Gardening and Landscaping

I have been really productive so far this summer.  Along with the garden up north (twice planting peppers because the deer ate them the first time), I’ve been working a lot around my house.

I added the peacocks to the rock garden. I still need to add more mulch.  Next year, I might try. to add a bunch of succulents.

I finally finished putting plants around the post my dad and I put up early this spring.

from the front (I might try to find some garden gnome or something to add interest. We’ll see.

I really like it.  I’ll bring my rosemary back in to overwinter; I also will bring in the miniature lime tree; I will try to overwinter the coleus and geraniums as well.

Looking at it from the house.

I also started clearing the herb garden.  Because of the recent rains, I had to let it dry for a couple of days before I could do anything.

I removed the bird feeders and pulled up the landscape fabric and mulch I had put down for weed control.

Look!  My rose is blooming!

While it was drying, I took the landscape fabric and mulch and hauled them to the other side of the Morton building.

It’s all laid out for my hosta bed. (Sky and Skittles checking things out)

I used them to finish around the hostas.  I will say, the fence is there to keep them safe from my dog peeing on them.

I can’t wait to see it all filled in with mature hostas. I might add a rock border (because I have a ton of rocks.

By the time I finished with that, the herb garden was dry enough that I could till it.

Thanks to my dad for letting me use his hand tiller.

I’m pretty sure that is a sunflower that grew from my bird feeders.  I decided to leave it.

It smoothed out and looked much better than I thought it might.

Then I planted four rows of green beans.

I can’t grow them in the north garden because the groundhogs eat them.

I also put a cherry tomato, two basil plants, and a bell pepper in there as well.

That’s the strawberry bed in the back and my vertical garden between the new plants and the strawberries.

My final work in the herb garden for this year was digging up some paving stones from in front of the well house.

This has been neglected for twenty years; a lot of the stones were completely buried.

I used them to put a walking path in the herb garden instead.

I like having a border. I still need to add a bit more mulch around those plants (the new rhubarb is settling in nicely).

I do still have some patio work to do, including the space in front of the well house, but I’ve made a lot of progress.

I don’t even know what I’m going to do here–maybe pull in an old pond form I have.

There’s still a lot of cleanup on the patio, and I want to do something of a nicer fence around the herb garden.

Now I just need to find some time to sit out there and enjoy the space, including the new begonia I got as a center piece.

It’s a Begonia Bossa Nova.

It’s another one I can bring in over the winter.