"Garden Tea" August 5, help me plan please
Marie Tulin
9 months ago
last modified: 9 months ago
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Marie Tulin
9 months agomad_gallica (z5 Eastern NY)
9 months agoRelated Discussions
help me improve my plan please? (long post, sorry)
Comments (10)I agree that composting in place is a good idea, especially if it would enable you to keep all the material onsite instead of sending some to the landfill, saving you both time and money. The concerns you have about turning the compost and covering the bins would be important to address if you wanted compost faster or had limited space. In your case, since you're not in a hurry, you have lots of land, and what you are doing is effective, the less work the better -- I think it 'll be more productive to figure out how you can spend less time on the composting process (move piles only once, to their final locations, for instance). I have 6 compost bins and a relatively small garden plot (at a community garden, so I have to use bins). I turn them rarely, and I get good compost. Without turning, it takes a little longer. My understanding is that turning can speed up the process if you monitor temperatures daily and turn after the temperature spikes and then declines, and that otherwise turning doesn't make so much of a difference. Covering compost does help control moisture levels and help keep the compost critters warm and happy, but if it works without covers, that's ok too. I have one bin made from hardware cloth, which was drying out too much during the dry season, so I added some cardboard to keep moisture in. It's not pretty, but after one dry season, it does look like it has been very effective. Again, the cardboard sides and the cover help speed up the composting process by conserving moisture (and, to a much lesser extent, heat), but I got compost the old way, too. When I do turn my piles, it's because I see ants, which tells me there are dry spots, so I water it and then (if I have time) turn it and make sure the materials are more evenly distributed. But dry spots usually occur if I've put in a bunch of stems and twigs, and not enough small loose stuff to fill the spaces, so the stems and twigs stay dry. If I were composting only horse manure and watered as I went along, dry spots probably would not occur....See Moreneed help planning for august 25-
Comments (8)Welcome to gardening in California! You've done an amazing amount in the last 6 months - bravo! I highly recommend getting a copy of the Sunset Western Garden Book, if you don't have one already, and reading up about what grows well in Zone 21. Even though you're planning a house party in late August, I'm sure your guests won't expect a finished garden, especially since they know you're new to gardening. One thing you could do is read up about the plants you want to use and start buying some of them in small sizes (4" or 1-gallon). Smaller plants are cheaper, mean less digging, and in just a season or two most plants are as large (and often larger) than those that were planted from 5-gallon pots. Plus, they often get established quicker and easier than larger plants. If this seems too drastic, you could buy one plant in a larger size and others of the same kind in smaller sizes. Planting in summer is often hard, with the heat and lack of humidity. You could keep plants in pots, but as Diana notes above, it's difficult to keep them watered enough to get them through the summer. Your best bet might be to do lots of planning and research over the summer, and consider drawing outlines of the planting areas right on the ground so you have a good idea of what the garden might look like. You can use empty trash containers to indiciate large shrubs/trees, smaller boxes or empty plastic pots for smaller plants. Move 'em around until you like the composition, and think about what you'll see when you look into your garden from inside the house, too. Then, once you have a better idea of what you want, you could purchase some plants shortly before your party and keep them in their pots, grouped in a pleasing manner, and show your guests where the garden will be the next time they visit. Consider joining a local garden club and getting to know what grows well in your area. There are some great books out about gardening with natives and also garden design. One group of plants that you probably CAN put in the ground now is succulents, which take the heat quite well. A lovely new book, Designing with Succulents, came out a couple of months ago. The author is giving talks all over So. California, and maybe you can catch one of them. Also, be sure to visit your local botanical gardens and get to know the folks at your local mom-and-pop independent nurseries for great ideas and advice on what grows well where you are. GOOD LUCK! And please don't stress too much about your party - it's only one day and you're going to enjoy gardening for the rest of your life if you don't make it too burdensome on yourself. Here is a link that might be useful: Author of Designing with Succulents book...See MoreNew Large Raised Bed - Please help me plan it (Zone 5B)
Comments (9)I wrote this out yesterday before I read Yardvaark's response, so some of what I have written may repeat or contradict what he said. Though you may not want to hear this, I have a few concerns, some practical and one aesthetic. I live in an area that looks fairly similar to yours. I don't know how long you have worked on gardening here, so forgive me if I bring up things you have already considered. For the aesthetic, you want to remember that this is the front of your home, and while the flowers pictured will give you summer interest, you will want some evergreens or other plants with winter, spring and fall interest such as interesting branches, colored bark, etc. to help provide structure and form to the bed in the 7 or so months of the year that your flowers aren't blooming. An evergreen groundcover could also work. You can most likely have flowers but you will also want some year-round plants; otherwise you will have an empty bed for about 2/3 of the year, and while some of the time that is under snow, something like 4 months of the year in my garden are both cold and snowless. Plants that need to be dug up like most of the bulbs pictured (not the lilies in the last photo) need to be planted in a separate part of the bed from shrubs or plants like the lilies that are true perennials in zone 5 so you aren't creating root disturbance. Most of the plants you pictured really like all day sun and good soil, and I am not sure that even having taken down the marked trees and improved the soil you will find they grow well due to the conditions. Some of your trees may be species which don't share space well, so I would take good photos of buds and branching to get them IDed if you don't know what they are. That will allow you to judge how likely you are to get a fair amount of roots growing into the bed from nearby trees (whether the bed is raised or left at grade.) I think that while the trees currently may not shade much of the bed once the marked ones are down, the remaining trees will extend their branches to some extent to take advantage of the newly available sun. In a bed alongside a treed area like this, I might focus on plants that I know will do well with a mix of sun and shade and are relatively tolerant of dry conditions and are hardy enough to not need to be dug up annually. They also will look more natural against the tree line to my eye as the transition from a mass of flowers to native woodland might well look quite abrupt. Dogwood trees (Cornus kousa or Cornus florida), mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia), hardy rhododendrons, silverbell (Halesia), Epimediums (there's a world-class Epimedium nursery in MA) are some flowering plants that do well along wooded edges for me, but none of them will bloom all summer like those pictured above. I think I would put the flowers in your photos up closer to the house, pehaps enlarging the current bed and replacing part of the lawn (which likes similar growing conditions), including something similar to what I mentioned above for winter interest. I think having a bed at least 8' deep and with at least a foot between plants and the house for maintenance would look better. If you have deer, you might want to consider a high fence or a regular spray program to keep them from eating your flowers since many flowers are quite attractive to deer....See MorePlease help review floor plan- major “renovation” family of 5
Comments (6)This might be no more legible than the original, but using the basic plan, I moved the entry to the kitchen, to avoid funneling traffic through the work zones. I left the cabinets in the entry/mudroom(?) blank--TBD. I can't tell what's below the fridge. MW? Wine cooler? I added an optional prep sink to the island, which would become the primary prep space, with secondary prep space for a helper beside the clean-up sink. Trash pull-out would be to the left of the prep sink, or to the right of the clean-up sink. Dish storage is in drawers on the island, across from the clean-up sink, with easy access to the dining area....See MoreMarie Tulin
9 months agoMarie Tulin
9 months agodeanna in ME Barely zone 6a, more like 5b
9 months agocecily 7A
9 months agomad_gallica (z5 Eastern NY)
9 months agoMarie Tulin
9 months agolast modified: 9 months agoSarah
9 months agomad_gallica (z5 Eastern NY)
9 months agowoodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
9 months agoThyme2dig NH Zone 5
9 months agoMarie Tulin
9 months agocecily 7A
9 months agoMarie Tulin
9 months agolast modified: 9 months agocecily 7A
9 months agoMarie Tulin
9 months agocecily 7A
9 months agoMarie Tulin
9 months agodiggerdee zone 6 CT
9 months agoMarie Tulin
9 months agodeanna in ME Barely zone 6a, more like 5b
9 months agoMarie Tulin
9 months agolast modified: 9 months agodeanna in ME Barely zone 6a, more like 5b
9 months ago
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Marie TulinOriginal Author