Garden and Yard Talk

fooferdoggie

Elite Member
Site Donor
Posts
4,376
Reaction score
7,727
these are trestrial orchids. I have two different plants in here but one the coolest is not happy. it has dark green leaves with black spots. this guys leaves are about the color now and the blooms can last for months. this is a easy to grow one some can be really finicky, this guy wants full son and loves the heat. they are so expensive I think this guy was around 50 for a little pot. but this is the 3rd or 4 year and it is doing really well

IMG_2447.jpeg
s-l1600.jpg.jpg
 

Huntn

Whatwerewe talk'n about?
Site Donor
Posts
5,253
Reaction score
5,187
Location
The Misty Mountains
April 2021 flower bed Project
This strip of yard, approx 6x35’, the wife wants to turn it into a wild flower bed. The idea is that wild flowers should be relatively rugged and not depend on regular water as there is no sprinkler system in this part of the yard. So you know who gets to do the brunt of the work. ;)

Since we live in a community that has covenants, I decided to run this by the home owner Association who approved, but I said flowers and mulch, not specifically wild flowers which can seen unruly. So we’ll see what kind of reaction if any we get from them. Anyway in the picture I just scalped it with the lawn mower, and per Monty (Gardener’s World), I’ve started to vigorously rake it to expose the dirt, not supposed to remove all of the grass.

Today, I’ll buy a stack of pavers to define the property line which will be flush with the ground (already checked and got an ok from the neighbor. I really need to get this area raked and the seeds spread as it is getting late in the season to start such plants. You want them going before it gets stink’n hot. And I’m going to drop a border of crushed rock around it using landscaping edging to make the area look more defined and refined to counter any unruliness of the wild fires themselves.

This area will also get some tuffs of ornamental grass and 2 Acoma dwarf (white) Crepe Myrtle bushes, 7-10’, but we will prune them as they commonly are around here to resemble trees, pruning them up with a couple of main stalks In the bottom 6’ or so. Typically each year, they are topped And new growth is encouraged.

So has anyone worked with wild flowers? I was surprised that they are typically sewed in existing grasses, but that makes sense when you see them growing in the wild in pastures. Any suggestions?

Although I look at it every day, I’ve just realized there is a hump running down the right side of my new bed in the making ( previous image, looking from house to street), that gets quite pronounced near the street. I’m doing some mild terraforming leveling the area. which is going to wipe much of the grass. I’ve also been trying to get rid of a mole, family of moles for a couple of years now. Is there any reason to welcome them to your yard? I know they eat bugs...and worms?
 

Huntn

Whatwerewe talk'n about?
Site Donor
Posts
5,253
Reaction score
5,187
Location
The Misty Mountains
More Amaryllis and honey suckle which is a lovely plant. Two Geisha Girls (shrubs) are coming back!

B1AB53D6-97DD-4176-B20E-EC3297A55F5F.jpeg
Amaryllis

E8869794-0D08-40FC-87CA-5EBFB631A73A.jpeg
Honey Suckle

53FFFAA8-E1C0-4238-B27A-1C388BC7AB52.jpeg
Geisha Girl before the freeze Now
growing back from the roots​
 

lizkat

Watching March roll out real winter
Posts
7,341
Reaction score
15,163
Location
Catskill Mountains
So has anyone worked with wild flowers? I was surprised that they are typically sewed in existing grasses, but that makes sense when you see them growing in the wild in pastures. Any suggestions?

I've done smaller patches from time to time, but I did try to dig out and otherwise distress the grassroots first down to around five inches and out about three inches so I could put stones over groundcloth along the edges of the patch. Believe me the grasses will find their way back quickly enough. I also wanted to bring poorer soil to the surface because the wildflowers thrive in poor soil and grasses like the stuff that's more fertile. I mixed some sand into the top couple inches too before raking it out and scattering the seed, because our native soil right around here tends to be heavy and we sometimes get heavy rain in springtime. I did mine early in spring and laid some light straw mulch over top to let the seeds figure out when to push up but some people around here plant earlier and don't mulch and do take their chances with both late frost and rains. As general advice I took guidelines out of some site like the one cited below, although it may not have been this exact one, anyway the suggestions look similar. Where you are now though, you might need to focus on advice meant for the southwest, past just generic "wildflower cultivation" tips.


Cautionary tale: some wildflowers are invasive, even annual ones in terms of their ability to spread elsewhere, so keep an eye out for those you don't care to see overtake the patch or make inroads into the lawn. My own lawns are mostly just from chaff taken off the haywagon so they're pretty invasive themselves, thus my battles of grass v wildflowers were more or less a draw at the borders of the patches, and the flowers stayed inside.

If your HOA doesn't like the look of a straggly patch at first, plant a few annuals in there to make it look more like garden and less like a work in progress. When you pull those out later just leave the space raked over a little, the foliage of the growing wildflowers will expand to fill the space, and the wildflowers will seed into those areas ok for the next year. I had to mulch over mine a little in winter to minimize seed damage or loss from frost heaves and maraudings of hungry meadow critters.
 

Scepticalscribe

Cancelled
Posts
6,644
Reaction score
9,457
For anyone who likes gardening, I have to recommend Gardener’s World from the UK starring Monty Don. Very Zen like. It’s a great show with a large variety of guests and their gardens and is available for viewing in the US on, Acorn, Britbox, Amazon Prime, BBC2? and Dailymotion videos. My wife is a fanatic and it’s gotten her back out in the yard.



When my mother - who loved gardening and was a genuinely gifted gardener - still had her mind, and memory and marbles, Monty Don was possibly her very favourite TV show, and was one that she never missed.
 

Huntn

Whatwerewe talk'n about?
Site Donor
Posts
5,253
Reaction score
5,187
Location
The Misty Mountains
April 2021 flower bed Project
This strip of yard, approx 6x35’, the wife wants to turn it into a wild flower bed. The idea is that wild flowers should be relatively rugged and not depend on regular water as there is no sprinkler system in this part of the yard. So you know who gets to do the brunt of the work. ;)

Since we live in a community that has covenants, I decided to run this by the home owner Association who approved, but I said flowers and mulch, not specifically wild flowers which can seen unruly. So we’ll see what kind of reaction if any we get from them. Anyway in the picture I just scalped it with the lawn mower, and per Monty (Gardener’s World), I’ve started to vigorously rake it to expose the dirt, not supposed to remove all of the grass.

Today, I’ll buy a stack of pavers to define the property line which will be flush with the ground (already checked and got an ok from the neighbor. I really need to get this area raked and the seeds spread as it is getting late in the season to start such plants. You want them going before it gets stink’n hot. And I’m going to drop a border of crushed rock around it using landscaping edging to make the area look more defined and refined to counter any unruliness of the wild fires themselves.

This area will also get some tuffs of ornamental grass and 2 Acoma dwarf (white) Crepe Myrtle bushes, 7-10’, but we will prune them as they commonly are around here to resemble trees, pruning them up with a couple of main stalks In the bottom 6’ or so. Typically each year, they are topped And new growth is encouraged.

So has anyone worked with wild flowers? I was surprised that they are typically sewed in existing grasses, but that makes sense when you see them growing in the wild in pastures. Any suggestions?

Update : project complete with 2 dwarf Acomo Crape Myrtle bushes to be shaped as trees, 3 decorative grasses, and wild flower seeds planted. Let’s see what happens. :)

7111F21A-8139-4601-B8D5-4B68754E42F5.jpeg

58574E7A-8030-48D4-9BCC-88166F0240A9.jpeg
Landscaping finished, watching for wildflowers to pop.
Hopefully the straw bed will not adversely effect wildflower seeds.
They were put down first.
57D8A569-F7F1-4823-8C70-AAD5D1B305F5.jpeg
Acoma Crape Myrtle about 10’ tall will have to be pruned up for this narrow space.​
 

Huntn

Whatwerewe talk'n about?
Site Donor
Posts
5,253
Reaction score
5,187
Location
The Misty Mountains
Amaryllis popping out front:

FFCAE19B-2843-4B4A-B88A-D587CB5746F1.jpeg

They tend to sell just Red ones here (Houston) for Christmas. Last fall we divided, and sent some extra bulbs to friends and went online to find some other colors. My wife got some intriguing double amaryllise.

38ECE31F-3963-4781-B1D8-CD36B1500347.jpeg
 

Huntn

Whatwerewe talk'n about?
Site Donor
Posts
5,253
Reaction score
5,187
Location
The Misty Mountains
Update : project complete with 2 dwarf Acomo Crape Myrtle bushes to be shaped as trees, 3 decorative grasses, and wild flower seeds planted. Let’s see what happens. :)

View attachment 4443

View attachment 4442
Landscaping finished, watching for wildflowers to pop.
Hopefully the straw bed will not adversely effect wildflower seeds.
They were put down first.
View attachment 4444
Acoma Crape Myrtle about 10’ tall will have to be pruned up for this narrow space.​
Wildflowers were rearing to go, in fact some seeds we are planting are popping virtually within 48 hours. April has been glorious, today in the 60s.

193BFBE7-DF07-4675-87DF-2E4A82502505.jpeg
 

fooferdoggie

Elite Member
Site Donor
Posts
4,376
Reaction score
7,727
our back yard /bank is not the greatest soil and the tree roots are in the way of planting. Plus course pretty much full shade. some ferns did well some ok some died over the last few years. I have bought so many different species the word fern native to this are have done the best. they jsut sat there for a year before growing. some babies though not a lot. thew grown cover is finally taking off. the dog has his path so nothing is going grow there.
IMG_2539.jpeg
IMG_2540.jpeg
 

Huntn

Whatwerewe talk'n about?
Site Donor
Posts
5,253
Reaction score
5,187
Location
The Misty Mountains
Interesting article for anyone who might want to make a home made liquid fertilizer:


Ferns are tough, have always been a favorite of mine. The housing development we lived in Minnesota (southern Twin Cites suburbs) I used to visit woodsy vacant lots about to be bulldozed to build a house and rescue the ferns for my own woodsy backyard. :)
 

fooferdoggie

Elite Member
Site Donor
Posts
4,376
Reaction score
7,727
Interesting article for anyone who might want to make a home made liquid fertilizer:



Ferns are tough, have always been a favorite of mine. The housing development we lived in Minnesota (southern Twin Cites suburbs) I used to visit woodsy vacant lots about to be bulldozed to build a house and rescue the ferns for my own woodsy backyard. :)
some can be wimps though. my wife can't grow them in the house at all. orchids yes ferns no. well this fern growing in a orchid pot of course
IMG_2605.jpeg
 

Huntn

Whatwerewe talk'n about?
Site Donor
Posts
5,253
Reaction score
5,187
Location
The Misty Mountains
some can be wimps though. my wife can't grow them in the house at all. orchids yes ferns no. well this fern growing in a orchid pot of course
View attachment 4679
Ferns don’t like low humidity. In Minnesota we used to over winter our deck Boston ferns in the Dining Room West facing window and by the end of the winter, they were very sad. Outside, they are troopers.
 

fooferdoggie

Elite Member
Site Donor
Posts
4,376
Reaction score
7,727
Ferns don’t like low humidity. In Minnesota we used to over winter our deck Boston ferns in the Dining Room West facing window and by the end of the winter, they were very sad. Outside, they are troopers.
not an issue here in portland and our house. I think too much light.
 

lizkat

Watching March roll out real winter
Posts
7,341
Reaction score
15,163
Location
Catskill Mountains
Ferns don’t like low humidity. In Minnesota we used to over winter our deck Boston ferns in the Dining Room West facing window and by the end of the winter, they were very sad. Outside, they are troopers.

My grandma used to overwinter her Boston ferns in a spare bedroom, in a 3"-tall galvanized tray about 4' x 6' that was filled with pebbles and that she kept about an inch of water in to provide some local moisture. Most ferns are pretty fussy about dry air indoors.
Outside though, wow. I remember in 2012 we had an especially rainy summer here, and these guys popped up outta nowhere next to an in-law's place and really took off. I loved them and managed to transplant a few out to a low spot in the back of my place where they'd have a better chance no matter the local rainfall levels. They didn't very much like being transplanted, as I recall, but enough of their spores settled in there over the season changes that year, so I have nice ferns out back now most years.

ferns from 2012.jpg
 
Top Bottom
1 2