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! 

First Harvest

Early on, I planted broccoli and cauliflower, onions and rainbow chard. The broccoli and cauliflower had cabbage worms, and so the harvest is (literally) spotty. I cut off the big broccoli heads but left the plants. Last year, I had a great harvest from side shoots on the broccoli. I harvested one of my two cauliflowers (the whole plant came out). Both the broccoli and cauliflower were past their prime, and chewed on, so I put them in the pressure cooker with onions and a can of tomatoes, to make a soup base for later.

The onions kind of melted away into the soil. I dug up what was left of them, but there was nothing to eat.

The chard, on the other hand, is doing great! I harvested the outer leaves, which had some holes, but were basically ok. I left the chard plants in place to fill out for another harvest. I cut up the chard, stems and leaves separately, and with bacon, an onion, a can of diced tomatoes, and a dash of balsamic vinegar and parmesan cheese it was dinner, with plenty of leftovers.

I finally set out some zucchini plants I had bought, and seeded some tiny watermelon plants. I have some summer-weight floating row cover that I put over the zucchini and will put over the watermelon when it comes up. "Squash vine borer" is an early season hazard to these squash family plants, and I'm hoping to deter the egg laying with a physical barrier. 

I had started lettuce, arugula, chard, basil and cilantro from seeds, and I finally set out the little plants in parts of the vegetable patch that is not currently filled with other plants. I figure they can be harvested to make room for the growing zucchini, should I be so lucky.

I've got three tomato plants in pots, and so far they seem to be doing great. I washed the pots and supports with a dilute bleach solution, and put fresh potting soil in the top third of each pot. So I've at least postponed the effects of the tomato virus, though it's far too early to declare victory. The pots are all near my driveway, but separate from each other, and off the normal deer thoroughfare through my yard. So far so good.

The Voice of the Cicada is Heard through the Land

It's cicada mania time! We are big fans of the little guys. I've got little holes all through my yard where they've tunneled up, and then they shed their skins and head for the tops of trees. At mid-day on warm days, there is a hum in the background - not actually loud enough to compete with a conversation, but clearly there. Bixby, the fraidy-dog, had to cautiously explore. But now, he's enjoying playing with them on the ground. So far, I haven't noticed him eating them.

Seventeen years ago, we celebrated big time. My sister got tshirts for the kids. We had a barbecue at my house and everybody tried a grilled cicada. My sister had in her head that she wanted to grab and grill some at an upcoming office picnic, and she thought she needed to rehearse, to see if it would actually work. So we all tried them. Charred, with hot sauce and salt, with a big beer chaser, I got one mostly down, but it wasn't an experience I am likely to repeat.

Never in a million years could we have pictured, in 2004, what we would be in 2021. We have such a big hole where my sister should be, and yet we are so blessed. And never could we have forecast how the kids turned out. Take a look at those three, and pick the most likely to be working for the Defense Department, for example!

So I had to do Tshirts, of course, and we had a smaller family celebration.

Where will we be in 2038? Will the cicadas adapt to the new, warmer and more volatile world we'll be living in?

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!

Editing

I love clematis. My fence allowed
me to add several around.

Things are of course progressing apace in the garden. I've mowed the lawn twice already - and the second time, it was too long to mulch, I had to bag and compost to avoid having it mat down and kill the other stuff. I started seeds, some veggies and annual flowers, from scratch. Until just now, it was too early to plant tomatoes and other tender things outside, but it's time to get going on that now. 

I'm starting to get an idea of how I want the yard and the gardens to evolve. I've got several distinct areas on my corner lot - inside the fence front and back, outside the fence front and side and back. I've got a few ambitious ideas I have made little progress on. But I've decided that "gardens" will be in the front - inside and outside the fence - and the rest will have smaller raised beds and containers to be planted, with the balance lower maintenance grasses and shrubs. And in the gardens, I intend to be very dense with plants, so that there is not so much area for weeds to take hold. I am thinking about views from inside the house and from seating areas outside. 

A collection from the longest-planted part.

Some of this thinking has grown from the way my oldest garden - the shady front inside the fence - has evolved. I started twenty years ago, a less affluent novice, putting in single plants, or sometimes going all the way to three at a time. Now, those individuals have either died off or proliferated. Most of my time inside the fence is editing. I either weed something out completely, or, often, serve as a referee for a border dispute between types of plants. I like having a patch of something, though they are often interwoven. But every year, something takes off and doesn't play nicely with the others and it has to be pulled out. Not necessarily excluded from the garden entirely - I actually spend some time moving things around. The entrepreneurial aggressive plant of the year differs year to year - a few years back it was Joe Pye weed, this year it's green-and-gold, weaving a complex pattern of sprawling stems along the ground. 

Golden groundsel

My current thinking is something that likes my garden well enough to be a thug probably can find a place where I'm fine if it just takes over. I'll leave it there, and try to police it's ventures elsewhere. But where it is, it becomes much less work. A good example is golden groundsel (Packera aurea). I added a few to a shady, damp spot a while ago. It took off and took over, both seeding nearby and spreading. I'm ripping it up inside the fence, but outside the fence (and downhill) it is also thriving. It has these composite yellow flowers for a long time in the late winter and spring. The rest of the time, it is a decent less than 6-inch groundcover. It will stabilize the steep slope, as long it is thriving. Outside the fence, I'll do almost nothing to it.

 

This moss phlox requires full sun,
scarce around here. This patch is huge!

 

Known as flea bane, this wildflower showed up.
It's welcome some places, not in others.
But it's easy to pull up.

 

This is green-and-gold, where it can stay on the steep slope.

Changes Every Day

Apple and redbud,
view from my bedroom window

This time of year, the garden changes fast. Especially on a warm and sunny day, I can see changes from morning to evening. Because so much of my yard is shady, plants have to hurry up and perform before all the leaves are out, shutting out the smaller plants' view of the sun. Everywhere I look, there is something unfolding that enthralls me. Just standing and looking is very rewarding. And I have the ability to focus on an exquisite lovely little detail, and ignore a bigger picture that shows trash or trash plants right next to the little thing I'm admiring. My yard contains many little vignettes, no sweeping vistas.

Rocky enjoying the tulips
(the tulips possibly enjoying him less)

Everywhere I look, there is something that needs plucking out, cutting back, or just edited in some way. I will set out on a project, and as I gather my tools and prepare to start, I catch a noxious weed out of the corner of my eye. It's like someone calls "squirrel" to my fierce dog Abbey (long deceased). Carrying out a project from beginning to end will be filled with digressions, which might be why each task seems to take twice as long as I planned.

Front yard before it's fully shady

Carolina silverbell and tulips

Bluebells and anemones

So I plug along, filling a big brown yard waste bag a day, taking out much more than I add back. And in a month or so, I'll be able to stop and smell my roses along the way!