South Eastern Connecticut Landscaping

I think in many ways March is the busiest month in the garden. So many chores need tackled this time of year from mulching to pruning to planting that sometimes it’s hard to figure out what to tackle first! Among the major chores like lawn mower servicing and tree planting there are quite a few little chores.  Like trimming back the liriope in my corner garden bed. The bed is tucked into a corner between my front sidewalk and the driveway. Many people simply take their mower or string trimmer and cut back the liriope but I can’t do that. I interplanted daffodils that are coming up through the liriope foliage. The handpruners will be good enough and since I really don’t have a large area to cover it won’t take long. In the past the rabbits have nibbled the liriope down – but not this year. (Also in that same bed I have daylilies and a rose bush.)

Another minor garden chore that needs done is in this little patio garden bed. The brown grass of my ponytail grass (Stipa tenuissima or Nassella tenuissima) needs cleaned out to let the new blades of grass show off. The Japanese maple also needs pruned. Many of the branches that cross over through the plant should be removed.

If we move in a little closer we can see the hyacinths coming up. Unfortunately my culinary sage is completely shielding them from view. The sage needs trimmed back to encourage a bushier plant but also to allow the spring blooming hyacinths their moment in the sun.

I’ll talk more later about the other garden chores on my list but I’ll put the list below so you can see what else needs done!

The Home Garden Chore List: March of 2011

• Mulch the garden beds
  • Front Gardens – done
  • Corner Shade Garden
  • Back of house Garden
  • Deck and Patio Gardens
  • Vegetable Garden
  • Garden Shed Beds
• Prune
  • Crape myrtles
  • Redbuds – after blooming
  • Caryopteris
  • Japanese Dappled Willows
• Garden Fence
  • Dig Post Holes for Garden Fence
  • Gather materials for posts
  • Set posts
• Plant
  • Dogwood
  • Irises
  • Dianthus
  • Plants propagated last year
  • Anything else I buy!

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I think it’s important for anyone interested in gardening to visit the local garden shows every now and then. Nashville’s Lawn and Garden Show was this past weekend and I stopped up to pay a visit. Overall it was a nice show but I have to say I wasn’t as impressed with it as I was last year. The display gardens of last year seemed more creative and unique while the vendor selection was a little better. Most likely it’s because of our current lackluster economy. Despite that fact there were still a few things that I found worthy of mentioning – and a for taking a few pictures!

The Gardens of Babylon had this demonstration garden set up for aquaponics. Aquaponics is a growing system that uses fish and plants together to sustain each other. The fish water feeds the plants which helps them to grow.

Espalier displays could be seen in several areas. Espalier is a very cool pruning technique but I have to say it takes more time to do it properly than I would be willing to spend. It would definitely be worthwhile for someone with just a little gardening area who wanted to grow fruit trees.

There were lots of water features.

Many of the display gardens featured edible plants. In this picture there are several kinds of spring vegetables.

Need a new ornament to add to your front garden? Why not try this big head made from carved wood? Bring that Easter Island feel to your garden! I would put one in but then my neighbors would just say that I had a big head…

If you’re crazy about eights you might try growing your vegetables in a figure 8 planting bed! Who 8 the garden?

I liked how this garden with the Japanese maple spilled out from the stone bed and poured out the tulips.  The stone walkway was a nice feature as well.

Of all the water features I thought the following two were the most creative. This first one was made from several hypertufa leaf castings put together into a multi-tiered fountain.

This other water feature was actually built into a rustic table. The water spilled out from the side of the table into a small pool with a few water plants.

It was a good show but not as strong as in the past. When I go to a garden show I expect to see something new, something creative, or something very unique and I really didn’t get that feeling this year. If you want to see a list of the display gardens and who made them you should check out the display garden page.

What was the most unique garden display you’ve observed at a garden show?

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Posted by mgervais

Today’s photo is from Gail Gee in Fulton, Maryland. She says, “This area of my garden is planted in all cool colors– pinks, blues, and silvers. The bed  is heavily planted with…

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This week I actually found myself outdoors sowing seeds directly into the soil of my garden. Thanks to wonderful Tennessee weather, where you can count on a few days of warm even in February, we’re able to plant a few cool season crops this month.

So far in the vegetable garden I’ve planted:

• Lettuce – two varieties Little Gem, and Tom Thumb
• Spinach – a hybrid
• Sugar snap peas
• Garlic (done in the fall)
• Cilantro (self-sows regularly in the fall)

I planted the lettuce and spinach into my circular raised bed that just recently was put together. I arranged three sticks to divide the area into six sections. Four of the sections are planted and soon I’ll fill the last two with my red lettuce. If we get some really cold weather these plants may need some covering.

I’m planting the sugar snap peas everywhere I can this year. They are delicious right out of the garden and we never seem to have enough. They rarely even make it into the house! Once they have stopped producing we’ll let the foliage die back and nourish the soil with the nitrogen it fixed while growing. Legumes are a great resource! About that time I’ll be able to plant my tomatoes in the garden in and around the fast fading peas.

 

How are your seeds coming?

To join in on Seed Sowing Saturday just link back to this post and tell us about your seed sowing experiences over the past week. Be sure to leave a link below so we can come over and visit your post! Oh, and a Tweet or a Facebook mention/like is always a good thing!

Visit these Seed Starters!

• Sarah at Green Love Grass
• Lynda at Cortina Creek
• Tervy at Garden G’Imp
• Shannon at The Garden State

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This weekend’s weather was a sign that there really is a light at the end of this dark tunnel we call winter – and it’s not another trains headlight! Spring is coming and the warm weather that we’re having this week has me itching to get in the garden – which is exactly what I did over the weekend – without the itching part! I managed to accomplish many of the clean-up chores that I’ve been putting off for weeks due to the cold weather and I even mulched up a new garden area.

The new garden is in our front yard and was mostly planted back in the fall. I moved transplants of coneflowers and Russian sage and also put in a few discount plant dwarf crape myrtles. I hope they made it through our winter – right now they look quite rough! We’ll see how they do when the weather gets warm enough for them to grow. I also found a Montauk daisy on discount sale and put it into this garden. (I took cuttings from it in the fall and kept indoors over the winter which I haven’t shared here on the blog yet – it’s very easy and I had a 100% success rate!) Daffodils and irises were planted to create a river of spring time flowers from the top of the garden to the front. The daffodils will need to fill in more before they look as impressive as I hope! The irises were passalong plants that needed divided and moved, isn’t that a great excuse to start a new garden? The garden itself is in a triangle shape and is cornered by three trees – 2 redbuds and one Yoshino cherry – all three are favorites of mine. The redbuds were transplants from my in-law’s woods and haven’t bloomed yet but this may be the year. They can be tricky to move because of their root systems.

The base of the garden would look great with a small stone retaining wall which may come later if I can get around to building one.  I always seem to come up with more projects than I have time to tackle.  Ask my wife and I’m sure she’ll agree.

It doesn’t look like much yet since none of the plants are growing yet. I went ahead and mulched most of the area this weekend but came up a few mulch bags short. I used a combination of grass removal and newspaper layering to take care of the grass that was underneath but there are a few patches that still need some attention. I’m planning on filling the gaps with zinnias, annual rudbeckia, and verbena that should blend in perfectly with the coneflowers and Montauk daisies.

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In my first several apartments, I never had a formal dining room. Instead, I had a kitchen/eating area and that was fine, when it was just my wife and me. The home we live in now does have a formal dining room, and with three kids, it definitely came in handy.

For many families, the dining room is a disappearing concept, often replaced with more usable space. People are having fewer major family get-togethers and are instead focusing on camming via the Internet and e-mail. We live in a global marketplace, and people are no longer staying near the places where they grew up.

The idea of the family dinner is also becoming an outdated concept as we fall into the hustle and bustle of the modern world. Parents are working later, and children are involved with school activities that keep them out until all hours of the night. Many people find it easier to just grab a bite on the way out or to take the food to the living room, where they can catch the latest episode of “House” before picking up their daughter or son from practice.

The dining room isn’t a traditional usable space like a kitchen. It’s simply an area to eat your meals, and other than that, it’s not used unless you need to do some kind of project for your child’s school. A dining room table always comes in handy for that. Many home designers are foregoing the dining room for a more utilitarian space.

What was once the dining room is now a reading room where the family can gather for game night and other functions. It’s a place where mom and her friend can visit while the kids play X-box in the living room. The tight economy has people wanting to get the most out of every penny and every inch of space, and that means saying goodbye to the large dining room table.

It’s a trend that I’ve seen evolving for several years, and it will probably continue until the economy recovers and people feel good about excess again. As for me, I plan on keeping my dining room for a while. My kids are still young enough that they don’t have a million things to go to, and we try to have all meals at the dinner table. It doesn’t always work that way, but we try.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/bastique/3874763373

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When I was in college many moons ago, I spend a summer living with a great group of guys in a house that we rented. It was great. There was a lot of partying and fun had that summer, but we had one guy with a bad temper.

To say he was a hothead was an understatement, and during a particularly crazed, beer-fueled broken heart, he punched a hole in the wall. It was stupid. We all told him it was stupid, but that didn’t fix the big hole in the wall.

Luckily, I had worked with a plasterer that summer and was able to do a decent job of repair, but I have perfected by technique over the years. Holes happen, and not always because of drunken stupidity. I knocked one hole in a wall because I was moving a couch and wasn’t looking where I was going. My son made a hole by throwing a particularly heavy toy, and the Roto-Rooter man ran into the wall with his machinery. Nice.

The first step is to remove any loose plaster from the wall so you have a clean and stable work area. This will actually make the hole a little bigger, but believe me: it’s better in the end. Plaster lath is a metal screen that goes behind the hole. The plaster needs something to adhere to; otherwise it will just fall into the hole in the wall, and that’s not what we in the business call forward momentum.

Mix your plaster and apply it to the hole using a trowel. Smooth it out as best you can, but know that it won’t be perfect. It will be bumpy and wavy, but as long as the hole is covered, that is all that matters.

Let the plaster dry overnight, and in the morning, smooth and even out the dried plaster by sanding it down either with an electric sander or by hand. I prefer electric, but I will also say that I set off the smoke alarm in dorms twice within five minutes because of dust created from the sanding. Yeah, it was a proud moment. Also, make sure you are wearing a breathing mask, because you don’t want to breathe in all that plaster dust.

You should know have a wall that looks absolutely normal, except for the mismatched area of color where the hole was. The last step is just to paint the wall so it all looks nice and even. Congratulations! You just plastered your first hole. Way to go, Mr. Fix-It.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/dominicspics/4625641167

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Cardamine concatenata~ Cutleaf Toothwort

Cutleaf Toothwort was the first wildflower to introduce itself to me  at  Clay and Limestone.   It was my first spring in the house  and I spent as much time as I could manage to carve away from my busy life as a wife, mother and a part time therapist in the garden.

I remember being charmed by the nodding bell flowers on that  long ago spring morning. It was blooming  here and there on the edges of the then grassy area. Growing near it were other wildflowers~Columbines, Trillium, Dutchmen’s Breeches  and Spring Beauty.   It’s been more then  25 years and my spirits still lift  when I see the first spring blooms of the toothworts.

Cardamine diphylla~Broadleaf Toothwort offers winter color

 A few years ago I added  Broadleaf Toothwort (Cardamine diphylla) to the woodland garden. It’s  evergreen and the leaves persist after the flower fades and goes to seed.  Both toothwort’s native range is the Eastern United States  and parts of Canada.   It is found in moist woodlands usually in edge habitats.  If it’s happy you can plan on a small colony of pretty flowers every spring. It will spread by root and seed.  But, don’t worry, it isn’t aggressive; it’s just charming.

If you look closely a the flowers of toothwort~You can see their mustard family four petaled, pink or white cross shaped flowers. The nectar of the flowers attracts  honey bees, bumblebees, Mason bees, Cuckoo bees (Nomadine), Miner bees, Green Metallic Bees and other  Halictid bees, and Andrenid bees.  You know that makes me happy!
xxoogail

 Welcome to Clay and Limestone’s Wildflower Wednesday celebration. WW is about sharing and celebrating wildflowers from all over this great big, beautiful world. Join us on the fourth Wednesday of each month. Please add your url to Mr Linky and leave a comment.

This post was written by Gail Eichelberger for my blog Clay and Limestone Copyright 2011. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.

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I’ve just ordered clover seed for Mr. I’s lawnette.

I can almost always find a fourth leaf clover if I need one

Dear readers, you know many things about my garden philosophy, so, you may have been surprised when I agreed to add the lawnette. (Pay No Attention…the full story) That was for my dear Mr I. In all the years I’ve been gardening, he’s only requested one thing~ “a patch of green” and I agreed.  I do like the restful effect that  it has on my otherwise busy natural garden.  But, after two years of decidedly nonlawn care, we have concluded , that it’s time to seed the brown patches with Trifolium repens, Western Daisy and a few other low growing beauties. 

Western Daisy and other wildflowers in our son’s former play area

Our patch of green will move from a monoculture to a polyculture.  It will be alive with bees and other critters.

Newly sodded monoculture Winter 2009

A polyculture lawn will be perfect for the Garden of Benign Neglect.  We’ll have the  green expanse that Mr I wants, while, taking care of my need to be a smart gardener.
 

Clover just makes sense.

• Does not need supplemental watering
•  green all summer
• requires very little mowing
• needs no fertilizer
• grows in poor soil
• feels great on the tootsies

But, more importantly,

It’s wildlife friendly.

• Larval host to  butterflies
• Provides nectar to butterflies
• Seeds for some game and songbirds
• Attractive to honeybees. 

xxoogail

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,  
One clover, and a bee.  
And revery.  
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.    
Emily Dickinson 

This post was written by Gail Eichelberger for my blog Clay and Limestone Copyright 2011. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.

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My house is so old that my basement looks like a dilapidated bunker from World War II. I am pretty sure that I could find Civil War bullets and maybe even a few soldiers if I did enough digging, but that doesn’t keep me from dreaming about the day when I have a beautiful finished basement of my own.

There are many worries when it comes to finished basements, from water and moisture to mold and mildew, but the basement is also the perfect place for the man-cave or mom’s little hideaway. Here are some of my best ideas of what you can do with a finished basement.

1. The Bar: Every man dreams of having his own mahogany bar, complete with beer taps and those Tom Cruise “Cocktail” moves. You name it something cool like the Vegas Hideaway or The Gilded Hare and have your friends come over for drinks. People start expecting more drinks, so you end up buying books on mixology and become an expert on everything from exotic beers to using egg whites.

2. Craft/Tool Area: If you have children, then you know it can be difficult to have any kind of hobby in the main area of the house, because they will inevitably get into it. If you are into woodcarving, beading or other crafts, then a finished basement is perfect. You can keep the door locked so the children can’t get it and then enjoy an hour or two to go down and enjoy your hobby while your significant other takes care of the children.

3. Play Area: Many basements are basically one large room, and these can be perfect for play areas for your older children. You can put large items in there, such as a makeshift stage for plays or bins of costumes for dress-up. This keeps toys from getting spread about the house, but I would recommend that there be an adult to supervise whenever the children are down there. If you have limited space in your home, then a basement play area can save you a lot of cleaning effort, and you don’t have an main floor toy room.

4. Home Theater Arena: The worst part about having the main living room as the home theater area is that there is always so much going on. People come over, and the living room is where they go. The kids want to play X-box. The wife wants to watch “Steel Magnolias” … again. Or worse, you start to watch, and they ask you to turn it down. With its concrete walls, the basement is great for acoustics, and you can sit in relative peace and quiet as the rest of the world goes on above you.

5. The Game Room: We have all seen the basements with the pool tables, poker tables and other gaming implements in television, movies and even some relatives’ houses, and there is a reason for that. With such a large area, you can place many large gaming items, like tables and pinball machines, without having it look cluttered. It can be an area for kids or adults and provides the privacy to really concentrate on killing the bad guy.

Basements can be anything you want, from an extra bedroom to a home gym, and should be utilized in some way, especially if it is finished. Too many people forget about the basement and focus on decorating and renovating their main floors, but there is a whole area of the home not being considered.

Image Source:http://www.flickr.com/photos/20179579@N00/2596465411/

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