Lasagna Beds for Beginners: 2008

Always remember - I AM NO EXPERT

Learn something every day.

We had a brand new lawn last year. It was seeded and as luck would have it the next day heavy rains came and created canyons in the new dirt. However once things started to sprout it seemed the entire lawn was nothing but quack grass. Not CRAB grass which is killable but it looked like Quack Grass which is nigh-unkillable.

Well - this was a huge problem but I was told to fertilize and put seed down in the fall and all would work out.

I did as told and this year the only real problem was dandelions and the neighbors who's yards look wonderful. But . . . . I have not seen any Quack Grass.

Today I find out WHY! It's because it was NOT Quack grass but Rye Grass. They mix Rye Grass WITH regular new lawn grass seed because the Rye Grass grows very fast and prevents erosion while the much slower growing regular blue grass catches on.

WHO KNEW!!!
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In other yard/garden news.

The Clay garden which contained Lavender, Coreopsis, Rue, Purple Palace heuchera, some other type of heuchera, daylilies, and catmint is doing well. The lavender died completely and one type heuchera is dead. The catmint is hanging on and the coreopsis and daylilies are doing GREAT. Rue? not even sure what that was but it ain't there now.

I think that is part of gardening - seeing what works what does not work and then correcting. So I put in more Coreopsis and more catmint. I transplanted some of dj's moms daylilies that we dug up from the old house and where the lavender was I'm putting in pinkish red Coreopsis which I THINK will look great against the yellow slightly taller Coreopsis. This will be very pretty once it all gets going . . . I hope.

The problem with this garden was that the catmint was the tip of the spear when it came to rain water gushing down the hill. So I put in edging and made it a little higher then the surrounding area to keep the flood gates closed.

Here is the Clay Garden on Memorial Day - I'm ready to put in edging and have yet to put in some Coreopsis rosea (pinkish red) and a few more Catmints near the tip of the garden. And yes that is a hill that slopes toward the garden - thus he need for edging. (wireless rain gauge for weather station in middle)

The butterfly/bee garden is almost fully planted but I no longer know what the heck is in there. . OK - I really do but I somehow went off "plan" and started planting whatever I happened to see at the time. It will be interesting to see the color patterns once things bloom . . . .if they ever bloom. And SOMEHOW some annuals suck in. DAMN YOU!

It does not look like much yet but things seem to NOT be dieing so there is hope. Those are the annuals wearing red up there - a little cheating but they had the word hummingbird on the label and I was sucked in.

One interesting plant to watch will be the Sweet Autumn Clematis(SAC)(see below photo). Lets see how big it gets this year. Reports say 3 inch's a day up to 25 feet once it's established.

Here you see a Pink Princess Weigela (PPW)which I REALLY can not say to any golf buddies. However Humming birds LOVE this plant/bush!

Behind the Weigela are three Globe Thistles which seem to be just hanging around growing roots but they will look awesome cool space age - how could I turn them down! .

I'm a little worried about size but I feel with the Weigela being a slow growing bush they will not crowd it. However there could be a battle brewing between the Globe Thistles and the Sweet Autumn Clematis. Both are aggressive and I think the Clematis COULD start to strangle Globy. It'll be interesting to see if there is a winner.

I'm putting my money on SAC which is climbing up the post thingy holding up the deck. SAC is suppose to be an awesome thing of beauty that can grow 25 to 30 feet in a year. You cut it back to 6 inches every spring and by the time summer is over it's spread to 25 feet.

I would show you pictures but they can get scary and I don't want to worry DJ about losing Milo if Milo sits still too long. It has been known to grow 3 inches a day. So with 150 growing days . . . think about it :-)

We'll see.

And the mailbox garden is doing AWESOME!! A success!!!! Here is a photo from May 5th and another from Memorial Day.

May 5th

Memorial Day

And that is not even covering the four rock gardens that I'm tinkering with and you should see the plan for the 300 sq foot patio and surrounding BIG area! (insert evil laugh).

Until next time!

Rod and DJ

Always remember - I AM NO EXPERT

Where does one begin in a new year.

The one thing I have learned is that my best friend for the last 45 years is living his landscaping dreams through me.

Every weekend he comes over, we crack a few micro brews and talk about the yard for eight hours and what would work and what will not.

For instance. One area of the yard, the east side is a problem area and we wanted a tree. We talked about the pros and cons of 25 different trees over the last four months. I bet we spent 20 hours of real time talking about one tree.

Final answer? A Cleveland Pear. The reason is that we have a Don Wyman Crab in the front yard with awesome white flowers. The shape is round. There was not enough space for a full size tree where we were thinking. Another problem is that that area is a wind tunnel and a Red Bud would have problems.

A Cleveland Pear is conical so while it has huge white flowers would be redundant to the Crab it would not be a repeating shape. Sometimes it is good to be redundant but with two flowering trees of the same color I feel a different shape is in order.

Can't get it for two weeks though.

On a side note I trimmed six inches off a branch that was pointing down off the Crab and that six inches had 45 flower buds on it.

So here is my plan for the summer. I'll walk you around the house and explain the "vision" taking photos and updating exciting events. It's more for me to look back on but MAYBE you will learn from my mistakes.

First shot is the outside of the house. The photo is pretty much dead south, the front of the house is due north. My very first real garden ever is on the right, what I call th Mailbox garden.

I also have the Clay garden and the Butterfly garden and today I planted an unnamed garden.

The mailbox garden consist of Blue Wonder Catmint, East Friesland salivia, Autumn Joy sedium and Karl Foerster feather reed grass. My worry was the snow was actually OVER the mailbox this winter. All came through except for one East Friesland salivia which does not seem to be appearing.