It's Not Just Vegetables

What I love about this house is the many spaces outdoors.  On this blog, we see a lot of the vegetable garden.  But there's also a bird garden and a back patio space that we spend a lot of time in.  And today, those spaces got a lot of attention.

Rain is coming, and it's in the forecast for about the next 12 days, so I took a day off work to do some spring prep while the sun was out.  I love gardening before rain comes.  I get to mess things up, then the rain soaks everything down.  Kind of like grouting a mosaic piece.  Rain in the garden sets it all in place.

This bed along the back wall got a lot of attention.  The redwoods drop fronds all year round, and I've learned that having a lot of wires from solar lights and tubes from the drip system running through it makes it hard to rake out the fronds.  So I pulled the drip, replacing it with emitters on the main tube line that runs along the back wall.  I also pulled some solar lights and in general, cleaned it up.  This year, my goal is to see this bed filled with flowers and shrubs instead of redwood fronds and volunteer clover.

I'm giving a couple azalea bushes a try.  I also planted Dahlias and a Peony.  I hope all do well, but given I planted them as tubers, I have a couple months before I find out.

I planted these Photinia several years ago with the plan that they would be pruned to small patio trees.  I've got two other spots in the yard where I've done the same, but these are the first two that have grown full enough to prune up the bottom.  I LOVE the result!!  They're about to flower and will be a lovely showcase next to the spring patio.

It literally looks like it snowed in the bird garden.  The fruitless plum is in full bloom and dropping petals.  Now that it is full grown, it's providing too much shade to the shrubs I had there before, so I pulled them out and made a bed for Hostas next to these Iceberg rose bushes.  I hope they do well.  I've never grown Hostas and hope they are keepers!

This corner had Hydrangeas which never did well.  They were great in the spring, but the summer heat would come and they'd dry out like a bone.  I tried adding more drip lines, but that didn't help, so...sorry:  My gardening rule is if you can't thrive with what I'm willing to give you, you're gone.  I've replaced them with Cala Lillies and I'm hoping they do better.  Forever, I've wanted Cala Lillies back in my garden (I had them in Petaluma).  I hope these are keepers.

So that's it for now.  Time to go back to work tomorrow and get some rest! Haha!