Vacation is Over

My morning room

I woke up yesterday to a temperature of 48 degrees. I knew it was going to get cold, but I thought I had a few more days! Fifty degrees is my cutoff for the summer vacation for my indoor plants (and that is pushing it). I just remembered I go warmer for putting them outside in the spring, more like 55 or 60, and it seemed to take forever to get there this year. I think it was May before they went outside. But as always, they really thrive when out there in the warm weather.

With the weather forecast stay as cold or colder for the next week, yesterday was devoted to bringing in the jungle. I expanded my houseplant collection last winter, so I had to spend some time deciding where these plants would go.(I did lose a couple as well.) I didn't have stands or places for many of them. 

I decided to put most of the plants into the TV room (formerly known as the dog's room, sometimes referred to as the South Wing), rather than scatter them throughout the house. This is a small room off the main house with big windows on three sides. I had to wash several outdoor pieces of furniture, and even saw off the feet of several small wooden Ikea tables that had rotted a bit from sitting on damp earth. Several of the plants also needed repotting. So this turned into a most-of-the-day project, not a bad way to spend the day. And I think I like the idea of a garden room. I've noticed the increased light in there from lower angles and fewer leaves, and I gravitate towards it.

The South Wing

Now, I think I need more plants! There is a hip spot in downtown DC for houseplants I could visit. There is the internet. But I think I may start with Home Depot and Lowes. As I recall from this spring, Lowes had better plants, but Home Depot had wider choices for pots. 

I had been very big into palm trees when I first got the house and realized the possibilities of my TV room. Here's a moody photo taken from inside November, 2001.

November 2001

Opening Up

There is an extra satisfaction in garden clean-up in the fall because plants are done growing for the most part, so things pulled out or cut back stay gone. My front entrance was way overgrown. It wasn’t possible to get to the front door without brushing against some plants. This included long tendrils from a thorny rose bush! 

I like having a wide, easy-to-navigate entrance, so I spent a couple of hours on this. Here are before and after shots. It’s honestly kind of subtle, but it creates so much more of an open and welcoming feeling. Bonus: it’ll be easier to shovel snow, without the plants growing over the sides, should that become necessary.

Rain Garden

 Much of my gardening is driven by changing light conditions - trees grow, trees fall, buildings are built, and the light changes. When the giant spruce fell in my yard in March 2018, conditions changed substantially and the ripple effect continues. 

Peculiar blossoms and fruits

I had a Carolina sweetshrub bush, bought and planted in the waning days of the last century, in front of my house. It was one of several bushes planted in a little thicket beside the walk to my front door, deliberately to create privacy and block views from the street into my house and yard. I only put in shade-adapted natives: the sweetshrub, several blueberries, shadbush, dogwood, oakleaf hydrangea, arrowwood viburnum and cranberry viburnum. For almost two decades the Norway spruce overtopped them and provided shade from deep to dappled, and so they all poked along, establishing roots, growing slowly, intertwining as they way. When the spruce fell, the brakes came off! Now, it is a thriving deep dense thicket, ripe with berries and caterpillars and thus a prime bird habitat.

The sweetshrub, planted at the end of the thicket, was a real winner in the light-and-water sweepstakes. It turns out, this bush can spread by sending out underground suckers, creating a thicket all its own encroaching both on the other bushes and the lawn in the other direction. I realized by the year after the tree fell that it was dominating the space and might have to go. As I thought about it, I grew enamored of the idea of making prime full-sun space available for a rain garden. But it would be a considerable project. 

I dove into the thicket periodically to methodically dig out suckers, beginning with the ones farthest from the main bush. A few of the suckers I transplanted to the opposite end of my yard where there is currently deep shade. Last year, I got the size of the bush down to maybe three feet in diameter, and cut it all off to about four feet high. I kept eying the standing corpse and dreading the task of digging it out.

It's ripe for the plucking!

Houseguests to the rescue! Last October my boat partner and her husband vacationed in my basement for a week (almost as nice as their aborted trip to the Azores, no?)  And one lovely day while they were staying, my sailing partner and I indulged ourselves with weekday sailing, leaving her prone-to-seasickness husband to stay behind and work on his book. But, he asked for anything that needed doing outside. I suspect he wanted to mow the grass, but I pointed out the bush and where the tools were kept, kind of as a joke. But we came home to find the bush gone, all of its sticks bundled for removal and the roots out of the ground, a tidy hole in the ground left behind.

Waiting for next steps

All spring I worried over what to do next. I had spoken to a local contractor about doing a rain garden project, but he never pursued me and I'm past begging for folks to come do work I could do myself. I knew I had to dig out the space, connect to a buried drain from the roof gutters, modify the soil, buy lots of plants. It seemed a big and daunting project, and I did nothing about it. Every time I walked past the scar left behind it gnawed at me.

But, the kedge (planning a big difficult trip to make myself get in better shape) worked! In fact, not only am I in better physical shape, but mentally I'm more ready to tackle difficult things. And, once I got into it, making the rain garden was very manageable.

So, I dug out the space.

I modified the soil.

 

I bought some plants and put them in. It needs more plants, but July is not a great time to acquire plants - spring ones are gone, fall ones are not in. Some things I wanted are not available, and I may end up shopping my yard to move some things from elsewhere. Fall is a great time to do this.

I mulched the heck out of it.

Finally, we had some rain and I was able to watch as rain from the roof drained through the pipe and into the garden, where it filled up and then drained slowly over the course of some hours just as planned!

The one sad thing is this is still the deer highway where they come from the creek into my yard (to eat all my apples). So far, that hasn't been an issue with what I've put in. I'll continue to look for less appetizing plants.

EDIT: As it turns out, last night (evening of the day I wrote this) we got 1.5” of rain in 25 minutes! Towards the end of the downpour (when I thought it was safe) I went out to look. There were a good 6” of water in the rain garden throughout the bowl, with active draining from the roof. When I went out about three hours later, it had all drained away. Exactly the way it’s supposed to work! 

Oasis

Here’s the entrance to the private part of my garden.

 I love my yard! I love that I can just hang out there - the weather and the bugs have cooperated a lot so that just sitting or even napping on my little private patio is the best!  I’ve even fallen asleep out there at night, reluctant to go to bed. And the first cup of coffee in the morning is often out there - hence the blanket. The chaise and cushion is absolutely the best investment ever!  

In the winter and spring the patio is sunny in the mornings, but now with leaves out it is always shady and thus mostly cool.

Here is my little outdoor sanctuary, 
With indoor plants enjoying a summer vacation
And my potting bench

My guys like it too

Rose Tree

This is not actually a “rose tree”. I planted a climbing rose under my pagoda dogwood - I may not have realized at the time it was a climbing type, instead of a bush rose. Under the tree, which grows a foot or so a year lately, it has been shaded. But nature finds a way, and its top tendrils have climbed up to find the sun. My initial reaction, as the branches between the rose and tree were weaving together, was to cut the rose back. But why? Let it find the sun! I like it!

In other news, I have roses everywhere. It’s a good year for them!

February Nice

 This is my living room mantel, decorated for February. The fans came in a box of armchair traveler stuff about Japan (Christmas present from middle boy) along with some loose green tea, a teacup, a book, and other stuff. The hearts may or may not have originated as Christmas ornaments. 

The daffodils I cut outside from the front corner, where they were about to bloom unseasonably early (and perhaps get ruined by the snow).