Garden 2011

This year, I approach gardening with much wisdom learned from last year. Last year, I merely dabbled in planting things, with fingers crossed that something would come of it. This year, I begin with a plan. I have a notebook with drawings of garden beds and descriptions of plants and harvesting dates. This year, dare I say, I may feel a little success!!

First off, I have an area about 20x7 on the side of my yard. On the north and west of it is a fence, and the rest is open. My husband bought me a beautiful arbor for Yule:




















I plan on making it the entrance way to the garden. I was thinking about either planting zinnias around the actual arbor, or string morning glories and jasmine up it. Not sure yet. It will open to an area with a bench to sit on and a box with all my supplies in it. To the immediate left will be an herb garden: lemon balm, oregano, rosemary, stevia, lavender, sage, and dill. Beyond that a bed with a foot long path going down the middle. One either side will be: corn, lettuce, broccoli, watermelon, green beans, carrots and pumpkin. I am still trying to figure out rotating crops, like when one thing is done plant something else. But I still need to figure out soil quality and things like harvesting dates.

Along the east facing side of that yard, along my house, is where my dying jasmine and gardenia plants are. If I can salvage them, awesome! If not, I will buy more. I loved having their beautiful leaves and strong full of life vines greeting me as I walked out my back door. On the other side of my door (same wall) is a semi raised bricked off bed, about 5x2. It help silver fog and sunflowers last year. I am thinking of doing some beautiful flowers there, maybe butterfly flowers. I have some jewel colored zinnia that would brighten that corner up!

I hope to coax my yellow and red rose bushes into flowering! Those, along with my pink crepe myrtle, white magnolia blooms and pink and white oleander, should add some color to my west facing fence.

My north facing fence is still up in the air. It has a fence, and the other side of that fence is a house that has been vacant since 2008. The fence isn't well taken care of. My idea was to put a bunch of trellises about 4 inches away from it, and plant some hardy vines in front of it. I would love to have a wall of beautiful white jasmine with bright green leaves when I look that way. This fence faces north, so doesn't get full sun usually. This is good, since most vines need moderate sunlight. I think that might be very expensive, but a friend of mine (Hi Brittany!) suggested making my own trellises. I will look into it for sure!

As for my front yard, the lemon lime bushes are holding up to the lady at Lowes' promise: they seem pretty cold hardy. Some leaves have died (I have 6 of them bordering my front wall) but 85% of the plant is still great. They are a lovely green and yellow color, and have grown into various funny shapes (I prefer to let them grow out a little instead of trimming them into nice neat little shapes). My hibiscus- I am a tad worried. I grew up with a 6 foot tall pink hibiscus that just flowered without much fuss. Mine (planted in June) is still about 8 inches tall and 12 inches around. The leaves look sad and dead, and no more flowers remain (they were a gorgeous yellow with a bright red center). I have my fingers crossed that it comes back, I think it will look great on the corner of my house. As for that orange tree from my previous blog well once I figure out what the weird thorny growth is I will deal with it. In the mean time, I will prune it and maybe fertilize it this year ( I need to look up citrus tree care. Everything I read about citrus trees in the library is how to get rid of them! I just want mine happy lol).

I would like to eventually try my hand at strawberries, blueberries, garlic, pumpkin, avocado, pineapple, and maybe even pineapple. Who knows?