  It seems an odd place to us and we’ve decided to take the blocks and use them as “stepping stones” to create a path through one section of the yard.  We’ll fill the area around and among the stones with various ground covers and hope that it takes on the look / feeling of this photo.  It will be nice for people to be able to stand in / walk through / explore more of the yard without too much concern that the ground covers will get destroyed.  At least this is the plan.

The red square stones we have aren’t as nice looking as the ones in this photo, but they are there and they are free and they will serve the purpose.  We’re looking forward to this project one day soon!

That’s all  for now – updates coming soon!

Report from the Garden Coach…

Last night Frank from New York City Garden came by our place to check out the space, answer some questions, and give me some general advice and suggestions.

He’s a great guy and extremely knowledgeable when it comes to gardening / landscaping.  He was definitely a big help – thanks for coming out, Frank!

Here’s what we found out:

Frank identified several “mystery” trees on the property.  Surprise, surprise, several of them are “weed trees” that just went unchecked and have now become large, well-established trees.  Some of these trees are currently providing some privacy along our fence line, which is nice, but Frank reminded me that they will also provide competition for nutrients and water.  Perhaps I might like to have something else in their place?  Hmmm.

The yard also has one large sycamore tree and unfortunately it is not doing well.  The upper branches are dead and the tree appeared to be on the sick side.  If it continues this way it could present a danger in big windstorms, since it is so close to the house.  Hmm.  Tree removal is expensive, and would be up to our landlord.   This will be put on the back burner.

Rose of Sharon in the yard – sadly, this old tree is not doing well either.   The bark was dry and brittle and it’s producing very few flowers.  It’s also casting shade in a yard where sunlight is hard to come by.  Hmmm.  I do love this tree – it’s right outside of our bedroom, is nice to look at, and provides a bit of privacy.  But…I can tell that it is not in great shape.  I’m considering pruning it way back early next spring to see what, if anything, happens.  The other large Rose of Sharon in the driveway is doing much better.  It is also every old and very large, but it’s bark looks completely different and it is healthier in general.  I’m going to prune it back next spring too, and hopefully it will continue to do well.

It turns out the large, willowy, out-of-control trees along both sides of the driveway are untamed forsythias!  Who knew?  It sounds like they’ve been left to their own devices for a long time, and Frank wasn’t sure that they would bloom.  We’ll see if they do next spring, and if so, I’ll prune them back after flowering and see how they fare.  If they don’t bloom, maybe one day we’ll think about replacing them with something else we’d rather have there?  In the meantime, these old, established trees will be competition for my other plants.  Hmmm.

Soil.  It needs amending, which is no shocker.  Frank was able to dig into it pretty easily in a few places, a good foot deep.  He said it smelled alright, but overall it is pretty thin and very, very dry.  He was encouraged by seeing a few earthworm  holes, but we didn’t see any actual worms.  So it’s not horrible, but it does need help.  The good news is Frank says I can grow in this soil, so that makes me happy.  I’m having a hell of a time finding finished compost anywhere, though, which is a bummer.  I don’t need enough to qualify for delivery from some of the larger places who have it, and I probably need too much to buy it by the bag and haul it home.  Hmmm.   It’s not free, either.  I may have to decide between just amending one area, like the yard, and waiting on the driveway till next year (or just planting in the driveway without amending the soil and see what happens?)  Either that, or I’ll have to work fewer bags into all the areas….

The holly bush  – it’s a little out of control, and it’s providing direct competition to (and slightly overtaking) the sickly Rose of Sharon AND the hydrangea next to it.  I’m not a huge fan of the holly and it’s in one of the sunniest spots we have, so I’m in favor of removing it completely (which the landlords seemed okay with me doing) and taking advantage of that sunny spot to put in something else – a flowering quince?  A peony?  Another hydrangea?

The hydrangea – it is indeed an Annabelle variety, as I suspected based on the website / photos that Bev sent me.  That means it will most likely flower every year, no matter what I do to it.  Awesome.  Sound like I can prune it in Fall or Winter – just not in Spring or Summer when it’s preparing to bloom.

Frank thought the plants that Bev gave me were largely good candidates for the space, and he delivered the good news that a few others that I’ve had my eye on – Goats Beard and Astilbe in particular, should be great choices for our conditions.  He had a few other recommendations for me in the plant department, and he suggested a good nursery in Brooklyn that has decent prices and decent owners.  Good to know.

He had a great idea for this odd drainage pit under our kitchen window.  It’s about 4 feet deep and about 4 feet in diameter as well.  In order to take advantage of that space and yet not interfere with its purpose, Frank suggested eventually building a tiny “deck” or table – like a platform on legs, basically, over the pit so that we could put potted plants or bird feeders or whatever we want on the raised platform, which would be level with the ground so that we could step onto it.  I love this idea – it would be nice to have something right out our kitchen window, plants or birds or both.

Another great suggestion – planting a tree peony in a pot so that I can move it to another location if it doesn’t like where it’s been placed – as a way to decide on a more permanent location for it or another peony.  Sounds like a good way to see if there’s a place with enough sun, or what the plant will do with the amount of sunlight it can get in our yard.

We talked about ground cover possibilities to help cover the areas where grass doesn’t want to grow, and Frank talked to me about considering structure and function in our yard…how we want to be able to use it, etc.

It was all very helpful and I sure have a lot to think about.  Frank really stressed that it’s an ever-changing, ongoing process, forever!  He reminded me that you don’t have to try and do everything at once, nor should you.  So, I have a few things that will be longer-term projects to think on (some of the trees, removal of some existing plants, creating more privacy, etc.) and some things that will be on a more immediate “to-do” list – amending the soil being at the top of his list, if possible.

I’m going to do some digging / turning over the soil this weekend and just do some thinking. …or rather what I like to call “non-thinking.”  Repetitive actions like digging tend to “zen” me out and sometimes my better ideas come out of this combination of physical work and “non-thinking.”  We’ll see if I have any inspirations!

I will also try to track down at least a couple of bags of an organic, finished compost to start so that I can get some of Bev’s plants in the ground.  Very exciting!  I’ve drawn a few “maps” on graph paper – rough drafts, I’m sure, with possible locations for various plants and seeds.  Once I put things in, I’ll have to make a “finished” map so that I can remember what went where and keep track of whether seeds come up or not next year.

This weekend will be the first real step forward in the the creation of our garden!  I can hardly stand the suspense.