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Post by Kimby on Dec 13, 2023 3:33:35 GMT
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Dec 13, 2023 16:26:36 GMT
Well done Kimby, it looks much more respectable altho I did like the jungley look too.
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Post by Kimby on Dec 14, 2023 22:57:45 GMT
The trouble with the “jungly look” is that we’re gone for months at a time and don’t have a yard service, so the jungle will take over. Those vines formed a mat of runners with a canopy of leaves that shaded out everything else growing in the yard. It was great fun pulling them because I could grab 8 or 10 vines in one hand and yank, and foliage would be pulled out of the bushes from multiple directions, as if I was a black hole of vines! (I put out about 40 bales over 3 weeks for the veg waste pickup crew.)
I’m sure the vines will come back as I probably didn’t get all (or even most) of the roots, but at least the other plants that are struggling to survive may gain some ground. And when we return in the spring, we’ll be able to plant some nice specimen plants here and there, from a native plant nursery on the island. Winter is the dry season, so better to start new plants at the start of the rainy season.
But that’s OK, because we still have gravel work to do, and mulching, like the new trail in the photo above.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Dec 17, 2023 15:25:32 GMT
Lots of the herbaceous perennials have died down now, I tend to leave them because the dead stuff protects the new growth in the spring. Also lots of creepy crawlies overwinter in the detritus. The agastache looked like a candelabra fantastic when covered in frost... but this morning OH couldn't cope with the untidiness anymore and has cut back and cleared away most of the dead stuff *sigh* It does look tidier.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 17, 2023 18:30:04 GMT
My back yard looks like it belongs to Miss Habersham.
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Post by bjd on Dec 17, 2023 18:51:14 GMT
Mine is looking rather empty because I transplanted a lot of plants so cut them back before moving them. But there are lots of leaves and mulch made of chopped-up leaves on the flowerbeds. And a zillion small weeds grew in the side of the garden that I had dug up. I sowed grass but hardly any came up -- it's green but all weeds.
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Post by bjd on Dec 19, 2023 11:54:21 GMT
Yesterday I stopped in at the garden centre thinking to buy some more bulbs and discovered that, since it's the end of the season, there was little choice but what they had were two bags for the price of one. So I bought some double pink tulips and some double orange ones. I don't usually like orange but planted them this morning in a bed full of purple veronica spicata so the purple and orange should look nice together.
I also realized that my climbing rose was not happy against the neighbour's hedge despite my putting a trellis. His passiflore keeps coming through, as do the branches of his hedge and I had a hard time cutting them off. So I cut the rosebush all back and will try to move it against the carport.
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Post by mickthecactus on Dec 19, 2023 12:15:29 GMT
I did the same with bulbs a few weeks back. And I don’t like orange either but should look ok with the purple.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 19, 2023 17:03:35 GMT
I think those orange tulips will be quite striking with the purple veronica!
It seems most people, including me, are quick to say they don't like orange. But I'm looking into my dining room right now and note that there are discreet touches of orange that really bring everything else to life somehow. Orange often works that way in the garden as well.
Pain in the neck about the hedge hampering the rosebush, Bjd. The move sounds like a good idea.
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Post by bjd on Dec 19, 2023 17:58:57 GMT
I just looked on the internet for Sunlover tulips. They seem more stripey red/orange than the picture on the package. Oh well. We'll see in April. And my husband managed to dig out the rosebush and we moved it. I now have to find something to fill the empty space where it was.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 22, 2023 14:35:05 GMT
In terms of orange, I always liked trumpet vine, even more because they were a favourite of the hummingbirds.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 13, 2024 23:55:43 GMT
I just came across this online & am passing it on in case anyone wants it or wants to pass it on. It's somewhat rough & ready looking, but economical & would fit in all kinds of areas. The comments say that the links don't work, but I tested them & they are working.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jan 14, 2024 7:59:16 GMT
I could have done with something like that when I moved house a few years back.
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Post by lugg on Jan 15, 2024 20:48:45 GMT
n terms of orange, I always liked trumpet vine, even more because they were a favourite of the hummingbirds. I have a trumpet vine which gives me both angst and pleasure , sadly no humming birds here though; although ants love it .
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Post by kerouac2 on Jan 15, 2024 21:17:27 GMT
We do not have hummingbirds in Europe.
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Post by Kimby on Jan 15, 2024 22:04:00 GMT
Do you have sunbirds, or whatever the European equivalent to hummers is?
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 15, 2024 22:57:20 GMT
We do not have hummingbirds in Europe. Na na na na-na
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Post by bjd on Jan 16, 2024 7:36:37 GMT
About two weeks ago I was told that some hummingbirds have been brought to Europe, but that seems to be limited to aviaries, which is not a nice place for birds. I saw lots of hummingbirds in Ecuador -- they are beautiful.
While we are waffling about gardens, I pruned my rosebushes on Sunday. There were still some of last years flowers but with some new growth on other bushes. Not long ago, I learned that rosebushes used to be pruned in November but I imagine it was in cold places where the bushes would stay dormant until it was time to wake up. Here in my climate, they don't seem to go very dormant at all.
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Post by bjd on Feb 21, 2024 7:14:37 GMT
It's that time of year when I want to start gardening more, not that I really stop, just slow down.
We did move two large rosebushes. I had a huge one that was obviously mislabelled that I cut right down and was going to throw away. My husband (the hoarder!)saved it and planted it near a wisteria and it took, although I really cut it down to the ground. We also moved the climber that had been against the neighbour's hedge and it too has survived. Roses are amazingly hardy plants. Speaking of roses, I went to a garden centre on Monday and they had some discounted plants. I did hesitate for quite a while over a physocarpus (ninebark) for less than 10€, but so many of its branches were broken or would have to be pruned away that I finally left it on the table. I did buy a David Austin rose called Lady of Shallot that was 30% off. Planted it yesterday.
I also bought a few perennials.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 21, 2024 15:56:49 GMT
Bjd, I always admire how you confront the problem of a plant that doesn't work in a particular spot or that simply isn't performing as it should. Many people just leave such plants in place, then spend years fretting about them or trying to ignore them. You are lucky to be married to a like-thinking gardener, too. I just looked up the Lady of Shallot rose and was knocked out by the pictures and descriptions. I couldn't understand why I didn't already know about it, as it's such a stunner, but then learned that it was only introduced in 2007. That was ten years after I'd left the US and the wonderful world of catalogue shopping abundance behind. I have lots of garden tasks that have accumulated as I hid inside away from the wet cold that constitutes winter here in Coatepec, Veracruz. I'm lucky to have a friend, Mary, who is a close neighbor and also into gardening. We celebrated the nice weather on Monday by walking to the plant places near us. She has a jeep, so we went back to pick up the three gunny sacks of soil I bought at one, and then visited another. I got a bunch of herbs and a dwarf lime tree there. So yesterday I transplanted that lime tree plus a miniature rose I have and my fig tree into new soil & pots. I also tackled a potted camellia which Mary gave me because it was languishing. It turned out to have hardly any root system and some tiny scale infestation. I pruned it severely and potted it up with new soil. Then it was into the front & the big guns. One of the plants I brought with me from Oaxaca is a Thalia geniculata, which I put into the raised planter in the entry to the house. There is grew with thuggish intensity. It's a wonderful tall foliage plant & great against the white wall, but was crowding & shading out everything else. I pulled out the hated variegated Duranta which some moron had planted in the long raised planter (along with tons of coarse gravel) on the opposite front wall of the house and replaced that with the Thalia. To finish off that planter, I'm going to move the Heliconia rostrata ("parrot's beak") into the remaining space. This was another treasured plant I moved with me from Oaxaca, only to find that it's practically a weed here. In the first photo in my report on the fiesta in Xico, you can see it growing all along the highway. Right now it's in the center bed at the entry & being just as thuggish as the Thalia was. And then there are the herbs still to be dealt with, along with reviving the vegetable garden ..........
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 21, 2024 16:01:34 GMT
It all sounds good fun.
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Post by bjd on Feb 21, 2024 16:14:45 GMT
Bixa, you are very kind but my husband is not a gardener. He wants to prune things I like to leave bushy or that haven't flowered yet, he wants lawn where I would take out more of it, but he is useful if I need to move something big and hard to dig out. As for moving things, that is one lesson I have learned from the gardening videos I have been watching the most: if the plant is not doing well somewhere, either move it or get rid of it.
As for the Lady of Shalott -- I bought it because it was 30% off. I hadn't planned to buy any more roses! But I admit I am coming to like apricot-coloured flowers more and more.
Not much gardening in store here -- it is supposed to rain every day for the next 2 weeks.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 21, 2024 16:52:40 GMT
Well, if you can control his compulsion for anal-retentive gardening (severe tidiness & lawns), he does seem useful. Probably nice, too.
Roses seem to do quite well for you, so why not add them when you find a particularly nice one. I agree with the apricot-colored flowers. It's a soft but not wimpy color and looks good with a surprisingly large number of other colors.
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 21, 2024 18:56:42 GMT
I like lawns. They can make a superb backdrop with the right shape and care.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 21, 2024 19:00:15 GMT
My OH is the same bjd, he cuts the grass and is keen to cut back what he thinks are dead plants. He saw me cutting back the herbaceous perennials, I'd left some of them over winter so that the dead foliage protected the new growth emerging in the spring. Jeffers actually pulled out the roots when he 'tidied up the borders' so I've lost a few plants.
He's learning tho...and starting to be able to tell the difference between weeds and my perennials. Enthusiastic pruning appears to have killed off the flowering quince...but it might come back...you never know...
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Post by bjd on Feb 22, 2024 7:25:34 GMT
I like lawns. They can make a superb backdrop with the right shape and care. Oh sure, well-kept lawns are a nice background in large fancy gardens. However, we have grass of various kinds, some of which grows in odd clumps, in the front half of the garden. The first year we were here, we dug it all out and re-seeded with turf grass. Guess what grew back? There is also couch grass, chickweed... And even though we mow it when needed (my husband's job after years of my being head gardener!), we don't water it at all so in summer it's usually brown in areas where the grass is quite nice, and it stays green where it's that clumpy stuff. At the moment it is nice and green all over, although not those fancy stripes you see in magazines.
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 22, 2024 13:26:40 GMT
They can look good in any garden, not just large fancy ones.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 23, 2024 17:35:09 GMT
Our front lawn is 95% moss....purty tho....
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Post by mich64 on Feb 23, 2024 20:50:39 GMT
Over the years I have been digging up moss and adding it to areas where we do not want to mow grass. It has worked out pretty well for us. We have one gentle slope that is in the shade and not a good area for the lawn mower, through the years the moss has taken over and it is quite attractive and stays mostly green all summer being that is so shaded. We also have wood framed stairs going down to the lake that had grass, but the moss has slowly been taking over, it looks so much better and no maintenance.
We are still covered with snow (but not much!), but the snow has melted around most of my rock gardens giving me spring fever.
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Post by bjd on Feb 26, 2024 8:32:57 GMT
Here is something perhaps of interest to Mick, Cheery and Lugg:
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