What should you be accomplishing today?

[lunarus]

Absolutely Gorgeous, Lunaris! I love the flower beds and all of the different kinds of plants you have in them. You are really devoted to your yard.

Watering IS a chore. I try to get out at twilight and turn on a few sprinklers and hand water the rest. But if I miss a few lousy days, everything starts wilting. Oh, and the clay. Yea, its just horrible. I bought some bags of topsoil and peat moss to try to loosen it up some but they had little impact.

Hey, here's a huge mistake I made this year. I planted sunflowers and morning glories next to each other. I had no idea that the morning glories would go crazy and try to grow up anything they could wrap themselves around. So they choked off a lot of the sunflowers until I got tired of it all and ripped them out.

Thanks

LOL, yea morning glories aren't so GloRious! They do come in real handy if you have an area that isn't the most ideal area for growing other plants. They do love to climb and overtake everything and anything and reseed till you have them everywhere! But I am surprised they managed to smother the sunflowers.

As for clay soil, I use coarse grit sand, some gardeners would call me crazy but IT does work. Then I use plant material, IE compost, clippings, coffee grounds. Any thing that is natural and will break down and not poison the soil. And MULCH! Mulch is your best friend, natural wood mulch, not that fake junk, because it will add to the soil. If you are worried about drawing to much nitrogen from the plants from the mulch braking down then mix hair into the soil, yes hair as is in you own or you dog's or cat's or hamster's. It will brake down and add nitrogen to the soil thus allowing the plants to upload it. But it looks like you live on a farm, what type was/is it? I would think the soil would be better than craptastic clay. But for clay it will take a while to get anything good from it. Also what you could do is plant food gardens in different areas each year then till them under and plant a flower beds the next year. And save your leaves, till them into the soil, they attract earth worms that will improve the soil ten fold.

And I love the cosmos and marigolds, always comes back the following year for me.

 

[Riverrick]

Well the farmers are growing 3 crops in alternation: Field corn, Soy beans, and Winter Wheat. They probably have better soil in their fields than I do in my yard. I have thought of, uh, acquiring some.

Boy, you really know your stuff. I'll have to get out my old Crocketts Victory Garden book and try to catch up.

Oh, and by the way, I don't have much hair on my head anymore.

The Farm in Summer​

 

[lunarus]

Well the farmers are growing 3 crops in alternation: Field corn, Soy beans, and Winter Wheat. They probably have better soil in their fields than I do in my yard. I have thought of, uh, acquiring some.

Boy, you really know your stuff. I'll have to get out my old Crocketts Victory Garden book and try to catch up.

Oh, and by the way, I don't have much hair on my head anymore.

The Farm in Summer​

Wow Rick that place is beautiful! So much land for so many wonderful plants! And yea understand about the hair, same here, lol. But if there is a salon or barber close by you could ask them if you could have the clippings.

Love the sun porch!

You're in Ohio right? What zone is that in? I'm in zone seven. Do you buy plants or start them from seed? Most of my landscaping is from seed, lots more work but cheaper and more gratifying. If you want I could send you some seeds I have, they are from unusual or rare plants. Like the cardoon, as seen below. It is a relative of the artichoke or should I say the precursor. It grows over six feet tall and is in the thistle family. I have oodles of seeds but the lowest zone it will survive in is zone 7A.

The flower heads.

I grew four of them and they in turn gave me forty very LARGE flower heads filled with numerous seeds. I really need to go online and find a seed trading place to unload some of them. I have enough to cover about an acre of land lol.

 

[NedNickerson]

I really need to put weatherproofing on my backporch deck... I didn't do it last year, so it needs to be done this year... I should have done a month and a half ago when it was so hot and dry around here...

I've only got about two or three more weekends that I can do it before the weather starts getting too cool and rainy to do it...

 

[Swellegant]

This is turning into a gardening thread! You people have such lovely yards! We have a mow-n-blow team that comes through every two weeks, and that's about all the care our garden gets anymore.

To follow up... I just now got home from The Sunday Afternoon That Wouldn't End. I accomplished everything planned (The Beautiful Boy wasn't there, so I flipped through 1 Kings, a hair-raising read; and lunch was at Red Robin, where the food was surprisingly excellent and the staff sang Happy Birthday really really loud), right up to taking my niece to get her hair done. It took over four hours to get the pink out of her hair, tone it back down into blonde, condition it properly, and razor-cut into a really cute style. During which time Grandmother and I shopped the mall. GM found lots of clothes she liked, which is unusual; I found a sweater and a shirt and a pair of pants on really good sales. Then we had Subway sandwiches, drove the Niece back home, and collapsed into our separate parts of the house.

I'll take pictures of my turtles tomorrow. And maybe wash some shirts. Or not. I really don't care.

 

[Riverrick]

Wow Rick that place is beautiful! So much land for so many wonderful plants! And yea understand about the hair, same here, lol. But if there is a salon or barber close by you could ask them if you could have the clippings.

Love the sun porch!

You're in Ohio right? What zone is that in? I'm in zone seven. Do you buy plants or start them from seed? Most of my landscaping is from seed, lots more work but cheaper and more gratifying. If you want I could send you some seeds I have, they are from unusual or rare plants. Like the cardoon, as seen below. It is a relative of the artichoke or should I say the precursor. It grows over six feet tall and is in the thistle family. I have oodles of seeds but the lowest zone it will survive in is zone 7A.

Sorry, I got pulled away.

I'm not sure what zone I am in. Northern Ohio. I'm not as smart about all of this stuff as you. I was when i was in high school but i lived in S CA for a while and got away from it.

That is a beautiful plant. 40 flowers? That seems like a lot. How hard are they to grow?

Thanks for the compliment on the land, etc. I always wanted to live in the country and indeed do love it out here.

 

[Riverrick]

This is turning into a gardening thread! You people have such lovely yards! We have a mow-n-blow team that comes through every two weeks, and that's about all the care our garden gets anymore.

To follow up... I just now got home from The Sunday Afternoon That Wouldn't End. I accomplished everything planned (The Beautiful Boy wasn't there, so I flipped through 1 Kings, a hair-raising read; and lunch was at Red Robin, where the food was surprisingly excellent and the staff sang Happy Birthday really really loud), right up to taking my niece to get her hair done. It took over four hours to get the pink out of her hair, tone it back down into blonde, condition it properly, and razor-cut into a really cute style. During which time Grandmother and I shopped the mall. GM found lots of clothes she liked, which is unusual; I found a sweater and a shirt and a pair of pants on really good sales. Then we had Subway sandwiches, drove the Niece back home, and collapsed into our separate parts of the house.

I'll take pictures of my turtles tomorrow. And maybe wash some shirts. Or not. I really don't care.

Well, you accomlished a lot! Esp getting the niece's hair done! I'll bet she looks cute now!

Grandmother must really appreciate you. I'll look forward to the pics!!!

 

[lunarus]

Sorry, I got pulled away.

I'm not sure what zone I am in. Northern Ohio. I'm not as smart about all of this stuff as you. I was when i was in high school but i lived in S CA for a while and got away from it.

That is a beautiful plant. 40 flowers? That seems like a lot. How hard are they to grow?

Thanks for the compliment on the land, etc. I always wanted to live in the country and indeed do love it out here.

Ohio is split into two zones 5 and 6.
5 Northern and 6 is more southern. You can go here to find out by your zip code.

The cardoon is rather easy to grow but it looks like your zone would get too cold to over winter it.

Yea 40 flowers, if you have ever run across a wild thistle you'll see they bloom A LOT. The funny thing about all of this, after the bloom fade last month I cut them down all the way to the ground because they looked rather dead and I thought they were lost. But low and behold they are four feet tall already!!!

Tomorrow I really need to mow the lawn before the grass eats us, lol!

Speaking of grass, have you tried any ornamental grasses? I just planted a slew of ornamental grass for screening purposes. There are a lot of them that would work well in your area and they can take various crappy soils.

 

[NedNickerson]

I live on 3 1/2 acres and a few years ago, I had a wild thistle that sprouted at the back of my lot. I left it and it bloomed in mid summer with about a dozen prickly purple blooms. Every year since then, I've had more and more sprouting up around the lower field. I always mow around them. Every year, I say I'm going to dig them up and put them in a bed somewhere, but they do so well where they're growing, that I always just leave them alone. (That, and the fact that they're prickly as a cactus!) The only problem is the only time I really see them is when I'm mowing around them... The butterflies and those big fat black and yellow carpenter bees seem to like them, though...

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/nursery-weeds/email_pubs/thistles/thistles.html

 

[Riverrick]

I live on 3 1/2 acres and a few years ago, I had a wild thistle that sprouted at the back of my lot. I left it and it bloomed in mid summer with about a dozen prickly purple blooms. Every year since then, I've had more and more sprouting up around the lower field. I always mow around them. Every year, I say I'm going to dig them up and put them in a bed somewhere, but they do so well where they're growing, that I always just leave them alone. (That, and the fact that they're prickly as a cactus!) The only problem is the only time I really see them is when I'm mowing around them... The butterflies and those big fat black and yellow carpenter bees seem to like them, though...

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/nursery-weeds/email_pubs/thistles/thistles.html

They're beautiful!

That reminds me of all of the nice plants I can't see from the house. Guess I need to move my lawn chair around more.

Hmmn. How about getting Internet access out there?

 

[lunarus]

Well I did accomplish some things today.

Got the yard mowed, ya for me!

Installed the pond in the new bed, all I need now is the soil and I will be finished.

Here are the new bed walls done.

And here is the pond in place...

Now all I need to do is go to lowes and pick up 40 backs of soil before it rains this week.

 

[Riverrick]

Wow! What a nice job!

Are the walls cemented together? Did you have to level the ground underneath them? (Well no, I see that you sort of just used more or less bricks.)

And finally...........would you come to Ohio this weekend and make some nice ones for me???

 

[lunarus]

Wow! What a nice job!

Are the walls cemented together? Did you have to level the ground underneath them? (Well no, I see that you sort of just used more or less bricks.)

And finally...........would you come to Ohio this weekend and make some nice ones for me???

No they are just dry stacked. The walls in back are 1 foot stones called oldmanor, the new ones are 11 inch stone called olde castle. I wanted to use the oldmanor but they stopped carrying that line which pissed me off because we just got them this spring. That's the lovely red clay you see crammed into the crevasse's to make it stronger because we both know how well red clay dries.

Yes I had to level the first run, that was the longest and the hardest job because of the clay soil and the crap grass I had to dig through. But as you can see they aren't perfectly level, LOL. Which I really do not mind because it makes them look like they have been there for some time. And don't worry they aren't going anywhere any time soon, they are heavy and made for dry stacking.

And as for coming to Ohio, I would love to if I didn't have to paint the trim on the shop and prepare to bring in the house plants because they are expecting our first freeze. They are huge! Trees in fact. LOL I need a freaken vacation...and I think it would take me more than a weekend to build some. These things are a biatch to start.

 

[Riverrick]

Ok then. I'll build them myself. Rather soon or more likely next spring. Yours look so nice that I'm pretty much sold on it. Looks like I can do it in stages too. That way I can work on it on available days.

I'll call them the Lunaris Beds! Only I'll understand the reference.

By the way, I have a garden tiller which makes digging up the ground so much easier. Then I just rake out the grass clods.

Hey, this is fun. Sure glad I own this thread!

 

[lunarus]

Ok then. I'll build them myself. Rather soon or more likely next spring. Yours look so nice that I'm pretty much sold on it. Looks like I can do it in stages too. That way I can work on it on available days.

I'll call them the Lunaris Beds! Only I'll understand the reference.

By the way, I have a garden tiller which makes digging up the ground so much easier. Then I just rake out the grass clods.

Hey, this is fun. Sure glad I own this thread!

Thanks

Be sure though to get enough of them to finish one project so you don't have happen what happened to us, IE. they stopped carrying the style we were using.

And as for the tiller, got that too but we have this crap grass called crab grass. It is a NIGHTMARE! It is everywhere because we do not use chemicals on anything in our landscape. And to boot the freaken roots/nodes can be down-words to four feet below ground! And it will even poke through landscape fabric or plastic! I really do loathe the crap, because nothing kills it except digging it up and hauling it to the dump.

And you will post pictures of your new beds won't you?

 

[Riverrick]

And you will post pictures of your new beds won't you?

Absolutely. I'll even start a thread about it so I can get all the good advice I will surely need!

Be the way everyone, since its Monday I don't worry about accomplishing anything. Going to work is enough!

Get up - done!
Go to Work and come Home - done!
Cruise JUB - in progress!