Backyard garden plan 2010 June update

TripleQ has been working slowly but steadily to remove the lawn in the marked area.

Before the weather gets unbearably hot, I managed to salvage as many plants as I can from the triangular patch behind the house.

• Bleeding hearts have been moved to next to the compost.
• Geranium has not done well after being transplanted.
• A loner hydrangea (which came as a gift with foil wrap and ribbons and miraculously survives after being planted in the ground) is moved to the spot next to Iris. It is finally free from weeds, for a while.
• Moved 1 spirea to a pot temporarily

It has been the quintessential "survivor-the-fittest" in the triangular patch. It was so full (of weed) and lively but TripleQ is so fed up with the messiness. Being so close to the house, I have to agree that we should start with a clean slate. The current game plan is to transplant or remove all the plants in the area. Extend the gravel coverage (from under the deck). Planting will only happen within the circle made by wedge bricks. TripleQ has done an impressive job on clearing up the area. He even put in bricks to mock up the planting area. Now there are only one spirea and one boxwood on site. We'll move them when it's cooler.

More about the simple plan for the backyard:
Simple plan
Simple plan-revised
Victoria Day long weekend update

Backyard garden plan 2010 Victoria Day

More updates on my simple plan:

Here's the original garden plan. In short, I can probably change the title to "Backyard garden plan 2010-2011".

The Victoria Day long weekend and the week before were the kick-start. We managed to accomplish the following:

• Removed as much lawn from the marked area as possible.
• Transplanted lamb's ears and snow-in-summer to the backyard
• Removed a big portion of forget-me-nots at the front so the star flowers and common thrifts can finally see the sun light
• Planted all new plants (annuals, herbs, tomatoes) in the planters & the voids (due to the removal of plants mentioned previously) in the front garden
• Father-in-law brought Irises from their garden and planted them for us :)

Snow-in-Summer
The survival rate of snow-in-summer by far is not that brilliant. It seems the whole cluster of snow-in-summer mainly depends on few deep roots; the rest are quite shallow and couldn't handle the shock. Let's just hope that the remaining part will thrive next year. I didn't have much faith in its survival the first year it was in our garden but it exceeds my expectation and has taken over a good portion of our front garden.

Picture of the void in the front garden

It is now filled by (starting from the left) Thai basil, marigolds and dills.
See picture here

Lamb's Ears
The progress on removing the lawn is a lot slower than expected (mainly due to the heat and high humidity). I transplanted 5 groups of lamb's ears in front of the dog woods. That's about half of the lamb's ears I plan to move. The other half is still pending. The lamb's ears look droopy over the new location; however, I have faith in their ability of multiplication. If they manage to put down their roots this year, they'll come back strong and conquer the world (back yard) in the years to come.

Although we didn't manage to remove lawn where the IncrediBall hydrangeas should be planted, we decide to plant them first. Just in case this project will really extend into the next year or so. Those two were the only plants which didn't get planted over the Victoria Day long weekend. They were sitting on the porch for one week.
Picture of IncrediBall hydrangeas in the pots

It's going to be a bit tricky to remove grass around them. But at least they are in the ground now. So we can take our time.

Iris
We got few hand-me-down irises from my parents-in-law. They are huge! And, another purple flower in the garden. It wasn't in the plan but it is a welcome surprise. Picture of Iris

Annuals
Vinca Cora Punch in a planter and marigold.

More about the simple plan for the backyard:
Simple plan
Simple plan-revised

Backyard garden plan 2010-revised

Updated my garden plan over the weekend. Changes are below:

• Corrected the hard landscape layout; I didn't include the stairs of the patio last time.
• Updated the border. After few rainstorms, it became obvious that grass is thinner in some area than others. Reduce the size of the flower bed on the left but expand it around the cherry tree on the right accordingly.
• Give up the purple leaf sandcherries; now in favor of Proven Winner hydrangeas (maybe Invinsible Spirit?).
• Plan to divide and reuse more perennials from other areas.

I am hoping to divide and transplant as many plants as possible not just to save money. The growing condition at the back is not too bad; a bit of gentle morning sun but scorching afternoon sun. Some shrubs (e.g. dogwoods) also suck up a lot of water and leave little for smaller plants. So it's time to turn to those trial-and-true survivors in our garden.

For the past few years the shady garden right behind our house is a testimony of Darwin's theory - Survival of the fittest. TripleQ has had enough of the "mess"; I think he lost it after seeing all the forget-me-not growing out of the shady garden boundaries and into the lawn. We will wipe out the whole shady garden and leave only 1 or 3 (in a roll) specimen plant(s). Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the shady garden in previous years. I think our shady garden was kind of cool though; the garden was ALWAYS full from late spring to fall. If I didn't like a plant, I just snipped it. But I agree that it could look messy when you are up and close.

There are snow-in-summer, forget-me-not and catmint (Nepeta mussinii) in the front garden and they all try to take over the garden. It gets a lot more crowded than the picture taken about half month ago, especially after the peony and herbs are back. Time to move big chunks of snow-in-summer, forget-me-not and catmint to the back so they can "run" wild. :-) Hopefully I can create a relaxed, low-maintenance pretty garden.

Backyard garden plan 2010

I am kind of proud of myself that I created this garden plan. It took me hours to design and draw, hopefully it works out as planned. (Will need TQ to help on execution.) TQ always teases me on going all out on planning. When I shopped for patio furniture, I cut out circles and squares in proportion to map out the arrangement and find out proper size of each piece of furniture. But hey! It works!! No money was wasted.

The lawn slopes away from the house at the back (6"-12"). In the ideal world, I would like to have a low retaining wall to hold the land and flatten the back. Replant the trees because the mistake from "the early years"(see note 1) is so evident. HOWEVER, we have NO budget for hard-landscape. And the little we spend on everything else, the better. So here's the plan. I want to move the spireas from the area close to the house (that's another problematic area; we'll have to clean up the patch and leave minimal plants). We have a lot of forget-me-nots, lamb's ears and catmint from the front that we can transplant good chunks of them and let them run wild at the back. The growing conditions at the back are not the best but hopefully they are hardy enough that they can be "unleashed". Actually we have A LOT of forget-me-nots growing among the grass or through the gravel in the backyard already; I am sure they will thrive. Yes, I know lamb's ears are taller than forget-me-not. The reason I plan this way is because forget-me-not tends to bloom while new lamb's ears are still small. Once it finishes blooming, its leaves are not particularly inspiring. So lamb's ears can block them.

I have been wanting to have purpleleaf sand cherry but I am not sure if they will be too big for the space. Still need some time before making the final decision. But hopefully they will be the only items we need to buy, in addition to dirt and mulch.

Note 1: mistake from "the early years": dogwoods and one snowberry are within the same border (why we did so really puzzles me, considering they are not even at the center). Two lilacs are next to dogwoods, another two are on the left hand side (and the adjacent ones don't even have the same color of blooms). WHY~~