What I'm planting....and yes, I'm one of THOSE people!

Dear garden friends,

A plant nursery worker expressed amusement last week when I bought four fruit trees for my back yard. He said, "You must be one of THOSE people." I laughed, because I knew that he meant I was one of those gardeners who don't stop planting during the summer. Never mind that it was 95-degrees yesterday, and hit 107 sometime last week. I know that as long as I water anything I plant until it gets established, AND mulch like nobody's business, the plant will be OK 99.9% of the time.

To wit (love saying that!), I'm copying some of the home decor blogs where they list the chores they've accomplished, and will be listing the plants that I've successfully planted, and some that weren't so successful (very few of them are not.)
Today, I planted:

**three more rosemaries (to replace the water-sucking vampire plants AKA golden euonymous that never took off, even after a year)

**two more lavenders (they do VERY well here)

**three purple coneflowers (echinacea, a gorgeous landscape plant and a great medicinal, to boot)

I also have a Gregg's blue mist plant (which is supposed to be an excellent butterfly plant) and a fig tree to get in the ground, and a little bay laurel to pot up.

Notice a theme? Yes, I'm also one of THOSE gardeners who use lots and lots of herbs for landscaping. Sure, I mix in some annuals, and some Texas native Xeriscape plants, but in general, herbs look great AND we can cook with them. What's NOT to love??

All in all, not bad work for a hot Sunday morning!

Before garden (July 2007)


And now garden (July 2008)


Raised beds are made by simply leaning cedar fence picket boards against stakes pounded into the ground in rough rectangular shapes, then filled with top soil, compost, mulch,shredded leaves, you name it.

dig it!

bobbi c.

A new start

Hi friends!

It's been ever so long since I posted here. I've been busy painting the concrete floor in our new little cottage, and that's turned into a huge job. I despise carpet, and have dust allergies to boot, so almost the first thing we did was remove it and I filled in all the nail holes with patching stuff...over 750 of them! A few more days of scraping and cleaning and it was ready for paint. Yesterday I finished up the last top-coat of paint/stain, and now I need to put on the finish coat. Luckily it is a *small* cottage. LOL.

The garden! Well, it's going slowly. I have a good reason...it's been over 90-degrees here for the last few weeks, and that's not good for new plants. Still, I couldn't resist putting in a few herbs in the existing flower bed alongside the house. Some boob planted crotons there and covered their roots with BLACK mulch. Good grief. I like crotons, sort of, but they are not bedding plants; they are houseplants. And black mulch just isn't good for anything in this climate.

Not to mention that it's black because it's been dyed. As I said, good grief!

So in their place are new rosemary, lavender, Mexican bush sage and salvia plants. I know all of those will appreciate the heat bouncing back off the light colored house and the concrete driveway beside it. I'm going to love getting out of the car and brushing up against them when they're larger, causing them to release their scents.

And I also planted a wee little fig tree there in the back garden area. It's about 8" tall now, and came from a cutting I took from the fig tree here at the Big House.

I'm sure you'll understand how happy I was to find earthworms in the soil there. That was exciting. (Yes, I get excited over worms. Don't you? LOL)

More later....some photos eventually, too!

Dig it!

bobbi c.