Rocks N' Roses

We had been toying with this idea for a while now, especially because we have seen this all around our neighborhood and the Roses seem to be loving it and thriving in the rocky environment. It also made a lot of sense to go this route because of the ever abundant Oak leaves that need to be cleaned all the time from the base of the Rose bushes.

So we finally bit the bullet and tried it out on one.

Looks good, don't you think? So we now have just about 27 more to go.

They are all prepped up with a layer of weed fabric on which the rocks will be set out.

Planting for Privacy-Part 2

The first part of our winter Jasmine story is here.


Next it was time for the engineer to get busy building an enticing and supportive trellis for the jasmines to hold onto and spread their wings. 


This was our canvas

But, I was taken aback by the final design that Guru came up with. It appears to have taken into consideration the 15 year load from the vine and a 50 year wind gust resulting in the strongest jasmine trellis known to man!! 

I just hope the Jasmines love the trellis as much as the engineer does.

Planting for Privacy-Part 1

We have transformed our front yard considerably in the last 3 years. Read about the first few stages of transformation here. (Follow the other articles with the "Front yard" label to walk along time)What started of as a dense overgrown brush area has really been transformed into a nice little rose garden. Living on one of the busiest streets in the area poses a lot of challenges. One of the things we have struggled with, is to bring in some much needed privacy in the front yard for sight and sound proofing.


The simplest solution was to build our fence tall enough but the city wouldn't let us do it for "consistency" and "safety" purposes. Driving around our neighborhood I saw a lot of houses with Oleander bushes and Red Tip Photonias that appear to have been plucked straight out of the "Giant's Island" from Gulliver's travels. This got me thinking if I could sneak through the height requirement by erecting a green fence.


The front of our property faces east on a rectangular lot and the main attraction are our 4 giant live oak trees which I am really proud of. However, putting down any plant under these oak trees along the fence would require direct irrigation in the drip line of the oaks which according to many a tree guru is a big NO NO. After much thought and reluctance we decided to go with "Oak friendly" Oleanders for most of the front yard. You can read more about our attempt here. Our strategy has been to tell them to "Go Fish" for water but it isn't working well. Its time to give them some drip irrigation at least for the next year or two until they establish themselves.


Towards the north-east corner of the property, we get a good amount of afternoon sun, where we have a majority of our roses planted alongside that fence-line. In the same area, between the roses, right up against the fence, I tried sowing some seeds of the Cathedral Bells, The Black Eyed Susan vine and Passion Fruit last year. Even the ones that emerged were promptly killed by the frost.

As I was wondering what to do little did I realize that the answer was right in front of my eyes. In late fall we saw this lovely winter Jasmine plant at Costco and picked it up. It was planted into one of our ceramic planters right outside our front door and has almost doubled in size in the last 6 months (a lot of it during winter). Add to it the fact that it is evergreen, I decided that it would be my choice of flowering vine in the front yard. Plus this complements well with the roses since this would provide fragrance in late winter early spring and the roses during late spring, summer and fall. The flowers are so fragrant and delicate...

So this year, as soon as i saw these Winter Jasmines at Costco, I pounced on them again and got 6 more home. Immediately, last weekend we got them into the ground right up against the fence.

Going by the growth in the first jasmine (the corner one in the photo above), in a few years the coverage should be pretty dense. However, they may need a bit of direction once in a while by some careful wrapping of the new shoots. If you have suggestions for other such trellising vines that remain evergreen and would give good coverage, please do let me know.

More pictures on the trellis project are coming up shortly.

Divine Will

Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.

During one of my recent retail therapy trips I spotted this Buddha statue and figured that my tiny Japanese Maple might be a good spot. The hands nestled in his laps apparently suggests a meditative pose.

Hanging Baskets

One of the design aspects that we put in when we re-designed our front yard was to add a place to put in some hanging baskets. You can read about that here.

Later in the summer of 2010 we managed to put up the baskets, install a spray irrigation system. The Lobelias and the "hanging basket mix" seeds that were planted germinated, but it was spotty. The baskets do not get a lot of sunlight, especially the ones in the back.

So I picked up a couple of Fuchsias and planted them in the baskets in the back. I also picked up all the volunteer Nasturtiums that emerged in the Tomato beds (from last years seeds) and planted them in my hanging baskets. I am hoping they will re-seed and be a little easy on ongoing maintenance.

Also, the coir basket liners had deteriorated completely in just one season. It did seem like a lot of ongoing maintenance in the long run. I had read about these "grow bags" concept online and was hoping to replace the coir liners with these grow bags. I managed to trim them and fit them in my hanging baskets.

Photinia update

We moved the RTP's (Red Tip Photinia's) that were near the foundation out near the front fence. (read here)

One of the plants died, but the rest survived and I am happy to report that they have been doing very well. I can see that they are forming the "red tips" i.e. the new growth and seem to be growing taller as well.

They are also sporting some pretty white flowers

 

Recycled Concrete Stepping Stones

We picked up a ton of concrete pieces that someone was giving away for free a few months back. (Read my earlier post here). It was with the idea of building a retaining wall to compensate for the change in grade and the stop the neighbour's dog from digging under the fence !

The progress on building the dry stacked hasn't taken off, it needs a lot of investment in time and money that we are not ready to do any time soon. Plus we needed some walkways in the garden.

Over the last couple of months we have been creating walkways and paths in our front and back garden with the recycled concrete pieces, and here is how we laid them out

In the front lawn

In the flower area in the front

And in the backyard

Watching grass grow-Week 1 in the front yard

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience.

Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.
-Hal Borland, Countryman: A Summary of Belief

We had a lawn in the front yard when we moved in. But it was in pretty bad shape, badly infested with weeds and the soil extremely compacted. Not to mention the large bald spots under the huge oaks in the front.

There were a bunch of leaky pipes in the irrigation system, and so we turned it off soon after we moved in. During the first year we pruned the oaks ourselves and had them chipped and dumped in the front. This helped to completely kill any remnants of the grass over the last 2 years. Once we had the oaks pruned further (professionally this time...) we cleared the wood chips away for use around our planter beds in the back. Right on cue the weeds and remnants of the old Bermuda grass began to emerge prolifically this spring. I foresee lots of competition before the Bermuda grass lets go in our front yard….you call that persistence !

And this is the cleaned up look, after we removed all the woodchips that was home to critters and what not. But then the ravens were having a feast until then !

The front yard is going to be a completely different challenge in comparison to the backyard.

We started off by removing all the Euryops and relocating the Red Tip Photonias to the front and For starters, we have a lot of shade in the front yard. But interestingly, the eco-lawn seems to be doing well in shade. In under 5 days we were able to see the green mossy look.

In 10 days, the growth was significant

Hostsas 2010

They do look lovely...don't they? But it sometimes is a matter of perspective.

These were the Euryops that were a part of our front yard for 2 years. I am a tad sad to see them go, I liked the yellow flowers in front of the yellow house when we were seeing the place for the first time.
At the same time, I am mighty glad to start off with a clean slate.

The portion of the front yard, around the foundation was totally overgrown with these Euryops that were extreemly leggy/ woody. Nobody had ever pruned them or looked after them. And they were being constantly watered by the sprinklers !
This picture does not do much justice to the state they were in

This one probably shows how bad they looked from the front. They were so woddy, except on the top few inches which had blooms.

So here is what we did

We bought a whole bunch of hostas from Costco and planted them in the ground along the foundation. We popped in between, some purple Heucheras.

But then the front yard is so hard packed that even after a month in the ground the Hostas didnt sprout more than 3 leaves in all, and the gigantic Sum & Substance remained puny. So we dug them out during the memorial day weekend, loosened up the soil around them and re-planted the Hostas. 

You can see them lined up along the foundation brickwork

Here are all the Hostas we bought in 2010. We still have a few varieties in pots waiting to be planted in the backyard under the Oak

Front yard makeover

It has been weeks and weeks of hard work in the garden. One of the areas that is getting a real face lift over this spring is the front yard. Here are the pictures that tell the story.

The before, during and during (the real after will come a few years down the road)

This picture (above) is a courtesy of the Google StreetView image database which still shows how bad the place looked in 2008. We didn't get a shot from this perspective and as with everything else Google came to my rescue !

n the summer of 2009, we cleaned up the corner completely of all the over growth and started off with a clean slate. And, in the fall of 2009 when we finally decided to replace the fence, we changed things around just a little bit.

Now that little patch has become ....

I

Livening up the space along the fence and beginning to bloom now are....the Dahlias and the Gladioli

Front yard dilemma - Part 2

All through the summer of 2009, we were focussed primarily on ripping out stuff. Here is how the front yard transformation happened. The very leggy shrubs alongside the front fence had to be removed.

And the same was true about the never-pruned shrubs that were along the second driveway on the south side of the front yard (the ones along the back of the picture).

On one of the shows on HGTV, I saw that the easy way to take out shrubs was to use the car to pull them out. And oh my....what a nice stress buster that was. We got some chains and got it tied into our hitch on the CR-V. We added some weights to help keep the weight down on one side.

The shrubs had massive root structures and to ease the process, we loosened up the soil around the area to as to not put too much on the CR-V

Front yard dilemma-part 1

So here is one of the many challenges i face in my garden- The front yard

This is how the place looked when we bought the house in April of 2008. The house faces East on a busy road. The lovely shade is from 4 huge "live oaks" that looked like they were never pruned for ages. There were a lot of branches that were reeling under the excess weight.
















Right underneath the oaks were some very leggy shrubs and some very leggy jasmine that did not get any sunlight.

In the last year or so we have been busy working on fixing up the inside of the house and never got around to planting or doing anything.

One thing i figured out early on was that the grass had to go....period ! I had turned off the entire sprinkler system in the house. The pipes in the back were broken when the pool and all the asphalt and concrete was removed. The front yard does not have anything nice that i want to keep. I also added a good few inches of fresh wood-chips that came from the pruning of our oaks to get rid of the grass. Late this summer when i moved the wood-chips i was glad to see all the grass gone. There are a few that are sprouting back after the rains in the past few weeks.

Here is how the front yard looks after the oaks have been pruned.


One of my biggest challenges in the front yard is the lack of privacy and my options to plant under the oak that might give me some much needed privacy on a busy road.

Any suggestions fellow bloggers...