My Front Garden Bed

On Sunday afternoon I headed to a seasonal local nursery, Block's Stand & Greenhouse, to scout around for some plants for my gardens. They have wonderful plants, a huge variety and great prices so it is a fun place to shop.

An hour and a half later I walked away having spent a little over a hundred dollars. It was definitely a lot to spend but I got a ton of things including 3 flats of large vanilla marigolds, a flat of impatiens, 3 hanging baskets of snapdragons, 10 2-1/2" pots of dahlias, 10 2-1/2" pots of superbells, 4 calla lilies, a large mandevilla, a large rhubarb, 2 large yellow pepper plants and then a couple of pea, bean and zucchini plants. I think that is all but honestly I easily could have forgotten something.

It is going to take me a little while to get everything in the ground but at least I planted the front bed that wraps around my porch before it got dark on Sunday.

With the front of the bed in shade and the side getting full sun it can be a little tricky to find a way to make the plantings look cohesive and still thrive. Last year I made a little bamboo trellis for the corner and trained a pink mandevilla up it. It looked pretty and grew like crazy so I planted it again this year.

Along the front of the bed I already had three boxwoods that I planted last year. I planted some pink calla lilies in between them with a border of starsister dahlias in front. I'm not sure how the dahlias will do in this location but they looked so pretty that I wanted to try them.

On the side of the bed I thought that I had killed the shrubs last summer when they didn't get watered while I was in Southeast Asia for almost three weeks. They totally surprised me by coming back to life this spring. I pruned the dead branches and decided to see if I can do better with them this year. In front of them I planted a border of pink superbells which I think will do well in the sun.

After getting all of my annuals planted I finished everything off with two bags of black mulch to hopefully cut down on weeds. I like how everything looks and hopefully the flowers fill in a bit over the summer. 

What have you been planting in your garden? Did you go overboard shopping at a nursery or are you capable of exercising more restraint than me?

Linked To: Centsational Girl's Garden Link Party

My Vegetable and Herb Garden

After I moved home from Japan at the end of April 2009 the first thing that I tackled (after I repainted my living room) was to make a vegetable and herb garden along the side of my house. With my backyard almost completely in shade it was really the only place to put it.

I hauled extra rocks from my backyard stone bed to edge a 4' x 30' plot for my vegetable and herb garden. Some of those rocks (actually just about all of them) were really heavy and I thought it was going to kill me. I couldn't pass up using them though since they tied in with my front and back beds, plus they were free and who can resist that! With the border set I then removed the grass, rototilled (is that a word?) the plot and set about planting all sorts of goodies.

I made an A frame trellis out of bamboo in the back part of the garden and planted pumpkins and squash to climb it. That was an epic fail and I killed all of those plants. In the front part I planted a bunch of different herbs and tomatoes which did well, so that partially made up for it. I also planted a border around the whole garden of marigolds. This was an homage to my great-grandmother who would always do the same. She said that the "stinky flowers," as she called them in reference to their pungent smell, kept bugs away. I loved how pretty the bed looked with the marigolds, but with the plot being so narrow they took up a lot of my available space. Somehow I never took any pictures of my garden that year which is a huge bummer.

The next summer (2010) I took down the A frame trellis but kept a bamboo teepee trellis I built. Some of the herbs I planted the year before, like sage and chives, came back again and grew to be quite healthy plants. I had so much sage, in fact, that I dried it and made little jars of hand rubbed sage for Christmas gifts that winter. I also planted some more herbs, tomatoes and peppers which all did well. My only big fail that year was a rhubarb plant that I killed. I also planted things too close together so the garden looked a little overgrown by the time fall arrived.

Last summer (2011) I decided I needed a little more organization to my garden. I had previously just planted rows of things wherever I liked so my perennials were scattered around the garden. I decided I wanted to put all of the perennials in the back and the annuals all up front. This required some transplanting and my enormous sage plant didn't survive the relocation unfortunately. 

My other herbs and vegetables all did well with the exception of my scarlet runner beans. I planted them to climb up my teepee trellis and they grew fabulously for the first half of the summer. Then one day I went out to my garden and saw that a little critter had nibbled right through one of the vines close to the ground and killed the plant. A few days later it happened to another one, then another, until all four of them were killed. Very sad!

This year spring came while I was on Italy and tons of little weeds sprouted during the eighty degree heat wave in Ann Arbor. My garden bed was a mess full of weeds, remnants of dead leaves from fall and grass growing up between the stones of my border. For the first few weeks after I came back I kept putting it off because it was such a mess that I was completely discouraged and just didn't want to touch it.

On Sunday I decided I finally needed to get my bum in gear. I was just getting over a bad cold I caught in Las Vegas last week, but something had to be done so I sucked it up and got to work. It was in the seventies and had rained the night before so it was perfect time for weed pulling since it was warm and the ground was soft. I dread pulling weeds so anything that makes it a little easier is a plus.

The grass growing up between the rocks is also always a pain and a few times every summer I lift up the stones so I can pull out the grass that has developed roots under them. The stones look pretty but are a lot of maintenance because of this. In the long term my plan is to replace my chain link fence around my backyard with a wood privacy fence and replace the gate with an arched trellis. I then want to make a shorter wooden fence around my vegetable and herb garden and replace the grass enclosed by this area with stones. I think it will look really pretty, keep out pesky rabbits and squirrels that munch on my garden and eliminate the grass between the stones problem. Someday...(sigh!) Until then I just have to be a weeding machine.

Anyway, after a few hours I was very sore but had the garden all cleaned up and looking nice again. Now I need to work in some peat moss into my soil and I'll be ready to get to the fun part of planting.

How are your garden plans coming along this spring? Do you hate weeding as much as I do? How has your garden evolved over the years? Did your great-grandma call marigolds "stinky flowers"?

DIY Grow Light for Starting Seeds

Every spring I mean to start some seeds indoors for my garden, but each spring comes and goes and I never seem to be able to find enough time to get around to it. This year, however, I decided was the time to finally make it happen.

I got some flats and soil for seed starting and picked out some fun packets of seeds to try but then I was stumped when it came to finding a grow light. I didn't see anything that I liked that was in the price range I was willing to pay so I ended up making the grow light myself.

The concept I came up with is just a simple frame that holds up a fluorescent work light. I made the plans using 2x4s, but I actually ended up using some scrap wood that I had in my garage that wasn't quite as thick but was free. This is a pretty good project for using scraps and I actually only had to buy the light fixture, bulbs and wooden button plugs for a total cost of about $15.

With the 48" light I can easily fit two flats under the grow lamp. By using button caps to hide my screw holes, I can easily disassemble the frame to store it after spring. The chains on the work light hang from J hooks so I can adjust the height of the light as my seedlings grow. Making the grow light took me less than an hour, not including time for paint drying and I am happy with how it turned out. Hopefully my seeds like it, too!

Supply List:
1 - 2x4 @ 8 feet long
1 - 1x6 @ scrap at least 2 feet long
1 - 48" fluorescent work light
2 - Daylight fluorescent bulbs
4 - 3/8" wooden button plugs
2" screws 

Cut List:
1 - 2x4 @ 53" for top
2 - 2x4 @ 20" for side supports
2 - 1x6 @ 12" for base feet

Frame Assembly:
To start the frame I used a countersink bit to drill two holes on the top of each end of the top piece. I then used 2" screws to attach the top to the side supports.

Base Assembly:
On each base foot I marked out where to drill on one side and where the side support would be positioned on the other side. I used a countersink bit to then drill two holes in each base foot and started the 2" screws in the holes. I then lined up my markings with the side supports and attached the base feet by driving in the screws the rest of the way. 

Finishing:
To finish the stand I primed it and then used three light coats of white spray paint. I did not fill in my screw holes at the top of the frame since I wanted to be able to take off the top piece for easy storage. Instead, to hide the holes I spray painted some wooden button plugs and pushed them into the holes. I can then remove the plugs when I need to access the screws for disassembly.

Lamp Assembly:
I drilled two small pilot holes in the bottom of the top piece of the frame for the J hooks at the distance indicated in the work lamp assembly instructions. It was 45" apart for the lamp I used, but if you are doing this check your instructions as they could vary. I started twisting in the J hooks into the holes by hand and then finished tightening them using a wrench.

Once the J hooks were attached I put the bulbs into the light fixture and slipped the chain hooks into the holes at the top of fixture. I finished hanging the light by slipping the chain onto the J hooks.

Once my grow light was done I was pretty eager to plant some seeds. I chose two different types of sunflowers, one that grows really tall and one that is a deep red color. I also planted zinnias in a variety of warm colors and a selection of lettuces. I can't wait for everything to sprout!

Have you started any seeds this year or in the past? Has it worked well for you? What did you plant?

Vinegar & Soap Weed Killer

This winter while I was looking on the internet for gardening tips getting ready for spring I kept seeing people mention using vinegar as a weed killer so I thought that I would try it out. After reading about various solutions I decided to try a vinegar and soap mixture and use it on my patio since it apparently kills indiscriminately and that is one place that I never want plants to be growing.

I bought a jar of white vinegar from the grocery store and put three squirts of dish soap in it. I stirred it up and attached a squirt nozzle from an empty bottle of cleaner that I had saved. With the soap now in the vinegar I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't confuse it with edible vinegar so I used a sharpie to clearly mark "Weed Killer" over the vinegar label.

Armed with my spray bottle I set to work spritzing the weeds poking up out of the cracks between my patio pavers. After letting things sit for a day the weeds didn't look much different so I tried pouring small amounts of the vinegar solution on them. This did the trick and after a day my weeds were all dead. With a power wash I think that the patio will look ready for summer. I'm ready to try this on my pesky sidewalk weeds now but I think I may try adding a bit more soap and maybe some salt to see if that works better.

What tips or tricks do you have for killing weeds? Any good suggestions? I need some good ideas for spot weed killers in my lawn.

Back of the House: Then & Now

When I first got my house the front wasn't so bad, but the back was an absolute disaster. After priming the siding the previous owners never actually painted so the wood wasn't protected and was rotting in some places. It looked terrible, like a condemned haunted house.

Right after I bought the house in September 2007, I prioritized having the rotten wood replaced and painting the house before winter came so that there wouldn't be any more deterioration to the siding and trim. I continued my chosen house color scheme of pale yellow with white trim and dark teal accents. Also, that fall the kitchen window (bottom left) and my scrapbook window (top left) were replaced with new, large double casement windows which gave me a lot of light inside while also making things look more uniform from the outside.

That was the extent of what I accomplished in the back of the house before I moved to Japan and I didn't do much else until the summer of 2010 when I had a large half circle patio put on the back of my house. With the patio in the back I also had to have the gutter reconfigured so that the downspout ran down the side of my house instead of the middle of the back. That summer I also built myself some patio furniture but I never got around to painting it or making cushions for it. Last summer I focused on the front of my house and my herb garden so I didn't do much in the back so right now it looks pretty much the same as summer 2010 back there.

Long term, I have some grand plans for the back. I want to add a planter bed around the patio and fill it will boxwood and annuals. That may need to wait for a bit, but this summer I definitely want to paint the concrete foundation around my house a pale grey and then paint my patio furniture white. I also want to finish up making the cushions for my furniture so that I have a comfortable lounging spot back there.

Do you have any plans this summer for the back of your house? Have you recently completed any big projects back there?

Keeping My Plants Watered On Vacation

I love having my window herb garden but I always run into a problem when I am out of town. I hate returning home to a sad, half dead plants. My plants are currently thriving, including two little primroses that I brought back to life after rescuing them from a sale rack at Home Depot. I would hate to have them wither while I am in Italy so I decided to do some research before I left about how I can give them a fighting chance to survive my vacation.

I read about all sorts of things from making watering systems out of a soda bottle to fancy self irrigation systems that you can buy. The idea that seemed the best to me was what is apparently known as the "bathtub trick." The basic idea is to make a terrarium with your plants in the bathtub by adding a few inches of to the bottom of the bathtub and covering it with plastic. The plastic seals in the humidity so that the plants don't dry out.

I decided to give it a try and gave my plants a good watering. I didn't want the pots to scratch my bathtub so I put some drawer liner down before placing my plants inside and filling it with about two inches of water I then covered the top of my tub with clear plastic wrap, taping down around the outside of the tub with painter's tape (I didn't want to risk messing up my tub's new paint job with duct tape). I poked a few ventilation holes in the plastic wrap to finish up.

I am hoping this plan works and that I come home from vacation to find my plants alive and well in their little bathtub terrarium. Have you ever tried the "bathtub trick"? What is your best method for keeping plants alive while you are on vacation?

Spring is Sprouting

Happy first day of Spring! Even though this winter has been incredibly mild in Michigan I am so excited for Spring to be here. Before I left on my trip things were sprouting up everywhere in my garden and I thought I'd share a little bit of it.

It always amazes me how my perennials just spring back to life when the warm weather comes. Along my back bed I have daffodils popping up all over and that will probably bloom while I am gone. My lavender plant is on its third year in my herb garden and has become pretty large. It has developed a lot of new foliage so far this season. My rosemary is also looking strong and healthy and the oregano is growing like crazy. The chives are just starting to poke up and I am thinking about whether or not I should divide them.

It is so exciting to watch nature wake up in the spring and I can't wait to see how things are growing when I get home. I just hope some of the daffodils are still blooming!

How are things looking in your garden this spring? Have you had a rough or mild winter? How has your winter affected your plants?

Picture of the Day: Tulip Bulbs for Sale in Amsterdam

Amsterdam, The Netherlands
08.10.2004 

Gardening Conundrum

This winter has been unseasonably warm in Ann Arbor. On Wednesday the sun was shining and it was nearly seventy degrees. All this warm weather has me anxiously awaiting spring and thinking about my gardening plans for the summer.

My garden bed that wraps around my front porch presents a little bit of a conundrum for me. The front side of the bed faces west and is fairly shady due to the trees in my front yard. Last year after I tore out all the ivy and rebuilt the stone wall I put in three cone shaped boxwood surrounded by a bunch of annuals in shades of pink. I like the boxwood because it is an evergreen which keeps the bed from looking too dead in the winter. The boxwood have thrived and are looking pretty good. I took the picture below of them yesterday.

Not too bad for winter, I think. I just need to clean up a few leaves, add some pretty shade tolerant annuals and a fresh cover of mulch and it should look really nice this summer.

The side of my front bed has been a struggle for me. It is on the south side of my house and gets full sun. I wanted something that would tie in with the boxwood and was evergreen to plant there but I haven't had much luck. The plants I planted there last summer have really withered. I forget their name (I'm a bad gardener!) but they were full sun evergreen plants with leaves that had a similar shape to the boxwood. I thought they would be perfect until it seemed like halfway through the summer the sun got the best of them. Below is a picture of what they look like now.

Blech! There is nothing cheerful about half dead plants. Anyway, I am trying to come up with something to put there that can handle the blazing sun but ties in with the rest of the bed that is very shady. Does anyone have any suggestions? How do you handle garden beds that have a variety of lighting conditions right next to each other? I would love some advice!

Curb Appeal: Then and Now

The mild winter this year has given me severe case of spring fever and has me thinking about what else I want to do with the front of my house. Over the few years I've had the house it has come along way but I have more plans that I would like to work on this year.

When I first bought my house in September 2007 the best thing it had going for it besides its solid foundation was its curb appeal. I'm not saying it was great (in fact it was actually a bit gloomy and foreboding) it's just that the back of the house was rotting because it hadn't been painted and the inside was a disaster of crumbling plaster infused with a strong smoky smell from two life long smokers who had lived there since the 1960s. I think that the reason I got the house for such a great deal is because it scared any other sane person away.

As soon as I got ownership of the house one of the first things that I had to do was get the rotten wood replaced and paint the house before winter came so that there wouldn't be any more deterioration to the siding and trim. With a blue house on one side of me and white house on the other I decided on painting the house a pale yellow with white trim and dark teal accents. For extra fun I painted the ceiling of my porch an aqua color. I kept the screen door and painted it but the 1960s door with the 3 staggered rectangle windows had to go in favor of an old reclaimed door with pretty glass windows. The funky front porch light was replaced with something more in keeping with the style of the house and I put up a vintage cast iron mailbox that I found on eBay. Not much was done with the landscaping at that time other than planting some bulbs, removing the half dead enormous bushes that flanked the front porch, hiding the stonework and getting rid of the stone planter in the middle of the front yard. I left for Japan at the end of February 2008 so I didn't even have a chance to see my bulbs come up that year.

After I got back from Japan at the end of April 2009 I set about doing some landscaping. I took some of the stones that had been removed from the front planter and used them to edge a bed that I made around the base of the tree in my front yard as well as a 4' x 30' vegetable and herb garden that I planted along the side of my house. I moved the hostas that were in the bed in front of the side wing to the new bed under my front tree and replaced them with impatiens.

In the fall of 2009 a local nursery was selling small Korean boxwood for 1/2 off because it was the end of the season so I scooped up a bunch and planted them all along the side wing and sides of the front porch.

During the summer of 2010 I didn't do a lot out front since I was focused on my back patio and building my patio furniture. I did however plant some annuals as well as some azaleas in the bed in front of the porch. I also hired someone to patch the concrete front steps, but once winter came the freezing and thawing made the skim coat crack off.

Unfortunately the azaleas didn't end up doing too well so in the summer of 2011 I replaced them with some larger boxwood. I like the boxwood because they are evergreens so they add some color and life during the winter. I also planted some annuals in the front including a climbing plant with pink blooms on a bamboo trellis that I made. Most of my plantings were a success except for the plants that I put in the bed on the south side of the porch that didn't take too well despite being a full sun variety. The other big thing that I did was tear out the ivy that was embedded into the stone bed in front of the porch and then rebuild the bed. That was exhausting, back breaking work.

Still to come I would like to replace the windows on the side wing with double hung windows to match the rest of the house and add some shutters if I can get approval with the historic district commission. The side windows are clearly not original and I found shutters in the crawl space as well as some shutter hardware on some of the windows so I think I have a good shot of getting my petition approved. I also need to replace the front steps and figure out what to do with the plantings on the side bed. Hopefully I'll have it looking nice this summer. 

What are you planning on working on this summer? Are you going to do any landscaping or other fun projects outdoors?