A day in the dirt

So much of Tom Spencer's talk about gardens has stayed with me today. The notion of a "gathering in" and careful observation in particular. A friend gave me this sign, which is both a physical truth and a metaphorical one. I'm pretty much always in my garden, whether in actual reality or when lying awake at night thinking about where on my little plot I could manage to plant an allee of Sky Pencil Hollies (ilex crenata). I saw these at Home Repo for $9.98 and am now somewhat obsessed with finding a place for them in my yard.




The backyard pink bed is doing well, all the cosmos are filling in the space between the roses. My plan to define the end of this bed with a wall of aspidistras is clearly not going to work--too much sun. I think a wall of rosemary or boxwood would do better. Next weekend I'll rip out these poor things and put them somewhere shady.


Meanwhile the front yard bed, which is all white flowers, blue agaves, prickly pear and gray-foliage perennials, continues to infuriate me with its slow growth. I am not a patient person; it's a wonder I managed to raise two children without resorting to mayhem. But this front bed is testing my very soul. I thought I had done a pretty good job of preparing the soil, but clearly things are struggling and I assume it must be oxygen deprivation. Salvia coccinea, brought from my Vale house, should be about a foot tall by now. The only things that really seem happy are the iceberg roses and the white plumbago. In despair, I filled in some of the empty spaces with white lantana and white salvia greggii today.


One bright spot is the appearance of buds on the prickly pear pads. I just snapped these cactus off the mother plant at Vale and stuck them in the ground hoping like hell they would make it. And lo, they have. This is my favorite landscape cactus, it has a velvety gray-green patina and is spineless. I love it paired with the roses.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Certainly not Christmas. But the plants are loving it. The pink salvia greggii that I wrenched from old house two weeks ago, stuck in the new front bed, and cut back to the stems immediately put out new growth and is now blooming. All the iceberg roses have also taken off and sprouted new buds, as well as pervasive black spot, not surprising given the damp and humidity. I've fallen hopelessly in love with the icebergs; I hope they don't do me wrong. They're like a summer ballgown made of white silk.
Meanwhile this funny little plant I got at Shoal Creek Nursery keeps on churning out its buttercups. Somehow I managed to not write down the name of this plant, which has a woody stalk and small almond-shaped leaves that are not particularly attractive. But the yellow flowers make up for the blah foliage. Anyone know what this is is?

My Aching Back, Part II

Sunday I got the front bed planted. I had already tilled abono de lavaca in to the topsoil, so the ground was ready. I love how every piece of merchandise is labeled in Eng/Span these days; I’ve learned quite a lot of terms including, now, cow manure.

So I dug holes and planted:
3 Iceberg roses
5 stands of blue-green spineless prickly pear
1 stand of blue-green asymmetrical prickly pear
3 upright rosemary
4 gray-green Russian sage
3 blue-green soft leaf yucca
2 small blue-green agaves
1 dark green with yellow stripes agave
2 hypericum
1 clump of Mexican oregano
5 root clumps of white lantana
4 root clumps of white salvia greggi
1 Mexican fan palm
1 windmill palm

Mid-day I took a break and headed to the Home Depot for six 40-lb. bags of mulch which was as many as would fit in the Accord's trunk. Stopped at DSW to look at shoes, a clever technique to pace myself and not overdo it in the yard. Sadly, could not find a single pair of shoes that I wanted. Headed home and back to stoop labor.

While I was working, two neighbors, Mark and Sarge, stopped in passing and shouted words of encouragement and praise. And my sweet neighbor Joe, dream date were he not 78 (architect, funny, amazing home interior filled with art and beauty) crept out from his lair to see how it was going and add his two cents. He really is quite charming but he always rushes off, either shy or not wanting to wear out his welcome.

I finally finished up around dusk and felt great: worn out but good worn out.

Tonight Stephanie, across the street came over to remark on the garden and tell me that she’s finally getting around to hiring someone to do front landscaping at her house. I hope that her landscaper will chop down the nandina which is all leggy and has completely robbed her front foundation planting of any joy.

The white salvia, which I wrenched from Vale only 2 weeks ago, is already leafing out. I’ve lucked out with the weather.