Tagged With: Our Back Garden

Cathy Weeding

Cathy Weeding

Cathy Weeding

Cathy and I have been trying to recover from the small amount of work we did in the garden in 2018. This year has been mostly recovery mode without a lot of additions but a lot of pulling and digging, trying to get at least some parts of the garden back to more garden plants than weeds. It’s an up hill battle. Along the back fence there was a huge stand of goldenrod, pokeweed, and bindweed. Cathy dug up a bunch of roots a few weeks back and we worked a bit more on it this weekend. As you can see, the central bed is full of black-eyed Susan’s and we have the volunteer American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) growing there (the purple berries on the left). We dug out a bunch of weeds there last week, as well. Tomorrow I plan to dig up some roots that remain from the maple trees that used to be there.

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Patio Garden

Patio Garden

Patio Garden

This is the corner of our patio, looking pretty good, if I say so myself. In the barrel is a David Austin rose called ‘Gabriel Oak’ that should have its first flush of blooms in the next week or two. In front of that is a Portland rose called ‘Rose de Rescht’ that I thought had died but which was hanging on. I repotted it and it seems to be thriving. I’m going to try to take better care of it, now. Both of these roses have really strong fragrance. In another half-barrel I planted another David Austin rose called ‘Lady of Shalott’ which is growing taller but with fewer buds, so far. Of course these are new and will be much better next year, but even in their first year, they should be nice. And they are supposed to repeat very well.

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Our Garden

Cathy in Our Back Garden

Cathy in Our Back Garden

I’m posting this more than a month after it was taken. As you can see, we have a little bit of black-eyed Susan in our back garden. If you don’t like yellow you might not like our garden in late July. Thankfully, we’re happy with that color and the difficulty is keeping it under control rather than keeping it alive. It does have a tendency to move about on its own and we’ve even started pulling it out in a few places. This photo has a single tiger lily in the center. That’s nice but the big clump of them in the front yard it really the way this should be grown. It’s quite amazing for about three weeks in late July. We’ve also had a pretty successful summer with our elephant ear. Last year’s didn’t really do anything but I’m happy with this one and hopefully can keep it alive for the years ahead.

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